It's easy to engage in Trumpist virtue signaling when ...

 When you're living off the teat of the federal government in another way.

That applies to Tim, No. 3 of my brothers and No. 2 of my abuser brothers.

He's a little more than four years older than me. 

He used to work in oil and gas field sales in the Four Corners area of the US.

Oil prices, especially, started falling before COVID really hit the fan, but that exacerbated it, and natural gas prices also started sinking.

His company put him on part-time, at first, IIRC. He then volunteered to share the pain with a couple of lower-level employees.

Eventually, they furloughed him. Not fired him. IIRC, they kept him on insurance coverage, but didn't work him at all.

Well, Tim told the rest of the family after several months of that, that he was ready to get an "Obamacare job" (the man he once called "blackie" in front of me and probably worse elsewhere), rather than continue on this, doing something like auto parts delivery for not too too much above minimum wage. This was about a year ago.

Well ... as of a month or two ago, he said he was working part time ... dunno with bennies or not ... driving oil and gas field supplies from the Four Corners to Odessa, in the heart of the Permian Basin, and then either deadheading back or bringing some supplies back. Dunno whether it's with a full semi, one of those bobtails, or what. I also, from what he said about minimal sleep on some turnarounds, am not sure if he's following US Department of Transportation regulations, if he is in fact driving a semi of any sort, whether with a full trailer or not.

Anyway, a year ago, he went through the "they're lazy" about the various people getting federal unemployment, etc.

Well, in talking with me on the phone that month or two ago, he casually dropped something I hadn't even thought about.

His wife died about six and a half years ago. Tim turned 62 in September. I don't know if he did it then, or earlier, but, he's claimed survivor Social Security benefits. If his wife were to be getting $1000 a month at full retirement, Tim could have been claiming about $600, by what I determine through a brief Social Security chart, if he started claiming survivor benefits at 60. Farmington, NM, is not that much different in cost of living than semi-rural North Texas. With a paid-off mortgage and perhaps still having a company vehicle for off-job usage, if it were me, I could actually save money on that much payment.

It's earned, yes. And, of course, I'm sorry that Brenda, who I knew before Tim did, has passed away. But, it's also a stroke of luck. Had Brenda still been alive, her school paraprofessional job would have been in trouble during COVID. Would Tim have thought she was grifting for any special federal aid she got?

SOS — Secular Organizations for Sobriety — is dead, but local groups don't recognize it AND Jim Christopher's "heirs" won't admit it

SOS being Secular Organizations for Sobriety, founded by Jim Christopher.

Christopher, kept afloat personally by the largess of Center for Inquiry for years, had to get others to help bail him out a few years back to get matching funds that CFI required of it, rather than a blank check which it had been cutting.

Well, the website got overhauled as part of that.

Without Duaine Metevia, who may not have been "THE" right hand man of Jim, but certainly was "A" right hand man. That would be the Duaine who, a dozen or so years ago, after Marty Nicholas stepped down as head of Lifering Secular Recovery and dodged founders syndrome for himself, and forced the organization to do the same, which it has done generally well indeed, threatened to call the cops on me if I ever attended the Dallas SOS-LSR meeting again.

That meeting was dual-branded at the time. I was at the Lifering Congress when Marty stepped down, and was also elected to its board. I talked about this after getting back from Dallas. I never mentioned Jim's name. But, I had no problems if people inferred I was making an insinuation, hint, whatever. 

That's when Duaine threatened to call the cops if I ever showed up again.

I got Lifering to stop the dual listing, of course.

Back to three-four years ago.

Duaine is cut out of the loop by a younger generation, with better web design skills for non-professionals, or professionals, than him. (Jim could barely send an email himself; his secretary at his office at CFI-West, which he got along with a salary, as part of the personal gravy train, had to do anything like this for him. It's part of why many people besides Marty were ready to move beyond SOS, which Duaine wouldn't tell you.)

So, he eventually takes his ball and runs home. 

The national meetings list is no longer maintained.

When Yahoo ends its email groups, he makes no attempt to find a replacement on another site. (Lifering is at IO Groups.) He doesn't create a Facebook group, though somebody else has. 

Then, Jim dies in July 2020.

And, SOS goes further downhill since then. SOS National had the "stay tuned" on meeting lists basically since that time, and it's now going on five years.

Center for Inquiry is clearly not going to fund a paid successor as executive director, let alone with a secretary and free office space.

And, I've known for years they don't have a real board of directors. Whether the IRS knows that, and what that would mean, and how far short of a real board of directors they've been, I don't know.

Now, in today's Net world, sure, it's not impossible to maintain local sobriety groups by word of Facebook mouth or whatever. But, that doesn't easily reach people who move across country. And, the lack of email groups or social media, which are unlikely to be maintained by individual groups, means that there's not that source of information about national happenings, either.

In short, these people are kind of like orphans. But, not 2-year-old or even 6-year-old orphans. They're like teenager orphans, who can survive on their own, but would be better off as part of a family.

Maybe leaders of some of them, like Metevia, have a smidgen, or more, of anti-Lifering animus. Maybe some are just wedded to tradition, even if it's a dead weight, the corpse has been rotting from the inside for five years, and the physical embodiment of the corpse has himself been a corpse for more than a year. Maybe, beyond that, but short of animus, it's stubbornness.

But surely, some leaders of some of these groups know of Lifering's existence already.

Anyway, whoever runs their website, and whatever other de jure (but not de facto, sorry) organization SOS has, from St. Louis? They've been contacted with a short and sweet summary of all of this:

"Wouldn't you be better off officially disbanding the organization and getting / encouraging member groups to join Lifering as their first / best option?

"Signed,

"Someone who knows some history"

The response, from John Gennari?

"Secular Organizations for Sobriety truly respects all paths to sobriety."

I replied to him, admitting the question was at least partly rhetorical, but telling him that clearly wasn't a direct answer and thus I was taking it as a "no" from him.

Given everything I've said above, IMO he's wrong. I also suspect that he knows enough about Lifering to know that ... at a minimum, even as an SOS last-ditcher, the issue is open to discussion.

So, maybe he wants to be a medium-sized fish in a tiny, and drying, pond. I mean, if there is a St. Louis SOS meeting, he can't even get that on the website. If there isn't one, he doesn't even have a personal puddle he's swimming in, only the national pond.

And, a quick Google proves me more than half right, at a minimum, on everything provable. A MeetUp shout-out isn't a website. Yes, he's getting one or two other attendees about .,.. one quarter the time? But, well over half the time, there's one attendee and I think we know who that is. The MeetUp isn't even linked on SOS's online groups page, though all of its nonexistent Yahoo groups are. Other than the Winnipeg group's website that led me here, the only other things listed are within a 60-mile radius of Buffalo, or Amherst, New York and CFI headquarters.

That said, going to THAT link? The plot thickens!

Gennari is ensconced at CFI West, according to it. Quite a magic trick, John, being in both St. Louis and Los Angeles. But, THAT would indeed seem to confirm the other part ... he's Jim Christopher 2.0, and seemingly not a lot better at current age techie stuff than him, or a mix of that and no better at getting help from the people (CFI IT staff, mayhaps?) who did the website overhaul five years ago. It's also "interesting," per what I know and what I've heard others say, that he identifies as a board member when the reality of an actual functioning board has also been a question. 

Seriously, dude. You've been at least a self-anointed heir apparent for what, a year, I'll guess, before Jim died? You've had two years to fix and update the website and haven't. You're a fine chip off the old Christopher block indeed.

AND ... interesting. NO IRS 990 form on file. But, that's an OLD notice. Back from the 1990s. Still, it shows Christopher was some sort of mis-manager then. Surely it wasn't fully under CFI's umbrella in 1992. That said, this additional info? Who is Hubert Michael Lenihan? Answer? Involved with a trademark suit over the SOS name. As in, Marty before Marty. In a sense. But, from what I can tell, never really involved in Lifering after the split. I MAY HAVE met him at a Bay Area Lifering Congress.

And, I've wasted enough time.

I will say, per the trademark lawsuit, I think Christopher talked about "individual SOS group autonomy" because he knew he was shit as an administrator. Peter Principle, sloughed off.

==

In addition, this quote from the SOS website:

If you can't find a physical meeting in your area, there are dozens of on-line groups utilizing the principles of Secular Organizations for Sobriety.

Is not true, or at least not unequivocally true.

SMART, for example, has four "steps," is explicitly wedded to cognitive behavioral therapy (which, IMO, may help you STAY sober, but is too rationalist to help a lot of people GET sober), and has at times, IMO, played footsie with moderation.

Nor does it take account of Refuge Recovery and other allegedly "spiritual but not religious" (Buddhism is a religion, folks, and Refuge Recovery is based on principles that are ultimately derived from the religious, metaphysical stances of Buddhism) sobriety orgs that aren't AA/NA. 

And, if it WERE true, wouldn't it underscore my point and make an SOS national org even more nugatory?

== 

Two comments, a year later.

First, looking at old emails from the late Itchy Bradley, he thought Duaine was a "call screener" for Jim a decade-plus ago. Could be; Duaine's computer skills at that time would have looked like stable genyus to Jim. (Sidebar: Why did CFI never build a website for them? Why did Jim never ask? The second question probably loops back to Duaine.)

Second, when the old Yahoo Groups disappeared and Duaine was cut out of a website redesign at about the same time, to raise money per a CFI demand? An email of his said that SOS Dallas would never go away. It linked to the website, which is ... now dead.

Allen Carr

Serendipity, secular style, I guess. 

Somebody mentioned him a couple of weeks ago on a Lifering email list; a day or two later, a newcomer mentioned him in an online meeting.

So, I Googled, and first got his Wiki page.

And, I noticed several things when I hit his website, or rather, the website in his name.

One is that he rejects AA's "willpower," and I think "higher powers" and related items. And, in general, I'd agree with everything he says.

Two is that he got his start with smoking cessation. He went into alcohol and other things after that.

Three is that he jumped into process addictions after that.

And, this is that he has a sort of post-death empire. And, his successors, while not getting massively rich, are surely making a few quid and bob. (That said, the website offers a money-back guarantee on group seminars.) Also interesting, is that his many books aren't listed on this website. Maybe British copyright has expired on them?

Even more interesting is many of them have been published in his name after his death. John Dicey claims modesty is why he won't even list himself as co-author. What if it's also the likelihood of getting a few extra quid and bob off them if it's just got only Carr's name?

Dad is still dead

 But sis felt the need to remind me on Hucksterman Central that today would have been his birthday. It was to talk about some better memory at her church.

She said that his birthday prompted memories of childhood from some visitors, and from our brothers, which in no way did she directly connect with dad's birthday either.

I said I'd totally forgotten about the date years ago and politely added that I didn't need reminding in the future.

==

And, it appears I broke my foot off in it or something.

She made a comment back a couple hours later then apparently deleted the post as I get the "unavailable" from Hucksterman.

I was polite about it, and before I said what I did at the end, I first said that I was glad she got a better memory.

That said, I think she sometimes assumes ... no, I FEEL as well as think she sometimes assumes that I frame and/or process and/or psychologically react to all of childhood's traumas that we largely shared (even if not specific incidents) in the same way.

I don't.

Of course, she has also assumed that Walt made me an atheist, as has Tim as part of his blame-shifting. IIRC, and I seem to have deleted the email she sent me, and the draft of the response I was writing to her (unless that's an auto-deletion of older drafts by Microslob), though it's mentioned in another post here. I think she thinks dad was responsible, too, not just Walt.

==

I might have been a little blunt, but I wasn't rude. And, really. I've moved on. I remembered Dad's 90th birthday anniversary a year ago, and Mom's 90th before that, and think I had NOT remembered regularly for at least four-five years before that. 

Actually, the paragraph above is half-wrong, I'm reminded, by looking through posts. I didn't remember Dad's 90th until after she reminded me, per this.

I hope to remember none of their birthday anniversaries before their 100th, and would be fine if I don't remember that one, either.

The dear sober departed

I decided to write this piece up about old Lifering and Lifering-connected friends and acquaintances lest I not have personally diaried about all of them.

Many died sober; some did not. Some of them who died sober died from issues partially related to their sobriety. Ditto for some who died while not sober. I'll list brief information.

Some of these go back several years. Ray Smith was in early 2014, for example. This is memento mori for me, as much as anything.

Sober and general natural causes
Kishi (Kat Wyke), cancer. You're first here, dear, even if not the first to die.
Manya, heart attack. Never did get to know her real name in the chat room, sadly.
Ray Smith. Ray was an eclectic sober sobrietist with connections to Lifering and other groups. A kindred soul on secularist activism and other things, too. Cancer got him.
Itchy Bradley. COPD, well, cigarettes, got him. Lifering has steered clear of tobacco, as it's not "mind altering." But it is addictive as hell.
Scott Larsen up in Canada. Complications of diabetes.
Damien Molloy. An Irish online friend of depth.
Life-J, last name Jenson, AA Agnostica gent who dropped in the Lifering meeting room. Cancer.

Sober and mental health background
Thailand Chani
Beans and Peas (Kenya Johnson)
Both you ladies were, from what I know, greatly worn down by severe mental health problems. And, these things age you out. Chani had gotten a couple of years sobriety time; Beans had more. But they both, while staying sober, battled mental health struggles. Serious ones.

Sober, but suicide
MOG, Michael O'Grady. MOG is like the two above. Ongoing chronic depression. Age may have added to that. I've also wondered if living as an expatriate with mental health concerns exacerbates them.

(Update) And, that's what I get for writing this in advance. Ben Griffing. I don't know if he had ongoing chronic depression or not. But, man, to apparently be an Inuit, or a bit like that, and take a permanent hike outside during a Montana winter hints at that.

Unsure
Andy Ross. Andy fell off my radar screen more and more the last six months of his life. Reading between the lines of his son's comments on Facebook, comments from sobriety friends and more, I'm not sure if he was sober or not. I do know that his mental health problems had flared back up. And, sadly, I'm wondering if his was by his own hand.

Not sober, and related
Monk, aka Dale Phelps. Stayed sober from alcohol, but eventually lapsed into marijuana maintenance, from what I've heard. Given that he had cardio problems and apparently died from this, it is related, if enough pot smoking damaged the lungs. Sad. He had overcome so many other things, including the death of a spouse due to drinking.
His wife, Karen; failure to stay sober certainly shortened his life.

Not sober and suicide
Michael Pearson. He eventually couldn't live with the addiction demons any more and didn't permanently overcome them.

Ten days without Lifering emails (and counting)

 Per this post from March, and updated June 3, about DUI arrests and jail, and some Liferingers' responses and takes on the issue, I decided to absent myself for a while.

And, it is 10 days and counting. I may stay away for the rest of the month. I'm still hosting a Sunday night online meeting, but that's different, and who knows how long I will stay with that this go-round, either.

A quasi-dream, more a dreamtime thought

 Interrupted my Sunday nap two weeks ago.

It was that my life was essentially wasted by not having a family and children. 

It made me sad.

It made me angry, too.

To the degree it is true, it wasn't wasted, it was stolen.

Dear Theresa

 First, I probably didn't have quite as strong of romantic longings at the time as I indicated I did when I said I wanted a relationship, not casual dating.

You definitely were, and still are, attractive physically and otherwise. And, your interest in the arts, your Japanese-inclusive multi-ethnic background and other things made you attractive in the bigger picture.

That said, having had a couple of long-distance relationships putter out, and not having been in one for a while, I think that's part of why I spoke.

And, at the same time, there were also red and yellow flags.

The biggies were on money. You indicating I didn't make enough money, I guess is "understandable" from your point of view. Between teacher pay, department head stipend, master's boost, etc., plus private music lessons, you surely made twice as much as me. And, until a recent Google to your LinkedIn page and other stuff, I didn't even think about money you made off performance gigs.

At the same time, money was a red flag the other way. Yes, you had a mortgage payment vs. my rent payment. At the same time, you were renting out a garage apartment on the detached garage at your house. Probably a wash at "best" from my fiscal POV; at "worst," you were probably 20-25 percent ahead of me.

Yes, you were also finishing paying off your SMU master's of music degree loans, I expect. But? The flip side of that was department head stipend and master's boost.

Making half as much money as you, I was saving more.

And, this, second to the moves, moves, moves, since Today Newspapers closed, is probably the main reason I'm unattached today. I don't want someone more spendthrift than me putting me at financial risk.

===

There was one other problem, though.

Your comment about my hiking being just one big circle.

First, to riff on Heraclitus, it's never exactly the same trail twice.

Second, is not surfing, your passion, pretty much the same? You're paddling out in the same ocean and coming back in a loop on a wave.

===

Also, although not overtly, and nowhere in the way of a similar degree to Cathey, I occasionally had the impression that you thought I might have "issues." Maybe I'm wrong, to the degree I thought that then. Maybe I'm over- or misremembering now, driven by some version of motivated reasoning. 

But, to the degree I am right, in picking up on signals, that was troubling.

===

I'm not totally sure why I'm blogging this. 

I know it's a form of journaling. But, I could just keep it in a Word doc without posting it.

However, I think I'd like my few readers to know this about me, and also for the insights it may have in the first part, about "wanting a relationship" yet knowing that this want is "general" and not connected to a specific other.

As for "why" I'm blogging, writing or journaling this wherever, at this time?

Shannon.

Also unavailable to me, no doubt.

Physically? Oh, yes. 

Otherwise, and setting aside the issue of her kids? Less compatible in several interests ways than you and I would have been, Theresa.

But? More compatible in some personality ways. Though probably even less so than in others.

===

Part of this was on me, though. One part in particular.

Theresa was certainly physically attractive.

But? The same "shoulds" that said I should be wanting back in a relationship of some sort said I "should" feel sexually attracted by her. 

And I didn't.

I think in part that some of the other ancillary issues where I had flags pop up had done so early enough that I didn't move further forward otherwise.

And, that I didn't feel the desire to.

===

I won't die if I die alone.

But, even if well short of permanent, I'd love to have one real relationship, starting with the physical and sexual side, better than before.

Early life regrets — and even anger — aren't dead yet.

I don't think they ever will be, until I'm dead.

Kind of upset at a thread on a Lifering email list

 Regular readers here know that I've long been involved with Lifering Secular Recovery, and much of that time, semi-active to active in participation on email groups and Lifering social media, attending a few annual conventions and more.

Sadly, on one email list, discussion about a person having to go to jail for a DUI last fall veered into a ditch earlier this month. I am not naming any names, but I am laying out the bare parameters, because I think they need to be laid out.

Said person is getting three days in jail.

Several people have talked about how cruel this is. One person said that "way back," they didn't get jail in California. (She didn't respond when I said, in one of my emails on the thread, that I didn't know how long "way back" was, but that I suspected California had changed since then.)

One person, beyond the "how cruel," went into this was the same type of barbarism in America as not having national health care, etc., and that America was basically "draconian" or something like that.

And, that (although I totally agree on national health care) went over the line.

First, as I said about setting aside BAC levels, let's NOT set aside BAC levels, and let's note that in most advanced countries, the blood alcohol level that leaves you open to arrest is no higher than 0.05 percent, not the 0.08 percent of the US. We can talk about the sadness of the US not having better public transport, but we can also mention that beyond buses and taxis, ride sharing services do exist.

Now, as for the the reality of criminal sentencing?

You can do time a-plenty elsewhere in the world, including three weeks of "hard labor" in Norway and a full year in jail in Sweden and Finland. 

Remember, these are countries that liberal and, to some degree, leftist America, inside sobriety world and outside, like to tout.

Beyond that, IMO, is a psychological misconception, and that is that addicts, whether to alcohol or drugs, respond only to carrots.

Really? Carrots may be the primary tool in STAYING sober LONG TERM, but sticks have a definite role to play in GETTING sober and in STAYING sober in the SHORT(ER) TERM, as I see it.

Finally, a lot more people drive drunk than drive pot-high, even with the growth in legalized recreational marijuana.

And, that's the other reason to note that neither the US nor other advanced countries are "draconian." Sticks as well as carrots have a part to play, IMO, in reducing DUI in general, not just among people who may be addicted.

As someone who was a fucking idiot once, even with the tie-in of family psychology reasons related to my dumb decision, I don't know if jail time beyond an overnight would have done anything. It might have. OTOH, it might have increased my "I don't give a fuck" at the time. 

But, it would have lessened excuses, if nothing else.

And, for repeat offenders, you know what? The bottom line is that if they're in jail, they're not driving.

==

Update, June 3: They're at it again. So, I'm staying away from the email lists for a while.

Do I write sis or not?

 I've got a draft email response saved from two months ago.

She emailed lamenting that oldest brother Walt is again an author in a Lutheran devotional magazine.

I understand that this upsets her due to actions she pursued first, then we pursued together not too long after I got sober and recovered memories and that she pursued again on her own.

But?

I don't need to be involved and I don't want to be involved.

First, nothing's going to change, and I accept that.

Second, I'm not a Lutheran. Or religious at all.

And, this is the part of the email that rubs me the wrong way.

Like Tim and his pseudo-apologies for not protecting me, she claims that Walt's abuse made me an apostate.

No. Not only is that wrong, but it treats me as less than a free agent, to the degree any of us as individuals is close to a unified self, pace Dan Dennett, and to the degree any of us has something like free will, pace Dan Wegner, and pace David Hume and my own ruminations on both counts.

Ultimately, this is her battle, as I tell her in the draft email, and then look at both of these reasons, but mainly the second.

What both Walt and Tim did, or even what Dad may have done if he sexually abused past the level of Walt (which also wouldn't surprise me), have little to do with my metaphysical stances, which were arrived at by a lot of intellectual reasoning and emotional pondering ... before I basically recovered most memories about that, or at least, before I psychologically and emotionally reattached to and resurfaced those memories.

As I further indicate to her, and to riff on Dennett (who I doubt she's read, and would probably be aghast to read thoughts like this), it's arguable that those memories, precisely because they weren't conscious at the time, had some effect. It's even more possible that this was in part a rebellion against Dad. But ... it's likely that it was mainly just as I described the conscious process above. 

And, it WAS that way. I started with intellectual judo in seminary against the fundamentalist version of Lutheranism in which I was raised. (She hates it being called "fundamentalist," but it is; just with a different set of fundamentals than Calvinist fundamentalism.) I looked at "mainline Protestantism" in the form of the liberal wing of Lutheranism, but decided that it had too many artificial "pegs" for accepting some portions of the bible as literally true. I considered Unitarianism, but ... couldn't do that. I even toyed with a Buddhism of some sort, but knew that karma and reincarnation as actually understood in most Buddhism and Hinduism, not New Ageism, were as offensive as a literal hell and original sin.

I did at the same time wrestle with the emotional issues that an omniscience-based theodicy just can't answer. That's the other reason, the bigger one, I rejected Unitarianism, or liberal varieties of Judaism. If your god is that much short of all powerful, why call him god? Or, if that much short of omnibenevolence, again, why call him god?

Back to sis, though, as this is more thorough than what I wrote her.

I'm slow to anger, and even when the fuse hits the dynamite, it's often muffled. But, I am kind of angry about this.

I think I've told her the story about how I laughed under my breath at dad when, after an Ash Wednedsay service in Gallup, a schizophrenic came into our church and asked to be exorcised. Among our board of elders was a psychiatrist on staff at one of the two hospitals in town and dad had him call for an admission. But, I knew what Jesus told his disciples about "whatever you attempt to do in my name ... " and wondered why dad didn't perform an exorcism.

Maybe THAT's where the rebellion started, to the degree any of this was rebellion. Maybe my atheism arose in part because I figure that dad's emotional and religious abuse was bad enough, in this case, me getting the worst of all five kids, that my break with him religiously as an adult had to be total.

I don't know.

But ... that's not due to Walt's sexual abuse. It's due to dad's emotional and religious abuse.

That said, I'm now reminded of, either the Christmas before or maybe two before that. I asked for a gift subscription to Scientific American, back when it was a semi-technical science mag, not a gussied-up Discover. 

Didn't get it.

Yes, I got money to "get it myself" if I wanted. But, wasn't gotten it. Nor did anybody talk to me about "Wow, reading Scientific American at 12!"

No, Marie. No.

"Blaming" Walt for making me an atheist makes me into a two-dimensional caricature.

I still haven't sent it. As with Abraham Lincoln's famous unsent letters, maybe I never will.

There's one other reason I've not sent it yet.

It's called self preservation.

I'm in a semi-dying profession. Sis has offered before to take me in if long term unemployment led to possible problems. As in, being broke type problems.

I don't want to bite the hand that potentially feeds me, so if I do say anything, it must be mild, tactful and deft.

Also, I'm now within five years of the early U.S. government "finish line," if you know what I mean, and every day closer to that is a day closer to not having to worry about biting hands that might feed me.

==

As of right now, the answer is: I don't write.

==

Six months on, after she dumped some new stuff about Andrew on me, I was slightly tempted to use that as an opening. Only slightly.

Per another recent post here, I'll almost certainly wait until I'm past the early federal finish line, if nothing else.