Some couples celebrate anniversaries while they are dating.  There seem to be a lot of variations in these anniversaries and I have no idea what the right answers are for determining these.  How often do you celebrate?  It could be every week, month, year?  And even more importantly, how do you decide on your official day to celebrate?  Is it the first meeting, date, kiss, night you slept together, or day you decided to be exclusive?

There are are really so many possible answers to all of these questions and infinite options.  It all seems to be very personalized for each couple.  Everyone has a little story about the day that they pick as their anniversary and they get to tell the story everytime they celebrate on their special day (so let’s hope that it’s more interesting than “the night we sealed the deal”).

So I’ve come to my decision about what I think about dating anniversaries:  they are a day to put aside to celebrate the romance in a relationship.

It is not official like a wedding anniversary, so there is no need to worry about cards or gifts for other people.  The dating anniversary is completely insular to the couple.  It is a day that couples program to fit what they agree upon in their relationship and they come together for a specific moment of romance.

If this is not something that you need or are looking for in a relationship, then you will probably find that you are one of the couples who doesn’t celebrate dating anniversaries.  If you are looking to add a little romance reminder into your dating relationship, then this is a great place to find it.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

Do You Celebrate Dating Anniversaries?

His chalk talks taught me so much and I’ll take them with me and pass them on where I can. To paraphrase one very important thought that works so well for me;

“There is one undeniable fact about my past – I can’t change it. I can only commend my past to the mercy of God. There is also one undeniable fact about my future – I have one, I just don’t know how long it will be. I can only commend my future to the providence of God.”

From the Ashley web site and Fr.’s biography;

Father Martin’s Legacy

In the words of the late Mike Deaver, former White House Chief of Staff under President Ronald Reagan, “Father Martin changed my life and changed me. When I came to Ashley, I had been with presidents and kings and popes and prime ministers, but Father was the most powerful person I had ever met, and he still is today. You see, Father has the power to change people, to make them better, to make them whole again.” Father Martin’s legacy is Father Martin’s Ashley.

Post from: Blisstree

Father Joseph Martin 1924-2009

From pages 32-33 in the 12&12;

“To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the loveaholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most L.A.’s, he/she is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him/her, and have found the riddle’s answer. The answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when we really hadn’t. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial. Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases we had been asking something for nothing.”

Interested? Curious? Loveaholic?

“The fact was we really hadn’t cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession.”

Are you obsessed with another person?

“In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward.”

Think about this. Are you interested in helping a member of the opposite gender? Are you “all about” helping that person you so deeply care for? Why? Once you’ve done a bit of digging, do you find that you’re helping with the hope of having your help “returned?” Or, can you honestly say that you’re helping strictly for the welfare of the other person, expecting nothing in return?

“Few indeed are the practicing loveaholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves ‘problem loveaholics,” but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill.”

Co-Dependents Anonymous is a wonderful fellowship. They even have a program of recovery!

“They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane loving and loveaholism. ‘Sanity’ is defined as ’soundness of mind.’ Yet no loveaholic, soberly analyzing his/her destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or his/her own moral fiber, can claim ’soundness of mind’ for him/herself.”

“God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.”

Post from: Blisstree

The Loveaholic and Step Two

“Personal glorification, overweening pride, consuming ambition, exhibitionism, intolerant smugness, money or power madness, refusal to admit mistakes and learn from them, self-satisfaction, lazy complacency – these and many more are the garden variety of ills which so often beset movements as well as individuals.

While we AA’s, as individuals, have suffered much from just such defects, and must daily admit and deal with them in our personal lives if we are to stay sober and useful, it is nevertheless true that such attitudes have seldom crept into our public relations. But someday they might. Let us never say, ‘It can’t happen here.’”

The Traditions were being formed and, for me, that is quite a list of garden variety ills, character defects, shortcomings or sins.

[*The Language of the Heart, page 4]

Post from: Blisstree

Garden Variety of Ills

From the foreword to the Second Edition of the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous;

“So far, upon the total problem of several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we have made only a scratch. In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the alcohol problem in all its ramifications. Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly. Yet it is out great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book and will presently join us on the high road to a new freedom.”

Let’s see – you’ve been dying horribly for a long time, you’ve chased away all those who love you, no one has, up until now, told you there is a way to change, someone says “I have a way out,” and you tell them they’re lying to you. Or – you tell them no thanks. Better yet, you blast it across the globe by way of the Internet that the solution is a lie. People continue to die. You continue to fight the solution.

How does that make sense? Please, someone clue me in?

Oh yes, one more thing, did I mention you can have it – for free???

Post from: Blisstree

No Monopoly Great Hope New Freedom

What Is Alcoholics Anonymous?

“We are a fellowship of men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking and have found ourselves in various kinds of trouble as a result of drinking. We attempt – most of us successfully – to create a satisfying way of life without alcohol. For this we find we need the help and support of other alcoholics in A.A.”

That’s what AA is! Anything else is personal opinion or profundity pushing (be careful of underlying motives).

[From the AA pamphlet "A Newcomer Asks"]

Post from: Blisstree

No – That’s NOT What Alcoholics Anonymous Is!

God, keep me from thinking I must share in every meeting, no matter the topic. Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details and give me wings to get to the point. Remind me to guard confidences and to keep still when I feel it is necessary to speak up for someone’s own good.

Release me from the need to straighten out everybody else’s thinking and program. God, I ask for the grace to listen to newcomers. Please help me to remember the patience with which others listened to me when I was new.

Please seal my lips to giving advice, and help me to remember to share only my experience, strength, and hope.

Remind me that my purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to You and to the people around me. Help me to remain teachable. Teach me (again) the lesson that, occasionally, it is possible that I may be wrong; and remind me, please, of the freedom that I gain when I am able to promptly admit I am wrong and make amends when necessary.

Help me to remember the difference between making amends and just saying, “I am sorry.” Help me to be a worker among workers, a friend among friends. Please keep me from being a bleeding deacon, and help me to walk the path towards being an elder statesman/stateswoman. Keep me ever mindful that I cannot manage my own life through my own unaided will. I know that I am not a saint; please show me the way to seek You so that I may continue to grow along spiritual lines.

Remind me, please, of Rule 62 to not take myself so damn seriously (It is so easy to take myself way too seriously). Keep me free of gossip, character assassination, and judgment. Remind me that I am not perfect (even though I have humbly asked that my character defects be removed) and shortcomings still arise unexpectedly, to cause damage to others and to myself.

Help me to walk with faith and acceptance, to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people, and give me the grace to tell them so.

Help me to see that You love each of Your children, and that You do not need my opinion of them or suggestions on what they might deserve.

Thank You very much. Amen.

[Source currently unknown at posting. If you know the source, please pass that info on in the comments. Thanks]

Post from: Blisstree

Old-Timers Prayer

I first published this last year. It remains true.

January 7th’s Reflection speaks of turning points. Sometimes they are beginnings and sometimes they are endings. I can understand that. I don’t like it but, then again, it doesn’t matter whether I like them or not, everything will unfold the way it was meant to.

Thy Will, Not Mine Be Done

My shortcomings also tempt me daily; therefore I also have the same opportunities as the reflections’ writer to become aware of them. In one form or another – self-condemnation will rear its ugly head. I make a mistake and the very first thought is “You stupid A**.” Anger seemingly always jumps up to be recognized. It is self-delusional for me to continue to regret the past and what happened with my relationships, my family. Yet it continues to deepen some level of anger within as it remains unfinished with my children.

Running away is not one that haunts me anymore. Rick taught me (and many others) that I am now able to go through my fears rather than avoid them. Being prideful often flip flops into feeling inferior which causes balance to remain a struggle. Wanting to get even has its moments. When my spirituality isn’t up to snuff and I am feeling lonely, abandoned, distraught or depressed, I get the feeling I want to get even but it is wiped out by knowing today that it simply won’t happen so no need to bother. Acting out of grandiosity? Nope, not part of my character.

The statement the writer makes about attempting half measures to eliminate these defects merely paralyzing his efforts to change is true for me too. It has got to be either all, or nothing at all, and I know without a shadow of doubt that nothing at all will get me grave yard dead. Half measures won’t get me half drunk either. Half measures will get me full on, falling down, sh**-faced, blacked out!

Thus, – it is with complete abandon I place myself in God’s hands, embracing His help and somehow believing He has my best interests at heart because He loves me unconditionally. Else, why would I be sober today, now…

[picture credit]

Post from: Blisstree

Half Measures

January 06, 1990. Under God’s guidance Alcoholics Anonymous not only tugged on this “superman’s cape” but yanked it off exposing to me the fallacies of my then belief system.

Today I am grateful. I don’t have everything I want but I surely want everything I have. What I have is priceless.

R.I.P. Matt M. I’ll continue to attempt some level of repayment for this debt of gratitude knowing I’ll never repay enough. Thank you Rick T. You will always be a light for me.

And thank you all for all the opportunities you keep giving me to practice these principles.

Post from: Blisstree

Don’t Tug On Superman’s Cape

We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms where they found us three days later when somebody complained about the smell.

We died against bridge abutments and nobody knew if it was suicide

and we probably didn’t know either except in the sense that it was always suicide.

We died in hospitals, our stomachs huge, distended and there was nothing they could do.

We died in cells, never knowing whether we were guilty or not.

We went to priests, they gave us pledges, they told us to pray, they told us to go and sin no more, but go. We tried and we died.

We died of overdoses, we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)

We died in straitjackets, in the DT’s seeing God knows what, creeping skittering slithering shuffling things.

And you know what the worst thing was? The worst thing was that nobody ever believed how hard we tried.

We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take that would make us sick when we drank on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess, or maybe they just shook their heads and sent us to places like Dropkick Murphy’s.

And when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde or maybe we lied to the doctors and they told us not to drink so much, just drink like me.

And we tried, and we died.

We drowned in our own vomit or choked on it, our broken jaws wired shut. We died playing Russian roulette and people thought we’d lost, but we knew better.

We died under the hoofs of horses, under the wheels of vehicles, under the knives and boot heels of our brother drunks.

We died in shame.

And you know what was even worse, was that we couldn’t believe it ourselves, that we had tried.

We figured we just thought we tried and we died believing that we hadn’t tried, believing that we didn’t know what it meant to try.

When we were desperate enough or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help we went to people with letters after their names

and prayed that they might have read the right books that had the right words in them, never suspecting the terrifying truth, that the right words, as simple as they were, had not been written yet.

We died falling off girders on high buildings, because of course ironworkers drink, of course they do.

We died with a shotgun in our mouth, or jumping off a bridge, and everybody knew it was suicide.

We died under the Southeast Expressway, with our hands tied behind us and a bullet in the back of our head, because this time the people that we disappointed were the wrong people.

We died in convulsions, or of “insult to the brain”, we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned .

If we were women, we died degraded, because women have so much more to live up to.

We tried and we died and nobody cried. And the very worst thing was that for every one of us that died, there were another hundred of us, or another thousand, who wished that we could die, who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up because what we were enduring was intolerable and we knew in our hearts it wasn’t ever gonna change.

One day in a hospital room in New York City, one of us had what the books call a transforming spiritual experience, and he said to himself “I’ve got it .” (no, you haven’t you’ve only got part of it) ” and I have to share it.” (now you’ve ALMOST got it) and he kept trying to give it away, but we couldn’t hear it. We tried and we died.

We died of one last cigarette, the comfort of its glowing in the dark.

We passed out and the bed caught fire. They said we suffocated before our body burned, they said we never felt a thing , that was the best way maybe that we died, except sometimes we took our family with us.

And the man in New York was so sure he had it, he tried to love us into sobriety, but that didn’t work either, love confuses drunks and he tried and we still died.

One after another we got his hopes up and we broke his heart,

Because that’s what we do.

And the worst thing was that every time we thought we knew what the worst thing was something happened that was worse.

Until a day came in a hotel lobby and it wasn’t in Rome, or Jerusalem,

Or Mecca or even Dublin, or South Boston, it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ’s sake.

A day came when the man said I have to find a drunk because I need him As much as he needs me (NOW you’ve got it).

And the transmission line, after all those years, was open, the transmission line was open. And now we don’t go to priests, and we don’t go to doctors and people with letters after their names.

We come to people who have been there, we come to each other. We come to try and we don’t have to die………

Thank You Bill and Bob for all you did to get the ball rolling.

[ Jack's permission? Here - "Feel free to read the poem to any audience any time. But if you should give out a printed copy or an email, please make sure my name is on it. If the poem survives, I'm not humble enough yet to want it to be as 'by Anonymous.'"]

Post from: Blisstree

“Drunks” by Jack McCarthy