"It is truly awful to admit that.... we have warped our minds into an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it..."
We have warped our minds. That doesn't say our minds have been warped. The subject of the sentence is "We" meaning "I." I have warped my mind. I think of the old spiritual, "Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Warped. To become bent or twisted out of shape, typically as the result of heat or dampness. It can be either a transitive or an intransitive verb. Here, we have warped our minds. It's transitive. The subject, person or thing doing the action is we (I.) The thing acted upon is our brains (my brain.) I talk about the idea that when I point a finger at somebody, pointing out a problem, three fingers point back at me. This one is saying that they're all pointing at me, that there's only one culprit and it is I. I don't like that.
"No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one." The talk in the news these days is of whether or not it benefits the big three auto companies to be rescued or whether bankruptcy is both inevitable and beneficial. Bankrupt. Declared by law to be unable to pay outstanding debts. Impoverished or depleted. Lacking in a particular property or value (as in morally bankrupt.) It says addiction has become a rapacious creditor. Grasping or greedy. From an old word meaning to snatch. The rapacious creditor, bankruptcy in the AA 12 and 12, compulsive eating and other compulsive behaviors for me, bleed us (me) of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this fact is ACCEPTED our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete. What the heck does acceptance have to do with it? This is one of those things where the actor and the acted upon are way too close to make sense. I wrote a poem the other day about this kind of language in the 3rd step prayer:
Actively Passive
"I offer myself to Thee...."
Interesting verb, offer,
not passive, for action
affects the object, myself —
not the subject, I. For me,
what's the difference?
Me, myself, and I maintain
the ultimate symbiosis.
Yet here the verb looms large
for the indirect object rather
than a tail wagging
below the diagram stands
unequaled, omnipotent, omniscient.
The subject and object stand
equally passive, but out of respect
actively passive.
So, when I have managed (finally??) to totally warp my mind into such an obsession (can a mind be warped into an obsession? Aren't we mixing metaphors here?) that only God can remove the obsession, then I'm bankrupt, bled dry by the addictive behaviors, and the blood is my will and my self-sufficiency. At that point my bankruptcy as an ongoing human concern in complete. An obsession is a thought or idea that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a mind. So the thought or idea or behavior becomes the mind itself? And that impoverishes the mind, kind of like malnutrition? (talk about mixing metaphors.... sorry.) Malnourished by no longer having self-sufficiency and will to resist. Which makes not only the mind bankrupt by my being a going human concern. I guess that means the system closes in on itself, implodes.
My exposure to bankruptcy courts has been one of confusion and bewilderment. And abject humiliation, not that I've ever been bankrupt financially, but just dealing with bankruptcy law itself is enough to make me absolutely humble and contrite, to want to walk away and leave it alone and let other people more apt than me to understand the intricacies work through it. And the utter frustration that made me quit practicing law in a bankruptcy court rings true in my dealing with food. I can't handle it. I'll walk away and leave it to other, more intelligent beings. God, you ready to take over?
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