and I haven't felt self hatred and disgust since I don't know when.  My VA/AA counselor told me years ago that when my time was all done that if I found that I had progressed 1/4" (a quarter inch) in recovery then I should be satisfied and my self righteous self said...uh uh Bill, I'll be miles away from where I started.

I was born and raised in the disease of alcoholism and one of the things I use to let the sick people in my family do was beat on me...physically, emotionally, verbally and more and I would take it and respond like a martyred saint...withhold anger, withhold resentment, withhold resistance and don't fight back.  Don't Defend!!  My mother really wanted a priest from her son but that didn't work exactly...all the time...forever...when it should have and so I learned to let things like Alcoholics and Addicts run and walk, pee and crap all over me.  Then I learned how to fight...the opposite of flight right?  and I started feeling worse because of the shame and guilt that was trying to make itself felt in me.  I could shut those two out using the resentments and justifications but in this program...working steps 4 thru 10 I came to face it all...damn the shame and guilt felt hideous until I learned to forgive myself and then one day at a time after one day at a time along comes Tuesday and then and inventory and Thursday.  Wednesday I started doing the inventory very early in the morning cause I couldn't sleep and the air conditioner made it very very cold and the over head lights were on...bright very bright.  The bed was hard and the covers stiff and small and my body was in pain; very strongly in several places. 

Where was I at and how did I get there?  How was where I was at connected to my past?  What did I miss in my practice of the program? Where did I do well and what did I forget and what were the consequences.  What could I change and not and what did I want to change and not and so I got a picture of what had happened and what was my part in it.

Tuesday afternoon I was heading over to the Army Surplus Store to go get a rain hat to keep the rain off my head as I worked one of my contracts out in the...rain.  Explanation about me needed here now.  I am not an American Citizen because I gave that away to be a citizen of the Nation I was born in and have always loved and consider myself a native son of...Hawaii.  Along with the citizenship my truck is registered in my nation and I also have license plates that signify that however that is the twist or the burden (now) or sin or crime.   I also keep my truck registered in the state (US) of Hawaii to relieve my wife of some of the fear of going against the US laws.  Where I have been stopped and talked with and then let go in the past, Tuesday I met with a very sick cop who came from a different mold and in the process of attempting to assure that I get charges for every letter and period of the law he also decided that I needed to be beat and proceeded to try to carry that out on me until he got frustrated and then decided to "taze" me however once I mentioned that my heart is suspect under stress he went back to beating on me.  I went to my truck and he followed and I sat there and let him robotically say "don't resist" over and over again as he hammered on my forearms trying to cause enough pain for me to submit...he didn't know that I was raised in alcoholism and what he was doing was barely noticible to me and also the part that I was letting him do it...who was more sick? Then of course the re-inforcement(s) showed up and I had to accept the consequences of additional physical abuse and sitting in the rain on the parking lot ground getting prepared to feel the pain after the adrenalin of the shock wore off.   I accepted long, vicious, physical abuse and while I did that I was caring for him...speaking to him in my soft compassionate counseling, priestly voice and wanting him to go easy on himself.  He wanted to break my forearms and his partner wanted to leave a message nailed to my left thigh along with a demonstration of what post concussive trauma was like and more.  They can and do tighten handcuffs in fear and anger and I was surprised at the depth of the mark.  License plates? turned into the justification for the beating...Interfering in a Government Operation...LOL and then the shorter version Resisting Arrest...I wouldn't go down and scream "Uncle" on or before cue.   So off to jail and when they were ready over to Emergency because I asked and after the Supervisor thought about it long enough.  I did the inventory within the jail and stayed there until preliminary court hearing the next afternoon.  Just filled out the application for legal services of the Public Defender because of course the financial meltdown means I don't just write a check to a regular attorney.

Where is God in this whole thing...everywhere...allowing me to revisit my enabling past and feel self loating and self forgiveness and powerlessnes all at the same time.  God laid next to me on that hard jail bed (that isn't a matress it's a tumbling mat) and stayed awake with me thru cold and light and tossing and turning...all of it.  God will not allow my name on the martyr list because this isn't about poor me it's about the courage to change the things I can and accepting the consequences of that.  It is about being loyal and true and persistent with what I believe in and my own identity.  It is about me being me even when another nation says "we want you to be u.s.".  

I have found a new example of a characteristic I found in earlier inventories and wondered if it was soooo wrong.   Oppositional Defiant...I am that and now I have been beat by someone other than my alcoholic addict family who hates that characteristic because they wanted me to fold and do it their way.  Wouldn't it be easier insinuates my spouse to just go along.  She has her reasons...fear, fear of the financial cost, fear of the cops,  fear of a whole buncha stuff.  She also sets aside all feelings of compassion and empathy and acts like it has all been about hurt her.  If I enable her also the chances of not getting beat up by the u.s. people grow and then every time I say "To thine ownself be true" I'll get a neauseous belch in my stomach.  I heard a reminder while laying on the jail bed during the inventory of where I was at and how did I get there and it was settling in a crazy sort of way..."Render to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's and to God the things that are God" and I stuck on okay what to you mean here?   I know of anther old timers who did that and got killed for it or inspite of it. 

Work was good today. I'm on the outside...with the rain and the beautiful stuff that the creator allows me to work in and around.  I get to walk with the doves which my Higher Power Creator Father allows me the living metaphor for...Peace and as Al-Anon taught me...peace of mind and serenity...I felt that; yeah some of the Tuesday pain to and when I compare that to the beauty that surrounds me...so awesome...so awesome...the pain disappears and my work becomes a joy.

I have forgiven those sick men and have come toward letting it go and seeking my necessary restitution whatever that is.  The u.s. plates are not on the truck yet.  One is in the back window and the front one isn't replaced.  I'm not willing at the moment because it would be like carving my heart out without anesthesia.   They have my Hawaii Soverign   Kingdom plates and only God knows what I want done with those.  At the moment I don't feel "Free at last, Free at last...I have that sick feeling of fleeing mixed with rage and I need to fear that and I do with my HP holding me up standing me still.  I need to stay away from my indigenous peoples stories and histories and beliefs to keep the fuel out of the fire and allow me only one visitor for the moment.  He who created my spirit and set it in this sacred place...my wahi pana.   Thanks for listening...comments and experiences of course for how else can I learn and who else do I trust and love more than "the family".   (((((hugs))))