Tapping on an unsuspected inner resource

I received great news last night that a good friend passed the exam for his Merchant Mariner Master's license.  This is something that he has wanted for some time.  Ten years of alcoholic drinking from his late teens into his late 20's robbed him of a high school degree,  positive study habits, and a host of other things that the non-alcoholic learns at that age.  His inability to do math has been a huge drawback.  His ADHD mind just doesn't process how to do even the simplest of equations.

I've been in touch with him while he was away at a maritime training institute.  Several phone calls were to tell me that he had passed several tests.  And then there was the phone call to tell me that he did not think that he could possibly pass the chart navigation part of the exam.  It included math formulas.  Nothing he had studied was making any sense and the courses that he took previously on navigation were like a blank in his mind.

I told him to do his best and think positively.  I went over some of the equations with him, reminding him that he mastered them before.  I don't know how the ADHD mind works, but I have some idea of alcoholic thinking which is mostly pessimistic and even negative.  He has said that this was his "last chance" to make something of himself.  Getting this license was, in his mind, an opportunity to prove that he amounted to something.  Even though he has been sober for 21 years, he feels so much unworthiness.

So he has been in lectures all day and into the evening for the past two weeks, has stayed up late and gotten up very early to study.  He has studied with the intensity of someone during college exam week.  And I wondered whether he would be able to pull it off.  Yesterday, it all came together with something clicking in his mind enough to get a 90 on the most difficult exam and scores in the high 90's on the other exams.  I am more than glad for him.  For him this was a milestone of success.

I don't know how it all came together in his mind on the one day when it really counted.  I can't explain these things, but somehow, I think that a power greater than him had a hand in this too.  And from this accomplishment, his parents, his family, his friends are all heaving a sigh of relief and smiling with joy.

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped on an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves." ~Alcoholics Anonymous

Twarted attempts

Today has been a day spent in a whirlwind of effort to 1) study for the exam that I will take tomorrow night and 2) get to my regular Tuesday Al-Anon meeting.  I did get some of the studying done, getting through a review of the lectures.  But I was also waylaid for about four hours by attempting to get my wireless printer to print.

I have this incredibly stubborn streak when it comes to getting electronic equipment to work.  I fiddled with the wifi printer for over an hour,  did not get any results so I called the tech support for this printer.  I was on the phone for about an hour with one Tech who was the basement level trouble shooter.  After he could not get anything going with the printer, I was sent to Level 2 tech support.  There I connected with Wayne who worked with me for over two hours.  Wayne sounded a bit German or Scandinavian in his accent so during one of our 15 minute software downloads, I asked him where he was really located.  The caller id said Salt Lake City, Utah. 

It turns out that Wayne is in Manilla.  Although I am sure his real name isn't Wayne, he is a great fellow who was totally patient and a speed reader as he must have read about 100 pages of a trouble shooting manual as we were working on getting this wifi printer going.  After downloading new software and tweaking a few other things, we were able to successfully get the printer doing what it was supposed to do.

Meanwhile, I was keeping an eye on the clock as the afternoon slipped away and the time for my meeting came and went.  Wayne said that I had been extraordinarily patient.  I suppose that I had been.  I was a hostage to my desire to get the damn printer up and going.  So I was finally able to print the documents I needed, but missed the meeting.  I could tell that I really need a meeting.  But once I started with the printer and began working with Wayne in Manilla,  I was determined to see this through.

At the end of the conversation,  I told Wayne that I would like to write a letter of commendation for his help.  He said that as long as we had resolved the issue and got the printer working, he was just fine with that.  He and I shared a laugh when I said that I should buy him dinner. A nice fellow who no doubt works for a pittance of what his expertise would pay in the US.

Maybe I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  Not necessarily where I wanted to be, but where I was supposed to be.  God, I can dogmatically pursue things at time.  Maybe that is why I have had a successful career.  I seek a solution and work to get there.  Maybe that is what I do in Al-Anon as well.  I seek a solution and work the steps to get to recovery.  I know that I have enormous staying power to see things through to the end.  That is a double-edged sword, I suppose.

Wayne ended his day with a success.  I ended mine with a solution.  We both were happy. And I finished up studying the lecture notes for the exam.  Now I am going to bed and will be glad to let go of what might have been different about today.  I missed the meeting but maybe learned something about patience and helped a worker in the Philippines feel happy.  Not so shabby after all.

The ladder to achievement

100%------------I Did

90%-----------I Will

80%----------I Can

70%---------I Think I Can

60%--------I Might

50%-------I Think I Might

40%------What Is It?

30%----I Wish I could

20%---I Don't Know How

10%--I Can't

0%-I Won't

"Success is to be measured, not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

I enjoyed giving the talk last night. The place where I spoke has 33,000 acres of forests and wetlands with only 2,200 homes. The architecture was incredible. I was treated to a fabulous dinner after the talk. It was a nice way to end a beautiful day.

Today I took down the mast of the sailboat and will be trailering it to bring home for bottom cleaning and repainting with antifouling paint. It's a good time to do some maintenance now that the weather is cooler and the fouling organisms aren't settling as rapidly.

I don't like to think in terms of things that I can't do because what that usually means is that I won't do those things. I like to think in terms of action. And the action that I find most helpful today is practicing the 12 steps, doing my best to do God's will, and practicing gratitude for what is in my life.