Mr. SponsorPants

Time Management

 

 

 

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week: The Mother T. edition

 

 

 

 

 

5 Quotes on Trust

 

 

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

-- Ernest Hemingway

 

Those who trust us educate us.

-- George Eliot

 

Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are.  Can you believe that?  Can you trust God for that?

-- Elisabeth Elliot

 

I'd rather trust and regret than doubt and regret.

-- Rei Kawahara

 

Yes, sometimes it's hard to trust.  But sometimes it's harder to be trusted.

-- Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

pretty much sums it up (for me, anyway)

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an alcoholic, of course, I can remember fabulous times drinking that never actually happened -- I just imagine the feeling of them, and they become as powerful as real memories.

Conversely, oftentimes I can't clearly recall horrible events which would be burned into the memory of a normal person.

That's alcoholism.  A distorted, magic mirror. An involuntary selective amnesia.

A cognitive fog.

An inability to link behavior and consequence. 

A "curious mental blank spot."

 

 

a negative mind

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with self medicating

 

 

 

The problem with self medicating

is that we keep increasing the dosage.

 

 

I was going to call you: The alcoholic version

 

 

 

 

Them:  Oh, hey!  I was thinking about you today!

Me:  Oh?

Them: Yeah! I was going to call you.

Me:  Oh, ok.

Them: But...

Me: But?

Them:  I started thinking about me and...

Me:  And?

Them:  Then I forgot about you.

it really does

 

 

The

painful part

is not that you fear people might be

thinking negative, critical things about you.

The

painful part

is that you fear they might be right.

 

Let it go.

Sobriety is a gift

we work to keep and we are privileged to pass along.

It ultimately does not matter what self-criticisms and self-loathing and self, self, self, self we are tangled in.

All that self obsession will eventually

evaporate in the sunlight of the spirit

of service

and sobriety.

 

Don't take yourself so seriously.

It works.

It really does.

 

 

5 Quotes on Alcoholism

 

 

 

To dispute with a drunkard is to debate with an empty house.

-- Publilius Syrus

 

When you go out with a drunk, you'll notice how a drunk fills your glass so he can empty his own.  As long as you're drinking, drinking is okay.  Two's company.  Drinking is fun.  If there's a bottle, even if your glass isn't empty, he'll pour a little in your glass before he fills his own.

-- Chuck Palanhiuk, "Invisible Monsters"

 

I always drank, from when it was legal for me to drink.  And there was never a time for me when the goal wasn't to get as hammered as I could possibly afford to.  I never understood social drinking, that's always seemed to me like kissing your sister.

-- Stephen King

 

Wine hath drowned more men than the sea.

-- Thomas Fuller

 

We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.  Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our daily activities.

-- William Griffith Wilson

 

we pine

 

 

 

 

Without gratitude

my take on my life

is pretty much bullshit,

since it's stained with entitlement, wildly unrealistic expectations and self involvement.

(Which, as toxic as they are, can be quite subtle, sometimes.)

Alcoholics don't own these things of course -- but alcoholism uses them as the building blocks of profoundly twisted thinking -- all in the service of getting us alone,

then getting us thinking only of ourselves,

then getting us drunk,

then getting us dead.

 

Like  the yeast in bread dough,

gratitude is the essential ingredient to

make my spirits rise

above my petty, "poor-me's"

and break free of alcoholic thinking.

 

Without gratitude,

real happiness

may always elude an alcoholic.