New things happen when they happen and I'm not that crazy

I've been slowly adding a 2.O designation to things I sign my name to. Clinton 2.0, Clinton Gandy 2.0 because in every single way I have been upgraded from the dismal operating system that i use to run. Instead of saying the new recovery voice inside my head directed me to do something different, I'm trying out just saying 2.0 said to do this or do that.
I just commented to Katy that 2.0 said I had options when a clerk went off on me and I thought I probably should put down in text form the whole meaning of the 2.O thing. It's the me that I refer to after recovery, and after 10 years of therapy, it is the better version of the same of the same deserving person on the planet I have always been, but I've just taken the upgrade that was made available but hard ass work and ego crushing blows that got me to a point of being teachable.
It is an millennial take on the old good twin/ evil twin. In my case it's recovery Clinton or dark and ill clinton. lol
It' won't mean anything to anyone but me. I want to see I have been remade when I see my signature. At least, Just for today.

Love,

Clinton 2.0

Check the damn INTENTION.

My intention behind the things I do is really important. What did I hope to accomplish. Sometimes I just don't look good even to myself. That is we are all about, the progress, sista. I'm learning relationships 101 and I have a pretty patient group of instructors in the hall. I guess some addicts come in with more social polish than others , but I've been away from people for 10 years because I was afraid to leave the house, and skills you don't use for that long, atrophy. My issue that has me be by the nads is letting people make their own mistakes without me trying to tell them that I think they are a bit of course. There are even areas in my sponsors life that I just have to bite my tongue and not be my mother by giving him these little "Tips" on how to live a learn more productively/happily. lol

I just keep my focus on my intention and try to let you learn the way you learn. My NA hall is just a giant study hall, where it is ok to make mistakes and know that you can't be run up and out of it while the process in in motion.

There was a lady I bump heads with, and I used a photograph to make a phony pharmaceutical advertisement using her picture. My plan was for one person, who would get a kick out of it to see it. Instead one of her sponsees saw it and went running to her sponsor that I put her in a Herpes Treatment advertisement.

My intention, was to knock down a person I considered a bully, privately. It set a lot of emotion IN motion and it taught me two lessons. One, the first is, leave no paper trail, and the other was to remember there is a person behind the mask of ego and bully.

I'd still love to take her inventory but recovery isn't about what I think of her program, it's putting together my own program that will save my ass. There are no saints in NA and we are all part horns and halos.

With my friends I usually say dirt whores with halos, but i don't know you guys well enough to call you loving pet names. lol

fun for me.

Publish Post

Growth Spruts.

What a lovely day and how grateful I am to have been a part of it. One thing that recovery allows me or empowers me to do is to be able to be truly emotionally invested in another person and to feel their success as they happen and of course the mishaps. My friend Frankie is closing in on her first year after many years of trying to get the "One day at a time" thing down. Jamie and her Daughter celebrated Mardi Gras and wore these hats that were so colorful my eyes tickled. There are so many people, people I know by name that are trying so hard to live and love differently that I am inspired to try another day.
The more I talk and get to know addicts the more I am leveled by the facts that we are all terrified to make mistakes and "failing", and we are so hard on ourselves when it comes to accepting love.

My sponsor was the first person who told me "We love you just the way you are" in a way that I really heard it and believed him. I was complaining about someone sharing at a meeting that came off to me like a low low end televangelist earlier tonight. The fact is a lot of people vibe to him. Regardless of what I think of him I would never say he wasn't welcome in a meeting and I wouldn't try to get my little group to run him out. Besides the miracle of addicts living without using, the other miracle is the program was set up in a way the "principles before personality" saves us from ourselves. No one person can be so "right" that we run someone else out.

And what that really means to me is , I can go in and be myself and they can't make me leave if they don't like me. lol  For someone with social anxiety like mine, that social cushion of having a spot regardless regardless of group opinion of me makes me feel safe. I have to feel safe in order to grow. I wasn't safe growing up and I shut down to protect myself.  I try my hardest to make new people feel safe when they come in. I try to do for them what I needed and need today.
  All my life I just wanted to feel F E E L cared for. I get it today for a dollar a meeting and a little service on the side.lol

Highlight from behind this door of Facebook this week so far.

I'll try not to soap box here, but as children in America we are filled with a big line of BullShit where it comes to succeed succeed, win win , we're number one, we're number one. It sat up a fear in me so that I would rather avoid and not try than be labeled failure or looser. In the scheme of spirits on the planet there isn't such thing as failure. One way gives you this circumstance and lessons to learn and the other way gives you another set.
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Failure isn't fatal. In fact I'm not even sure it is failure. Only time will tell. Post it notes were developed from a highly anticipated epoxy that "failed" technically.-
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It was a momentous (not being a jerk here) day when I figured out I could learn from someone elses experience. I remember the folding chair I was sitting in at a Lambda AA meeting in Dallas. I believe someone growing up that told me "You just have to learn everything the hard way for yourself , Clinton). It was a big moment in my life when I saw that blond highlights really wouldn't work on someone with my coloring. Thank God, that tired queen showed me the way to learning from your mistakes.
I really did have that revelation in a Lambda meeting but it wasn't hair related.
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It's hard for me to conceptualize how drawn I was to pills before I even new what they did or could . It wasn't like I had seen someone take one and trip out in front of me. It was just something that adults had that I wanted to be a part of. Maybe I didn't put two and two together like the antibiotic and earache eraser, but my genes are filled with old school drugs, maybe that was activated for me by DNA.
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When Britney Spears was buzzing her head and melting down, a hayseed friend of hers from Louisiana was interviewed about what she thought of Brits behavior and she came up with the "I think she has to fall apart a little so she can come back stronger". I honestly think she made that up on the spot. and new I had heard a universal law of spirit when she said it. She was right, Britney Spears did come back stronger and she came back a woman with life experience. I live in an unofficial "Antiques Capital of East TEXAS" and the thing that makes those pieces valuable to people that like antiques, is that they have withstood the test of time. Our experience, strength and hope are the only things that make up valuable as members of planet. I can compliment your on your shirt all day, but that isn't going to help you get through the day when all you want to do is medicate the fact your feel like dying... It's really the first time I feel like I have something of worth to offer anyone.. I love having a sense of purpose.

My love affair with pharmaceuticals.

Edit

It really IS that big.

by Clinton Rolen Gandy on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 7:27am

Someone in the house was going through a junk drawer and found an old pill bottle of mine. It originally held a couple months of lithium I think. The bottle got moved from the draw to the counter top, in it's eventual trip to the garbage can. When I saw this GIANT pill bottle , to be truthful I felt an initial jolt of excitement. Kind of like when you see a good looking naked person for the first time. Just a tiny jolt of tititlation. It was a little like Pill Porn.
In my head I was suddenly back to being really little and I would carry sweet tarts in pill bottles and take "medicine" when I ate candy. I also love to carry coins/change in old pill bottles. Flintstones vitamins tasted like a slightly fucked up Sweet Tarts and I wanted to eat the whole bottle. If one a day was good then two or three--even better. At 4 or 5 I learned I was old enough for a headache and that meant asprin and attention. I don't think they make it but there was this Aspergum that was the best come I ever chewed.

Alice in Wonderland, the cartoon film, had the beautiful glowing liquid that said "Drink Me" and then the magic started.
I made the connection super super early (by 5) that pills were magic and they could do something for me that I couldn't do on my own. I had constant ear infections and I knew as day after I started taking the grey and purple antibiotic my ear ache would magically go away while I slept.
I was and am the product of the pill generation. They can save you from depression, relax you to the point you don't care if your own hair is on fire and it can make an 80 year old penis do tricks like it was a teenager.
But mostly what pills do for me is they treat symptoms without addressing the root causes. Pills mask the illness while they entertain the symptom.
I know today, just for today, there isn't a pill coming down the turn pike that will make me happy, pretty, thin or intellengent. Bradly Cooper has a new film coming out about a pill that makes you perfect and I laughed when I saw the trailer for it because the pill is very small and completely clear and it looks like something I would take ten of , because the dose was based on a normal person's size with the weight of 165lbs, and I'm nearly double that.lol (see what deal with daily)

So , this big ass amber/brown pill bottle has caused quite a little theatrical production in my head since I spotted it on the counter.. Is it wrong I want to fill it with skittles. LOL
I bought into my pill fascination long before I took what I would consider a "real Pill", like a pharmaceutical clairvoyant at 4 years old.....

I was a weird kid. I toted candy like pills and when no one was around I played "Alcoholic", "Mommy Needs a Drink". But that is another story for another day.

Keep passing the open windows!
Clinton.

You ready for this? Bump bump bump bump, Pure Energy Bump Bump Bump.

Frankly, I woke up at 4:30, and my brain was in the mood for generating thoughts. I'm pretty sure that is why I woke up early. I'm going to have to work extra hard today to focus. When I am bombarded my thoughts it is easy for me to focus on our differences and separate myself from the herd. Just like the animals on the Nature Show, once I get to far away from my herd I become way more vulnerable.

What is going on with me is I have a big desire to become more a part of the world again. I'd like my autonomy in my life and I would love to be in Longview to really make the most out of being around and close to the people in recovery. I'm really at the end of my rope with my sister's using and her constant stupor and when I had no choice but to move into my mother's home because of finances and my inability to cope with life and my all consuming fear, it made me feel safe to be here.

Now I don't need or want the constant caretaking, and I am of course starting a resentment, even though I know mom is part of the reason I lived through active addiction. Do you remember the pinching when you out grew shoes as a kid?

One dramatic difference in my life and my thinking that being clean for just under 11 months, is I now know there is a life out there fore me that will be satisfying and purposeful. It's up to me to do the footwork and I'm fine with that but I honestly just don't know how to start. I guess talking about it with men that have done it themselves last night was a good start. Going to a meeting is always a good start.

I'm ready for more. More recovery, more connection , more love, more understanding, more hope and more joy. I want to be fully self supporting through my own contributions.

You live in a house with people you have traumatized with your addiction and crazy addict ways and you find yourself tiptoeing and trying not to make noise because you might frighten them. I'd love to drop a fork on a hard wood floor and not have to fearful voices yell out from the back of the house "WHAT WAS THAT".

I think that I am gifted by the universe for my lack of desire of "things".. I have no drive to own or collect the trappings that an American is suppose to desire. I don't care about have "The Car", "The Clothes", "BIG TV". I'm not terrorized by the same demons that have always haunted my dad. Nothing ever was good enough for long and he has always looked for the next big thing to give him some sort of sense of fulfillment. Even when he switched lives and wives, he found out that it was a mistake.

I'm simple as far as needs and wants go. I've never been driven for things. I thought for along time is was related to having no self esteem and not feeling worthy of having things but I found out this year that is not the case. I'm just not interesting in excess. I've never NEVER met a generic I could grow to love. I was telling someone the other day that I keep a minimum of things and like clockwork I cull everything and through stuff away that I don't want or need. My philosophy has been never own more than I could get in the hatchback of a Chevy Chevette if I had to leave in a hurry.

As the plans start to be made for the April Camp out I'm more aware than ever that next month marks the end of my first year in recovery. I've worked a good chunk of steps, I am of service, my level of compassion has grown like crazy and I fear people much less. I'm grateful down to the cellular level of being and that tells the universe I am ready for more, now I am sharing with you that I am indeed ready for more.

I'm all in Mother Fucker , Still. And Mother Fuckers I want MORE>

sunday 3/6

Edit

first do no harm.

by Clinton Rolen Gandy on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 9:17am

Part of the physicians oath is "First do no harm". I know that for me, the things that I find I can no longer tolerate and have to be addressed in my recovery program of recovery must be tendered or carried out with the same cautiousness of a doctor who has taken the oath of doing no harm. As I grow and change there are dynamics of personalities that don't suit what I am trying to accomplish with my life and staying clean. My first instinct is to deliver an inventory of someone,"just in case" they have no clue they are doing it all wrong when it comes to being a part of my life. lol (hello ego). But when your spiritual progress runs smack into a person whose primary focus is F E A R and control, it's terribley uncomfortable and very hard to balance respect for where they are in their lives and your own growth and stability with matters of spirituality and sobriety. One of my all time favorite old sayings in the south is "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". It's a favorite because I tend to through everything away when perhaps I just need to learn to upgrade somethings like relationships. It's easier to run than have awkward conversations where I state how I feel and you state how you feel and then we try to grow together (or not).

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