CORONAVIRUS AND 12 STEP GROUPS

Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous Groups have had to suspend in person meetings all around the world. But spreading like wildfire are online meetings through video conferencing apps like ZOOM. I've peered into several the last two days, and virtual attendance at my home group is high. 
Addicts are natural isolator's. We like to say that "an addict alone is an addict in poor company" and one of the many truths we have found is that the most powerful weapon for a recovering addict is another recovering addict.

Here, Ronnie Woods shares his experience strength and hope with the Rolling Stone magazine. Ronnie has 10 plus years clean and sober.
“I will share my hope for the future with myself, my higher power, and my friends. I will also share this with someone who has lost hope. Now, if anything, we have tended to be people who have wanted it all now. To hope is not to demand. Maybe we were a bit demanding. Maybe we were a bit impatient. Maybe that’s why we had such little hope. Hope is believing good will come, even in bad times; hope is knowing that ‘this too shall pass.’ Hope is knowing that no matter how afraid we are, our higher power will be with us. Hope is knowing we never have to be alone again. It is knowing that time is on our side. Hope is giving up control. Hope is knowing we never had control in the first place. I hope this helps you get through another day.”

MY FIRST BLACK SABBATH CONCERT

It was Sunday August 4, 1975. Me and a buddy were driving down Pipeline going to pick up my girlfriend Pam and go to a Black Sabbath concert.

Suddenly there was cop right on my tail. It was like he had a rope attached to my bumper. He followed me quite a ways and I decided to hang a left just before we got to Precinct Line.
I was a little nervous because we had about 40 joints rolled up in the glove compartment, and my buddy had another ounce stuck in his pants.

I hung that left and so did the cop, and that’s when he hit the lights I pulled over. He came to my door. I nearly fainted. It was Officer Thorn, who a few months prior had found a small quantity of marijuana on my person and let me slide. He asked for my license and went back to his car. I looked in my rear view mirror and was surprised to see a girl named Miller and a guy named Bill that were schoolmates. Apparently, being model citizens and interested in a possible career in law enforcement,  they had been riding along as interns. Now Officer Thorn had them strategically placed on my flanks to make sure I didn’t try to pull a fast one.
But what can you do with 40 pre-rolled joints?
I was stuck like a fly on sticky paper.

When he came back to the door with my license he said “Mr. Renfro, would you please step out of the car?”
I said “Can you tell me what this is about? I have places to go and people to meet”.

He didn’t say a word. Just opened the door, took me by the arm and escorted me to the hood of the car.

Later, when they were putting the cuffs on me, I looked over at Miller. She had turned kind of green and mouthed a silent
“I’m sorry” to me.

And that is how it came to pass that I had waited  years to see Black Sabbath and would have to wait two more before I actually made it to a show.

KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF

You know what I've discovered? I touch everything all the time. If I sit down in a chair and there's a chair next to me I have to reach over and touch it and see what it feels like. If there's a chair in front of me I have to reach up and run my fingers across the top of the chair just to see how it feels. I ask myself "Are my hands sensitive enough to feel that bit of chipped paint?"
The round trash can next to the door I just came through? How can I not rub the top of it. Its got gravity. Its like the curve of the moon.
That pillow, the loaf of bread, the coin return on the vending machine, these and a million other things waiting to be poked.
All those buttons that need mashin’.
If I'm in line at the grocery store and they got the magazines there I have to reach over and touch one of them to see how glossy the cover really is. Today its Scarlett Johanesson on the cover. Simply irrestible. Then I have to touch the metal rail at the cashier's stand to check out the texture and the temperature.
Will it feel cool to the touch?
Man I got to know.
I friggin touch everything.
Here I am, touching the whale. As our reknown Captain Ahab says “He tasks me; he heaps me.”
Do I ever touch my face? Man I don't even want to know.

NOT WANTING TO BE SAVED

"“You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.”

–Dorianne Laux

VOTER FRAUD

Early voting? Online voting?

Its too much fun to go in person.

It took a while for them to get me set up. I had an address change. The computer was fighting them, like it didnt want me to vote.

"Am going to get to exercise my franchise here today?" I asked.

"Yes sir Mr. Renfro, just bear with us."

After much wrangling and a few more minutes I asked "Could this have something to do with me having already voted twice at other locations with my fake ID's?"

You should have seen the look on the two ladies faces! One of them was a Judge. She just laughed.

They finally got me all set and the Judge Lady says "You are completely legitimate now"

I said "So does this mean I'ma start having to pay taxes?"

I had that room in tears.

Note: 

I went to vote by my house in Handley. Low rent district. The line stretched out the door. The man said it was about an hour wait. He said four of their ten machines weren’t working.

I thought to myself I ought to go to ritzy Upper Middle Class  Bedford, where presumably there are fewer Democratic voters. So I trekked to Bedford, where I was able to waltz right in. It may have had less to do with fewer Democratic voters, and more to do with the fact there were 15 machines, all working beautifully.

A suspicious person might think that the practice of suppressing the vote in poorer districts is alive and well.

Read that again.

A suspicious person might think that the practice of suppressing the vote in poorer districts is alive and well.

GETTING LUCKY

If you find yourself at Kohl’s looking for a new vaccumm cleaner, and you are really disturbed that they do not have one for less than $129.99 because the last time you bought a vaccuum cleaner it cost $39.00, do not despair.
Just head over to the Lingerie Department and browse around until you find a nice middle aged lady, someone with that Christine Baranski look, and ask her where one should go to find a reasonably priced vaccuum cleaner.
If you are lucky she will diect you to Big Lots, where you will find the latest edition to the Renfro Domestic Science Repetoire for 52.00.