Archie Movie - Scene #'s 3 and 4

INT. SUMMERS PENTHOUSE -- BEDROOM -- NIGHT

Sterling and Faith, naked, sweaty and breathless, collapse on her expansive, high-tech bed. 

FAITH: Oh my, Sterling Dear, you've somehow outdone your previous performance. In your hands, sex is an operatic aria. You just brought the house down.

ARCHER: Holy shit, I can't feel my legs. But all the other parts of me feel incredible.

FAITH: Hmm, one part in particular. Tell me, Darling, is your penis artificially enhanced or were you lucky enough to be born with a disposition for...a massive organ?

ARCHER: The second. I like to think of it as having the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ of penises.

FAITH: Excuse me?

ARCHER: It's the largest functional pipe organ on the planet. Well on this planet. It weighs in at two-hundred eighty seven tons and has 28,750 pipes.

FAITH: Oh my goodness, that is

 a large organ. 

ARCHER: Talk about laying a lot of pipe.

FAITH: No rope pushing allowed.

ARCHER: Exactly.

FAITH: You certainly know how to hit all the right notes. 

ARCHER: Thanks. I like to think of it as having and playing an organ of great note.

She laughs, kisses him.

FAITH: I would love to continue this pillow talk, Dear Sterling, but I'm simply exhausted. And judging by your, ah, excretions, you must be literally drained. 

ARCHER: I feel like the Social Security fund after the federal budget is announced.

She manages an exhausted chuckle. And then she's asleep.

CUT TO: INT. FAITH SUMMERS PENTHOUSE -- BEDROOM -- 60 MINUTES LATER

Faith is in deep slumber. Archer tosses and turns, then bolts up to sitting position. He looks around the spacious, unlit room. He presses a button on his SpyMaster watch. A beam of light shoots from the device. Archer shines it around the bed and walls, ends with illuminating Faith's nude, slumbering body.

She starts to snore. Archer shakes his head.

ARCHER: I should be so lucky. 

He lays down, fiddles around with the pillows on his side of the cavernous bed. Sterling closes his eyes. Two seconds later, they pop open. He flips onto his stomach. He shuts his eyes. 

MONTAGE OF ARCHER IN DIFFERENT SLEEPING POSITIONS.

Archer sighs, checks on Faith, who's sound asleep. He gets out of bed, looks around the room, snaps his fingers.

Sterling turns on light on SpyMaster watch. He bends over, moves the amber beam across space under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies dancing above plush carpeting.

ARCHER: Shit. 

He hops up, keeps flashlight from watch on. Sterling marches out of the bedroom. He goes through the ornate living room and into the glorious, high-end kitchen. 

The lights come on as he enters the room.

AI VOICE: Good morning, Sterling. How can I help you? 

ARCHER: I was going to ask why you didn't come on yesterday when I came in here but obviously Faith changed the settings.

AI VOICE: That's exactly right. 

ARCHER: Okay, well you can't help me. I'm looking for where your employer, master, programmer, whatever, has her stash of booze.

AI VOICE: You are correct. I cannot help you because there is no stash to find. If Miss Summers had stashed a bottle or more anywhere in on the premises, my cameras and scanners would have 

recognized and stored the event in the system's memory bank. 

ARCHER: Shit, so definitely no booze around here?

AI VOICE: No. I'm sorry, Mr. Archer. But in the long run, you'll be happier without alcohol.

ARCHER: Yeah well guess what, soulless artificial-intelligence entity, we don't live in the God damned long run. We live in the present frickin' moment, and in this particular God damned present moment, I really, really, really want, no, forget that, I must have a drink. No, I must have a shitload of drinks. I would literally kill for a bottle of Scotch.

AI VOICE: (Distorted): That is unfortunate, Mr. Archer, because adding a felonious act to alcohol-withdrawal would only add much misery to your already miserable state.

ARCHER: Alcohol withdrawal? Oh is that why I can't sleep?

He falls to one knee, closes his eyes.

AI VOICE:  Yes. Typical symptoms include restlessness, anxiety, insomnia, accelerated heartbeat, and hallucinations.

Archer opens his eyes. He sees a combination of the alien from Alien, the shark from Jaws and a giant Gator standing in front of the Miele fridge.

ARCHER: Okay, is there anything else I should know about this condition?

AI VOICE: In severe cases, if not treated by a qualified physician, the condition can be fatal.

ARCHER: In that case, would you ask Captain Ripley to fetch the spaceship's medical officer? 

Faith rushes into the room. 

FAITH: Friday, what's going on with Sterling?

AI VOICE: In a word, actually two words, Delirium Tremens. 

ARCHER: Would you two stop speaking so slowly? It's driving me crazy. 

FAITH: Archer Darling, don't you worry, you're going to be fine. Friday, call nine one one immediately.

ARCHER: Friday, don't call nine one one. We can just fly to the hospital in this ship. I mean I assume a warp drive is much faster than any vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.

#####

And that's the end of scene #4. So Archer fans, what do you think of the first four scenes? Does it have a chance with Adam Reed?

Archer Movie - Scene #2 - Archer's Naughty Night & Shocking Postcoital Discovery

Scene #2: INT. FAITH SUMMERS PENTHOUSE -- KITCHEN -- AFTERNOON

Archer, hair in uncharacteristic mess, wears only black, wrinkled turtleneck, rubs sleep from his eyes. He sighs, licks lips. His face lights up after he sees the enormous designer Miele fridge. 

"Oh sweet Jesus, island of chilled liquid refreshment, let there be tomato juice and spicy Bloody Mary mix and preferably celery. Olives would be nice but not a necessity."

He shuffles towards the fridge-freezer combination, which is built into the stainless steel wall. A liquor cabinet stands just to the left of the fridge-freezer combo.

"The main thing is the liquor cabinet is --"

Archer opens the door. It's empty except for two liters of non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Archer screams like he's been stabbed or shot.

"Almost empty and completely empty of the important stuff. What the shit, rich, hot lady?!"

https://youtu.be/UQN2R-9y6z0

Faith, a flimsy, nearly transparent white nighty, rushes into the kitchen.

"Oh my God, Hon', what's wrong?"

"I hate to break this to you, ah, um, incredibly hot and talented-in-the-sack lady whose name escapes me because of that last Green Russian, well and all the prior God only knows how many Green Russians I had last night."

"Faith Summers."

"Really? I would have figured you to be more of a Candy or Barbie, maybe Veronica. You know, as in Dean but half as old and a jillion times hornier."

She laughs seductively.

"Thanks but I'm Faith. And I have faith --"

"I put my faith in science and technology and rational philosophy."

"Let me finish, Darling. I was about to say I have faith you will finish explaining why you screamed."

"Oh yeah. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, Faith Summers, you have been burgled. You've also been buggered by yours truly but presumably while being buggered you were also burgled."

"Oh, so it didn't happen while you were down here by yourself? Good, I'm glad to know you weren't injured or anything like that."

"No, no, nothing like that. I didn't see it happen but some black-hearted, cruel and twisted SOB stole all your liquor. You know, your joy juice. Your fun liquids. I mean not your really fun liquid. Which by the way, some of which has soaked into my TactileNeck here."

He sniffs his shirt.

"Not that I'm complaining."

Faith laughs.

"No one stole my liquor, silly. Don't you remember? No, of course you don't. Those damn Green Russians rare their horrible heads once again."

She strolls over, shrugs off the nighty. Archer's eyes light up.

"At the club I told you I'd sobered up and that even though the odds were greatly against it, I hung out at the nightclub hoping to meet a man who either had given up boozing or would be willing to sober up in return for being with a woman of and named Faith."

"Oh. So why did I come home with you? I mean I was like five Green Russians to the wind, or something like that so I couldn't have been farther from sobriety."

"True but you did promise to, after this one last drunk, stop boozing and drugging so we can have a chance at love."

Archer stares at her like she just changed into a five-headed squid-like alien.

""And I said this out loud?"

"Yes, my darling."

She grabs him, plants a deep, long kiss on his lips, and the sticks her tongue into his mouth. Faith grabs his bare ass, forces their crotches together. 

"I'd like to say it's all coming back to me now but it so isn't. But the mind-blowing, marathon bedroom session is, not crystal clear but pretty darned close. And I will have to trust you on that other part. You know, have faith."

"Exactly, Archer dear. Enough talk. Let's get out my hardcopy Kama Sutra and see which one to tackle next."

"So there's not one bottle of booze anywhere in this huge, lovely penthouse?'

"No, Honey. Now come to the bedroom. Mama wants to get the shaft."

"Well okay but, so you don't have like a stash somewhere in the bedroom?"

"Nope,' Faith says.

"So no booze, like ever?"

She grabs him by the hand and they walk bare assed out of the kitchen.

"None whatsoever."

"My god, how do people live that way?"

"You're going to love it. In time."

                               
                                          ###

Next up: Archer sees God without using any of Krieger's special pills.

ArcherMovieGuy is Here!

I am writing a script for an Archer movie. I'm not sure if Adam Reed or either of the show's executive producers, Casey Willis and Matt Thompson, are planning to make a movie but if they do, I hope they seriously consider my script.

I am one of the show's biggest fans. I have watched every episode multiple times. I have written movie scripts but so far, they are, alas, thus far unproduced. But I have a great feeling about this one (spoiler alert: every writer says that about their new project).Just spit balling here, thinking out loud on my phone, about a title. I want readers to send me feedback on these:

• Archer: The Movie
• Archer Saves the World
• Archer & the Figgis Agency Save the World

To give readers s taste of the script, I will include parts of scenes in each post.So here goes, well something.

NOTE. For better readability and ease of writing, I'm not going to use screenwriting format here.

Opening Scene:

An obviously drunken Archer and Pam stumble into a nightclub. AC-DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", blares from sound system.

"You realize in this song 'shook' means intercourse, ah, you know, of a sexual nature," a slurring Archer tells Pam."

"No fucking shit, Mr. Holmes. I assumed it wasn't about a really, really long earthquake."

"Whata Saywe have another Green Russian?"

"If this has Absinthe, sure. Otherwise the Four Horses of the Apocalypse."

"Yes, that is a stellar choice for Plan B."

The two stagger towards the bar as the music and aggravated raised voices from bar partons provides the perfect cacophony for seriously drunken customers. Different colored lights strobe off the duo's faces. Archer waves down a young Latino bartender.

"We would like two Green Russians, please."

A female customer named FAITH SUMMERS -- late 20's, blonde, prodigious boobs, perfect butt and face, wears tight white, short skirt and white, sequined velvet blouse with plunging neckline -- swivels around to face Archer.

"Do you really need another drink? It appears you're already quite intoxicated, darling."

She puts an index finger on the top of his black TactileNeck, then slowly lowers it, stops at his navel.

"You know, alcohol reduces a man's sexual prowess while it increases his sexual desires. It is like the Peanuts cartoon where Lucy gets Charlie Brown all excited to kick the football but takes it away at the last second."

Archer gulps as he stares at her chest, then face.

"Okay, total-but- totally-hot-stranger, what's your name?"

"Faith."

"Oh my God, you're so splooshy," Pam says. "So is that Faith as in 'keep the Faith' or 'share the Faith'?"

Archer elbows Pam in the stomach."Geez, I was just asking. I'm only human."

"Before I sobered up, it was often the latter but now it's the former."

"Really?" Archer asks.

"Another interesting side effect of sobriety is my sex drive is, how did the doctor describe it, oh yes, off the charts."

"If you've sobered up, what are you doing in a place like this?" Archer asks.

She traces an imaginary circle around Archer's navel.

"I like the atmosphere and ah, you know, I'm hoping to find the right man. But since the man would have to be sober, or willing to become sober, it seems like a silly place to hang around at."

"You know, I've been thinking about quitting drinking lately. I mean polluting your body with the poison that is alcohol --"

Pam cracks up. Archer elbows her once more.

"I'm serious. Not many, well actually no one but me knows that. But it's true."

Bartender sets the Green Russians on the bar. Archer gazes longingly at them.

"Well there's no time like the present to --"

"Have one last drink before sobering up."

Archer grabs the drinks, gives Pam hers. Archer raises his glass.

"Alright, let's have a toast to sobriety."

"I'll toast it but I won't engage in it," says Pam.

Archer slams down his drink.Faith grabs his arm.

"Ready to get clean? By getting dirty? Over and over and over," Faith says.

"I believe that was the most rhetorical question in the history of rhetorical questions."

They leave the bar.

"If you change your mind about sharing the Faith', call me," Pam yells.

Conceptual Thinking Means Your Life's Always in Pieces

In Eckhart Tolle’s book “Stillness Speaks”, he observes that while reality is one unified whole in which are things are interwoven, thinking fragments the whole into conceptual bits and pieces. That got me to thinking about why many people consume alcohol, especially people who abuse alcohol and drugs (something I’ve done more than my fair share of in the past).

The person who drinks to get a buzz or to get really drunk -- tie one on, get wasted, become liquored up, whatever phrase you prefer -- likes the idea or the concept they’ve formed in their mind of what drunkenness is. Maybe early in their drinking “careers”, when they were in high school or college, they had a pleasant experience or perhaps numerous pleasurable experiences while under the influence. Maybe they were at a party, met a member of the opposite sex and well, had sex or something along those lusty lines. Or they played cards or dice with some friends and the combination of alcohol, friendly competition and social interaction turned the experience into a “night to remember”. Or at least something to post on your Facebook page. And it’s a physiological fact (truth) that alcohol stimulates certain pleasure centers in the brain which result in feelings of euphoria and lessening of inhibitions.

So the person’s mind creates a story in their mind about how great getting drunk is. They look forward to the drinking experience. Their ego takes those early drinking experiences, exaggerates how great they were, combines it with the physiological effects and creates a manufactured, a conceptual idea, of how attractive getting drunk is. This leads to the person drinking regularly and for the alcoholic, it leads to habitual (quite possibly daily) drinking. By the time the abuse of alcohol has begun, the individual’s conceptualized ego has trapped them on at least two fronts.

Number one, in their mind, the individual assumes becoming drunk is preferable to being sober because they have bought into their ego’s story about drunkenness. But think about it, the effects of alcohol on the mind and body mean at high levels, the drunken person doesn’t feel anything. They’re numb with drink, which means they will black out at some point and then they’ll pass out. So that person doesn’t really perceive what it means to be drunk because alcohol separates them from reality. Sure, at moderate levels of consumption the effects are likely to be pleasurable and capable of being remembered at later dates, but the alcoholic rarely, if ever, stops at that point. He or she keeps drinking until their awareness of the world goes away.

Number two, the individual is trapped by pride, which is generated by the ego. The alcoholic looks at their past behavior of heavy drinking and even if they’ve suffered negative consequences because of their drinking (e.g. - DWI, injury from passing out, embarrassing themselves at a party, loss of job, etc.), their ego sticks to its conceptual story about how great booze is. Ego will downplay the negative stuff and keep trotting out those “nights to remember” times on the stage of consciousness and say, “Look here, see how great alcohol is. And look at all those times you’ve gotten drunk since then.” Pride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride), the most dangerous of the Seven Deadly Sins, presumes that if you chose to do it in the past, it must have been the correct decision. How could the great and powerful you have been wrong?

But if the individual can be honest with him or herself and objectively examine their drinking, it’s possible to break out of that prison. Admitting you were wrong and need help with your alcohol-related issues is a daunting prospect. I think that’s what kept my wife Amy from addressing her drinking. I know it’s what kept me from doing anything about my abuse of alcohol for a long, long time. If your self-esteem is low to begin with, admitting you’ve made a mess of your life by drinking is scary. It’s must be like a Catholic person going to Confession and really spilling their guts about how they’ve fallen short of the will of God by <INSERT SIN HERE>.  Fear is the predominant emotion before they confess but then relief follows. For the alcoholic, it’s really true that the truth will set you free. If you admit the truth of your alcohol problem, that declaration, either to another person individually or in an AA or similar group meeting or simply just in your own mind, will naturally lead to taking actions that lead down the path of recovery and a chance for a sane, happy life. But if you cling to your old, dysfunctional ways, you’ll never escape the self-imposed prison cell.

To get glimpses of the unified, interwoven, wholly whole nature of reality, one needs to think a little less and be more aware. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use your mind but rather to use a deeper, broader, more universally-connected part of your mind. Think of it as a shift in perspective. The best way to do that, I believe, is through some form of meditation.

Meditation forces you to slow down your thought processes and just be. Be wherever you are at that moment and soak in the ultimate blessing, which is life, or if you’d prefer, energy. Reflect on the truth that it’s not you as an individual that gives yourself life and it’s not even your parents’ sexual union that really gave you life (their act resulted in your physical birth but not the mystical force of energy that keeps you alive). No one, not even the most brilliant physicist, doctor or holy man/woman can explain the source of life. One simply has to accept the gift and realize that nothing’s personal. We’re all in this game of life together.

 

By the way, don’t box yourself into thinking you have to meditate in a certain way or bodily position. Besides the well-known Buddhist method of sitting cross-legged on the floor or ground with eyes closed for long periods of time, there numerous other options: walking, jogging, bicycling, golfing, fishing, yoga, etc. For me, I use bicycling to make myself aware of my breath, which perhaps the most direct, tangible sign that I’m alive. When I go for a bike ride, it’s a microcosm of my life. Sometimes I go up steep hills, which makes me work harder and if steep enough, make me wonder if I’ll make it up that hill (meet a life challenge). But if I keep pedaling, I make it up that hill just fine. Sometimes I go over a flat stretch that’s not too difficult but it’s also not easy either so I’m moving along at a steady pace (like my every-day, routine life that at times seems boring but it doesn’t have to be if my attitude’s positive). And sometimes I’m rushing down a steep hill that’s seems almost too easy (like when good things happen in my life that I don’t feel like I’ve earned but I get anyway).

My Plan to Fix the Global Economy and Stop Violence and End Poverty

My plan to fix the worldwide economic mess and to stop violence, including war, the worst violence of all, is simple, fundamental, strikingly powerful and for many cynics, wholly unrealistic.

We can free up billions of dollars and countless hours if everyone, or at least the majority of the citizens of Planet Earth, came to their spiritual senses and realized we’re all one vast, mind-numbingly complex, interconnected spiritual body. We are already One, as in one spiritual body. The challenge is recognize we already have everything and everyone we need right now, at this very moment. We receive the gift of life from the One Body, the timeless, limitless, boundless field of energy and love and consciousness that’s a gift from God, however one defines that term. We cannot earn life or blessings or an admittance ticket into Heaven after we die. We get, we have, a mystical but very real life force. If you meditate each day, and I highly recommend it, you will learn to feel the energy field around and coursing through your body and mind. If you have a dog or cat (I have both), place your hand on its belly. You can feel their life force emanating from their body. In my case, my dog, a Rat Terrier named Indy, is older, almost sixteen, so his life force is more subdued and subtle than the energy coming from my young cat Shaggy, who is about three years old.

That mystical energy force that keeps you alive and keeps your mind and body functioning with minimal effort on your part cannot be controlled or touched by you. It’s a gift from God. And even you live on one part of the planet and another person lives on the opposite side of the world, while there is considerable physical distance, you’re intimately linked together by the One Life, or God as some call it. The writer in Red Wing, MN, computer programmer in Los Angeles, Olympic athlete participating in the 2012 London Olympics and the greenish-gray alien living billions of miles away in a solar system we have not yet discovered are linked together by the incomprehensible, immortal and magical energy field that defies true understanding.

The challenge to realizing we’re all One is that your ego tells you the exact opposite.  The ego is the voice inside your head telling you that you are fundamentally different, separate and better than everyone else. Associated with your name is a fixed, static identity, like a nation that feels it has to protect its land from being taken by another nation. Your ego talks you into believing there’s a fixed combination of traits and facts that comprise the real you. Out there floating in the metaphysical ether is certain you that you must defend at all times. It’s like a giant poker game in which none of the players have a more than a pair of three’s in their hand.   

So how does the evolution of human consciousness, that is, the increased number of people who realize we’re One, as in one spiritual body, solve the economic crisis and stop violence? To start with, if everyone realizes we’re all One, then there are no enemies. There’s no reason to hurt or kill someone else because in essence, you’d be hurting or killing a part of you, which would make no sense. There is no “other”. And if there is no “other’ to worry about, there’d be no need for military forces. The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines would disappear. So would the Pentagon. And that’s just in our country. Vast military complexes in China, Russia, etc., would evaporate. That frees up billions of dollars and millions/billions of man-hours to be used in peaceful, more life-enhancing pursuits.

Yes, it’s true that the military industry provides jobs for many people around the globe so if you get rid of the militaries around the world and replace them with other industries, it would be considered a wash by some. But even the number of lost jobs from the military industry ended up equaling the new jobs created by other industries, wouldn’t it be better to have a more peaceful, sane world than we have today?  

Obviously the abolishment of militaries around the world, if it ever happens, will be a gradual process. Everyone’s not going to wake up tomorrow and realize the truth of the One Life. It will happen one person at a time, one mystical moment at a time. But it can happen. The key is for each person to honestly want to understand the truth for themselves. It’s not a dogma or particular sets of religious doctrines that I’m trying to force on you. Those are external things, and as such, are fleeting and temporary. The only thing that’s not temporary is the One Life. Even after your physical body gives out, your consciousness is absorbed into the vastness of the energy field and you are reunited with God. 

On a related note, the evolution of the human conscious will reduce and ultimately end poverty and hunger. An enlightened army of souls on Planet Earth will see people in dire need of economic assistance and will not hesitate to help them in whatever way they can because they’re helping a part of themselves heal financially and physically. Providing food, shelter, financial assistance and moral support to those less fortunate than themselves will occur naturally and without prompts from the government or any outside forces. 

But your ego, my ego, the ego, hates change. The ego is about all playing it safe, painting people into corners, reverting past behaviors because they are a known entity. But you don’t have to heed the lies of the ego. You can do better than that. For the good of the planet, you must try.

Introduction to Blog About Who You Aren't

I am on the verge of publishing my self-help book, "Overcoming Any Personal Obstacle, Including Alcoholism, by Understanding Your Ego", at http;//www.lulu.com. It should be available as a print and e-book within the next month. I am dedicating the book to the memory of my wife Amy, who died on November 24, 2006.

She was a little over a month shy of her 42nd birthday when she passed away from complications due to alcohol abuse. We were a classic example of co-enablers. We both drank to excess pretty much every day over several years, although Amy's heavy alcohol use began a few years earlier than mine. She went to the hospital at least five times for pancreatitis, which is inflammation of the pancreas due to excessive alcohol consumption. After her death in late November 2006, I was despondent over her death, and I used that sadness as an excuse to continue abusing alcohol.

Then on Christmas Day of that year, something inside of me swam its way up from the depths of my addiction to alcohol and avoidance of reality and got my attention. It said simply, YOU HAVE TO STOP DRINKING OR YOU'LL DIE LIKE AMY. But that voice only emerged after I'd scoured every inch of our town home in search of booze and I'd found the liquor stores and bars closed for the holiday. I drove from our Eagan town home south to Red Wing to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my parents.   

That night, I attended my first AA meeting. I told the story of how Amy lost her life to alcohol, I lost two jobs because of alcohol and we were on the verge of losing the town home to foreclosure (due mainly to loss of income from jobs due to alcohol abuse). I got a sponsor, a wonderful man named Chuck who turned out to be needed sooner than he'd probably thought he would be.

The catharsis of spilling my guts and the satisfaction I derived from taking the first step toward healing didn't last long. My body was so used to having copious doses of alcohol that it reacted poorly when it was deprived of it. I went two straight nights without sleeping, mostly because I was hearing voices. My dad took me to the local ER.

The doctor on call gave me a medication to combat the symptoms from Delirium Tremors (i.e. - DT's), which probably saved my life. My mind was so messed up that I actually thought I'd died. In my head, I thought I heard my dad Lavern yelling at the doctor for not seeing me sooner. If he had seen me sooner, they might have saved me. That's not what was said but my confused brain thought it was.

I bolted up to a sitting position on the examination-room table and yelled, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die."

My good friend Jim Welsch, who my dad called, sat in a chair next to the examination table. He assured me I wasn't dead. I had to admit he was right.  The staff gave me medication to help me sleep. The next morning, with my sponsor's assistance, I got into a 21-day inpatient treatment program at Fountain Center (Albert Lea, MN).

I completed the three-week program, sobered up, and moved into the Cochran House, a halfway house in Hastings, MN (25 miles from my parents' home in Red Wing). After being forced into sobriety for the next month (residents couldn't leave the facility for first 30 days), I secretly drank on weekends at our old town home and then returned to Cochran House before the curfew.

I never completely quit drinking until early October 2010. But before I quit, I went to the Hastings detox unit four or five times and also lost another job, this one at Treasure Island Resort & Casino, because of drinking. My dad passed away in February 2010 after cancer spread throughout most of his frail body. That was a convenient excuse to get loaded and I took it.

But finally, as the saying goes, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I abstained from using alcohol from October 2010 to May 2012. I was inspired in equal parts by Amy's premature death and the writings of Eckhart Tolle, especially "A New Earth", which was featured in Oprah's Book Club. Tolle. I connected the dots between Tolle's insights about the ego, Amy's death and my frequent relapses.

The ego is the voice inside your head that declares you're different, and separate, from everyone else in the universe. You're special, and better, than everyone else simply because you're you. That's diametrically opposed to Eckhart Tolle's One Life, which states we're all one spiritual body, so intimately connected by a mystical but very real and powerful energy force that has no end or limits that there's really no me vs. you. Your ego seeks a static definition of self and to form that limited definition of self, the ego looks to the past for clues. In the case of a practicing alcoholic, he or she keeps drinking mainly because they believe that's who they are. They drink, therefore they are. It doesn't matter if the consequences of their drinking have been bad or even tragic, people who don't understand who they really are fall back on past behaviors because it's safe and known.

But if you believe we're all one spiritual, free-flowing, changing body, you free yourself from the prison of habitual, obsessive behaviors based on the past. You can be anyone you want to instead trying to squeeze yourself into the clunky, clingy squares of misguided behaviors (mental and physical) that defined your previous time on this planet.

When you let the One Life flow through you, you're in step with the cosmos. It's not you against the world. It's you with the world. I've heard so many pundits talk about "finding your true self" like there's certain combination of traits and beliefs that's the real you floating out in the ether and all you have to do is find the combination that's the real you. That's such a rigid, unenlightened approach. I think you should do whatever your heart/spirit/soul tells you to do at any given moment. Why limit yourself to doing the same things you've always done in the same manner?

The ego is the source of every kind of conflict from yelling at your spouse or kids to mass murder and war. That's because the ego deceives people into believing they are fundamentally different from everyone else, that they have a certain set of traits and beliefs that makes them who they are. For the alcoholic, one of the traits that defines them is their profuse level of drinking and drunkenness. The flip side of that, the good news, is that if you really thought about it, you'd feel and see and experience the truth of the One Life. The ego's lies about rigidity, static nature of the self and spiritual separation are not easily detected but if you have an open mind and honest heart, I believe you will see the fundamental reality of oneness.

http://www.leeaeide-writer.com/overcome_any_personal_obstacle_including_alcoholism_by_understanding_your_ego