Subj : Mood Modifiers To : All From : Jacques Montagne Date : Tue Jan 09 2001 01:13 am * CARBON COPY: * Original was to ALL in 17:SIP_ACA on the JUXTA BBS. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Note: I am sending this written sharing to my three Fidonet areas, because I need to overcome my fear of the differences between members of differing 12 Steps fellowships. Dear confidents, "I see nothing as it is now" This is the title and theme of lesson 9 in the Foundation for Inner Peace Course in Miracles. I am reading this lesson because this is the 9th day of the year and I plan to follow the course for the balance of the year; there are 365 lessons in the Workbook of that course. Addressing the topic of mood modifiers frightens me this morning, because it is a direct exploration of my awareness, and of my consciousness, two areas that cannot be defined to my satisfaction. I am addressing that topic because I am partially powerless over some substances use and some dysfunctional behaviors. The most frightening one is my medical use of controlled pot. What is this frightening feeling that always lingers in the back of my mind when I talk or write about pot? A first answer is that pot is illegal and I am not being politically correct in choosing to explore publicly an issue that has been totally obliterated from common sense consciousness. This is probably so because of a still greater fear, that of not belonging to a particular community, or the result of political games between elites, between the controllers of a given society. In order to belong, in order to satisfy one of man's primary needs, the need to belong, or Maslow's Belongingness Needs, the third level of needs in his hierarchy of needs, I will often use totally stupid or dysfunctional patterns of behaviors in order to cope with the reality I perceive. Last night I attended a fully functional CODA meeting in my French speaking neighborhood; Friday night I was the guest speaker at another local AA meeting. Tonite I will chair my home group, the Tuesday night ACA meeting in Westmount, another area of Montreal, one that is English speaking and possibly of a differing sociological status. Being with persons of differing ethnicity is a mood modifier I have been using for the past 50 years. I lived in a bilingual area of Montreal as a youth, where I was in daily contact with anglophones, while attending french catholic high school. My learned ease with both of these cultures and their language allowed me to deal with my life situations from two apparently differing philosophies. Being in an AA meeting, versus an ACA, or a CODA, or NA, or OA, or SA, or EA has been a practice of mine for some 15 years now, with a greater emphasis in attending those differing 12 Steps meetings, dealing in different problems, during the past 9 years. What has allowed me this ease with different meetings and even with different people in different meetings is the fact that I believe that the common thread in all 12 Steps fellowships is that they are reunions for people who suffer emotionally, suffering being the uniting concept. So my personal first step is worded, just as of now, as follows: "I" (notice the singular pronoun) ADMIT THAT "I" AM POWERLESS (or becoming powerful !) over an uncontrollable tendency to avoid emotional sufferings of many kinds, through the use of a number of mood modifiers and I admit that I have a deficient mastery over my moods, over my life, because of the consequences of my use of those substances or behaviors. This morning's first step is a first because my mind has been modified earlier by the statement that I see nothing as it is now. Another first is that I can use the statement powerful instead of powerless in my use of the first step. It would be foolish for me to say that I am powerless over my need to communicate with you, just for now, because writing is relatively easy for me; sometimes I will write to you, other's not; I will keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. This is not a freedom I use easily, as I still am a neophyte in that area. I am an Adult Child trying to modulate his use of a number of so-called addictive behaviors; I am learning ways of thinking that are totally new to me. As a consequence I put my body under the unending strain of fear. Dr. Jerry Jampolsky says Love is Letting Go of Fear in one of his books. Somehow I must love myself quite a bit in order to continually face up to fear, as is my self-therapeutic mode of sharing, as openly as I can, instead of keeping quiet because of fear. Fear is the devil, the satan, the ultimate bad. Quite a statement I just worded! You will notice that I did not personalize with a capital letter the words devil and satan. The devil is not a person, nor is god a person! I should put question marks ??? to that hypothetical statement; which I did as I reread and edited the text. God and devil are statements of mind, and even mind does not exist as a personal entity (again the ???). The word mind is a descriptive term for human processes not yet defined and currently, in the person speaking, being explored as that person talks, as I write, just now. Thus anyone expressing him or herself is strictly expressing his own, sometimes, limited understanding of the Great Reality (notice the capitalization this time!). That's how I came to name my higher power by the acronym HIP-HOP, Higher Inner Power, Higher Outer Power. Even the singular use of the word power can be explored. Are there more than one powers, one or more gods, one or more devils? * May there be Good for All ! * Jacques copyright 2001, JM ___--------------------------------------------------------------------- P.S. If you feel like answering, commenting or asking questions, BUT IN PRIVATE MODE, please leave me a message at any of the following electronic addresses: A.O.L. Internet E-Mail: for ACA: MonTang@aol.com (with or without other topics: JacMonta@aol.com capitals) BBS NetMail on Fidonet: 1:167/133 Voice & FAX: (450) 659-3417 ___ X SPEED 2.01 #1504 X --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: Juxtaposition BBS, Telnet:juxtaposition.dynip.com (1:167/133) .