In comments on my idea of putting the Mantra into a political campaign one of our usually professional-level BUGSERS said no politician who inserted the Mantra into his campaign just because we gave him the money to do it was not worthy of our support.

Actually, if we can get the Mantra into public view, we really don’t are whether the inserter is a pillar of the community or a walking, talking disease.

But this talk using “politician” and “moral” in the same sentence will not make us think our fighting comrade has suddenly turned into a kook. Like most bad advice, this comes from a person who has in this case completely forgotten what WE are about.

This is critically important life lesson. You pay a gigantic price to learn it.

When you really can’t function, the person who gives you the Nike advice, “Just Do It” does not think about YOUR problem for an instant.

Most advice is not the result of people thinking about YOUR problem, it comes from the image they want to project of THEMSELVES.

When you are young, every old coot wants you to think he never hesitated. He was never skeert. He faced the world and conquered it.

One of the great things about my time as a sponsor in recovery was that when I got too Nike-ish, the person I was talking to could say, “If you’re so great, why are you a goddamn junkie?”

The old guys in AA used to always preach about how they never succumbed to drugs, and so Alcoholic Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous should be fully separate.

I finally shut them up with this: “You AA types should be grateful to us junkies. Who else can an old drunk feel superior to?”

That was simply another version of the general point,” If Bob is such a brave genius, why is he in recovery?”

This separation between alcohol and other drugs has absolutely no basis whatever in any part of the actual Program.

The old drunks brag about the fact that they didn’t get hooked on drugs — because drugs weren’t handy then, actually — to make themselves look good.

The old drunk is BRAGGING!

And the fact is that no one actually listens to young people’s real problems as they see them. The only reason the overwhelming majority of older people confer with young people is so they can say something that they want somebody to hear them say, something which shows how brave or practical or realistic or experienced they are.