Length matters little

I talk about my sobriety date once per year - when I pick up a chip.

I was "raised" in a group that took sobriety dates very seriously. When we introduced ourselves at meetings, we gave our sobriety date. Old Timers heard the soft ooohs and aaahhhs of newcomers. Newcomers received smiles of encouragement as they recited that they had now made it another day. I ooohhhed and aaahhhed as needed and smiled encouragingly as warranted. At first, I had days of sobriety, then months. Most of the people that got sober around the time I did vanished. Then I had a year, then multiple years.

One day, as I introduced myself in the customary fashion, I mentioned that I had been sober almost 5 years. In the beat of quiet between my introduction and the next person's, I heard it - softly - but I heard it still:

"Wow."

And then began the churning of my magic, magnifying mind: Yep, all hail the badass. Betcha want to be like me someday, huh?

It took one whispered word to activate my ego. My ego began to whisper back that I no longer belonged at that group - or any meeting actually, because there was something good on TV that night or I was tired of hearing Woe-is-Me Wanda recount her latest dope-fueled drama (again). So I stopped going to meetings as much.

When it occurred to me that I wasn't going to meetings as often, I then recalled members who often said that they always called people who had quit showing up. This activated the indignation cycle: where was my phone call? Didn't they care about me?

Cue righteous indignation: after all I've done for that sorry place!

These are the sounds of my spiritual condition eroding. I am now focused on me, rather than on my purpose. All over one whispered word of admiration over my sobriety date.

When I was growing up, my father refused to tell my brother or me how much money he made at his job. If we asked, he'd say "Enough." or "Why? Did you have some allowance to return to me?"

He didn't tell us because he didn't want us to blow it out of proportion: to think we were rich (we weren't) or wonder whether we had enough (we did). We didn't need to dwell on that issue.

Today, I rarely even think about how long I've been sober. Yes, I tell newcomers, but only when asked. I don't need to dwell on quantity. We all have today, and regardless of whether you've been to one meeting or a thousand, that's enough.

Giving Freely

"We make a living from what we get. We make a life from what we give." - Sir Winston Churchill

At my home group, we have a woman who brings a homemade lunch for the entire group almost every Tuesday. No one has asked her to do this, but everyone heartily digs in and lavishes her with thanks.

She is also a raging Al-Anon. Her husband still drinks heartily, and most weeks her catering is attached to sharing about how much people love what she does for them.

She has taken a job that requires her to be out-of-town for two weeks at a time. Yesterday she was back from her first tour of duty, and since she had been working, did not bring food. No one expressed any dismay.

The chairperson of the meeting called on folks to share, instead of having people just jump in. He did not call on her until the end of the meeting. She said this (loudly):

"I haven't been at a meeting for two weeks! I didn't come to have the chairperson call on people! I wanted to pick the topic of the meeting, something that's upsetting me! This wouldn't have happened if I'd brought food!"

And with that, she stormed out.

My immediate reaction to this mini-rant was that this meeting is not about her, but about a disease everyone in this room shares. As I thought about it though, I realized she might suffer from something a little deeper: giving of herself, but not freely. I suspect she feels entitled to select the topic of the meeting because she feeds people.

My old thinking told me that if I did something for you, bought you something or provided any other service, you owed me. I gave, and so should I get. You can bet that if you did not reciprocate in the manner I felt was appropriate, I got a resentment. I quit doing things for you, and more that likely you appeared somewhere on my list.

Sobriety doesn't hold up to scorekeeping or the anger, self-pity and resentment that follows it. Now, I give things without expecting anything in return. If I bring donuts to a meeting and you eat one, you don't owe me anything.

Nor do I owe you anything if I eat the donuts you bring, either. I assume that your motives for providing something to us are pure.

I will find out soon enough if they aren't.

Keep Others Simple ... For Yourself

I hear and read a lot about "change" that will now sweep over our nation. Apparently we have all been living in downtrodden misery, and a new president is going to fix Everything (he could start over here by taking a look at my bathtub plumbing, but somehow I doubt he's got me on his book).

When I was drinking, I blamed everyone and everything else for my problems. My blurry bottom line was that life just wasn't treating me right. If life treated me right, I wouldn't drink!

The amazing thing was that I developed peace with life once I stopped drinking and learned through a program of recovery that life treats me the way it treats everyone else: if I'm a jerk, people retaliate.

I once heard this in a meeting, "If in the course of a day, I meet one person that I suspect is an ***hole, there is a chance that I am right about that person. But when everyone I meet is an ***hole, then I am actually the ***hole."

I thought life was about being happy. I was wrong. Life is about taking the personal responsibility to contribute to the world. Once I become a giving member of society, I stand a greater chance of personal satisfaction and sobriety.

That's the change I believe in.

Praying For Someone I Can't F-ing Stand: Day 2

Two days of praying are behind me. I am praying that P gets everything I would want for myself and for the willingness to continue to do this, because it really isn't easy.

However, a strange thing has already happened. Yesterday P and my ex broke up, but P called Ex later on and asked him for a ride to that night's meeting. He declined and said he was taking someone else (okay, with her track record, probably not the best thing to tell her, but I digress).

P then calls the poor woman chairing this meeting, and asks her to call her when the meeting is over and tell her who Ex brought to the meeting. Chair told her she would do no such thing because it violates the Traditions (good for her!).

So P hung up on her mad as a wet hen, and then called her back and left her a snotty voice mail about whether she had the required amount of time to chair the meeting anyway. P then left me and BF each the same message.

I mention all this not because the drama itself it particularly weird (it's par for the course when P's around), but because of the effect it's had on my thinking about her.

I have been in recovery long enough to know what to do when I have a resentment. I could put all that BB stuff to music and dance to it. So why have I not wanted to forgive P for what she's done? What real harm have I suffered? BF and I are stronger than ever. I have lost no friends over this. I didn't get drunk.

I've been afraid to forgive P because I've feared that if I do forgive her, she will do all that crap again.

But she's still doing it! Yesterday proves it.

When I was little there was this cartoon about Ralph and Sam. They were wolf and sheepdog, and every morning, they punched in on a time clock and Sam went to guard the sheep and Ralph tried to steal them. Then the whistle would blow at the end of the day, and Ralph and Sam would say a cordial goodnight to each each other and go home. They each were who they were, and they did what they did, and it was nothing personal.

P and I are not so different from Ralph and Sam. We get up every morning, and we each do the best we know how to do. Neither of us gets up and says to ourselves "I'm really going to f--- things up today!" (regardless of what it may look like). One tries to steal, one tries to keep.

Just be glad you're not a sheep in this little town!

Need or Want?

Last night I heard in a meeting something I haven't heard in a while: "You never need to take another drink again if you don't want to."

I can't begin to estimate how many times I uttered the phrase "I need a drink" in the Before Times. I really felt I did need a drink - I didn't think I was exaggerating!

My dictionary defines "need" as "a requirement, necessary duty, or obligation", and that's what alcohol became for me. It was no longer optional.

But the other way of defining "need" is the things that make my survival possible. I literally need food, reasonable clothing (a Louis Vuitton Galliera GM bag does not fall into this category, unfortunately), shelter, and access to medical care. In those terms, I did not need a drink.

*Note: the effects of physical withdrawal from alcohol can be fatal, which is why in some cases, those doing 12-step calls take with them a little bit of booze. In this one scenario, a drink is in fact needed.

But I sure thought I needed it, because I knew no other way to live. I had to get with the Program to learn to not drink, clean house and help others. I do not need to ever drink again if I don't want to.

It's my wants that bite me in the proverbial ass every time. The BB specifically tells us that "selfishness and self-centeredness" is "the root of our problems." Basically, that I was roaming the earth a slave to my wants, winking at what each new acquisition might cost me. Tough day at work? Have far too many drinks and then drive my wobbly self home - I deserve some fun!

Ironically, my favorite toast in any situation was "We may not get what we want, we may not get what we need, as long as we don't get what we deserve!"

And I was right.

Weary

CAUTION: WHINING FOLLOWS

It's called "trudging" for a reason ...

From 24 Hours a Day:

"Never yield to weariness of the spirit. At times, the world’s cares and distractions will intrude and the spirit will become weak. At times like this, carry on and soon the spirit will become strong again. God’s spirit is always with you, to replenish and renew. None ever sincerely sought God’s help in vain. Physical weariness and exhaustion make a time of rest and communion with God more necessary. When you are overcome by temporary conditions which you cannot control, keep quiet and wait for the power of the spirit to flow back."

May God forgive me, I would like a day off from my life today. I would like to be in one of those sappy movies where I wake up in someone else's life and learn to appreciate my own. I am tired of potty training. I am tired of setting up the new place. I am tired of worrying about money. I am tired of dealing with my soon-to-be-ex husband. I am tired of reporting to this new job and sitting over here in Storage Room B having no one talk to me or give me any direction. I am tired of not getting BF's just-about-total attention. I am tired of being exhausted all day and not sleeping at night. I am tired of having hideously chapped lips from this stupid Accutane (which I might have to discontinue if I keep feeling this way).

A few days ago I called my parents to tell them (prematurely) that I thought we were making some real potty training progress. My mother said to me, "That's great news honey! When I saw you were calling I just assumed something was wrong - I thought 'Uh oh'".

Wow - that's nice. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

What I Was Like

Once our noon meeting actually got started, today's topic was 'what is was like/what happened/what we are like now' because we had a newcomer present.

I've said before that when I started coming to meetings, I didn't get a "newcomers meeting" dedicated to me, thank God. I said in the previous post that folks don't hear me say "we'll love you until you love yourself", because I loved myself far too much when I came in, and that was my problem.

I felt that I was entitled to a lot better out of life, and if the rest of the world would spin in the direction I told it to go, everything would be great! As the BB says, "Selfishness! Self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles."

The world tells us to work on our "self esteem". Amazon.com has an entire catagory of self-esteem books with over 2600 items listed in it. However, I have yet to meet an alcoholic that got sober by building her self-esteem. I've met plenty of women who have gotten drunk with their self-esteem, and I'm one of them.

Nor do I need to "embrace my inner child", whatever in hell that means. I spent my entire drinking life acting like one. Someone should have called Inner CPS over the way I treated my Inner Child! Maybe had to put in an Inner Foster Home? Anyway ... I am 37 years old and somebody's mom - time to be an Outer Grownup.