Progress

Turns out, the longer I stay sober, the easier things get. That was never the way my life was before.

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My meetings

What I do in meetings for me reflects all of my sobriety and recovery. If I'm late to meeting, my recovery will happen late. If I leave early, my recovery will also leave me early. If I don't share in meetings, I'm less likely to be able to get help in my life. If I take a break in the middle, I may be on break from my program when I need it most.

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God?

I've often said that I'm definitely okay with God's plan for me, as long as he slips an itinerary under the door every day so I know what it is.

Today, there's no schedule, so I'l just have to go on faith.

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Needs and Wants

The past two days of meetings I've attended have been on the 3rd step. When this happens, I just assume that God is trying to tell me something. I know that when things are getting scary in my life, I can looks towards the 3rd step to tell me God is taking care of me and everything will be ok.

Also, when things are going well, and I don't feel like doing the right thing, the 3rd step reminds me that I'm sober and only have the great life I have today because of God's grace.

Frequently, I get confused between what I WANT and what I NEED. I want all kinds of things, new shoes, clothes, money. God give me what I need. Friends, food, meetings and more.

I heard a woman once say that fear is the distance between what I want and what God is providing for me.

Maybe I'll remember that today.

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Lying

So yesterday I called the Department of Education (eek!) to tell them that the job I moved for hadn't started yet.

When I hit my bottom a couple of years ago, I had stopped answering the phone. Because of this, my student loan poeple thought that I had tried to run out on my loans and I ended up getting marked late several times. Eventually I got it all straightened out.

So in order to prevent this sort of mishap, yesterday, I called them to tell them I had moved. I told them I moved, and then they asked me if I had started work, I said no I hadn't, and that was it.

Easy loan payment delay.

Easy phone call.

Except I lied. I started at a temporary job about a week ago. I haven't gotten a paycheck, and out of fear of them asking for payment, I lied.

Funny, I thought, that was easy. I didn't even feel bad or anxious. For almost an entire thirty seconds. I thought, that was a real easy lie. But it wasn't.

After that thirty seconds, I felt anxious, I felt depressed, I felt scared, I felt frustrated, I felt unhappy. And what's more, I felt as if I had ALWAYS felt that way.

Cunning, baffling, powerful. I had created a crack in my recovery for my disease to slip in. And it did. Like a flood.

I called my sponsor almost immediately and left a message telling him about the lie. I put the lie on my 10th step for the evening. This morning, my sponsor told me to share about it at a meeting.

Today I'm going to call and correct the lie. And I'm going to go to a meeting and talk about how I called someone to tell the truth, and then lied.

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The Plan

In 2nd grade, I told my teacher Mrs. Bunch that I was going to be a doctor and live in Vine, Florida. I had even picked out a hospital to work at.

Going to rehab was definitely not in my plan.

As an alcoholic, surprisingly, I love making plans. Sitting in a new class, I'll already be planning the award speech I'm going to make when I when the prize in my newly discovered field.

When I plan, I plan big. And extravagant. And with paparazzi. There are teleprompters and flash photography.

So far, nothing since getting sober has actually turned out the way I planned. And that's a good thing. Thankfully, God has other plans for me.

Even though the glitz and the glam I imagine may seem big to me, relative to God, my imagination is small.

I have called it "alcoholic tunnel vision" before. I WANT this apartment. I WANT this job.

Am I am constantly reminded that God has bigger and better plans for me than I could ever conjure up for myself. God provides what I NEED.

Today, I am happy. And that is something I also never planned for.

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What if

IWhat if work is too busy today?

What if I can't go to meeting I want tonight?

What if I can't pay the rent this month?

What if I can't go to Ocean City next year?

What if the child I get five years from now has a learning disability?

What if I have cancer?

In the Living Sober book, there's a good passage on "The If Trap." This mainly talks about what if's in the context of drinking.

Early in the morning though, sometimes my mind works like this, even without the alcohol. Big what if's...little what if's...

And one of the funny things is, I don't even have a consequence usually. These are tricks my addict brain plays on me so that I will feel overwhelmed. My disease LOVES me in that space. Why? So I can drink.

Funnier, if I kill myself (by drinking), I'll never find out.

What if.

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Meditation and the Box

So today I went to an 11th Step Meditation meeting for the first time ever. For the past two years of my sobriety, I've basically avoided them, mainly because all the people I've ever met that say they love meditation meetings seem f*****g crazy.

I imagine they love them because they don't have to share, and because it fits in with that false sense of spirituality i was after when I took acid all the time. Contempt prior to investigation comes to mind now.

I went, and it was nice, although the lady chairing the meeting was playing an audio track from her iPhone and someone called towards the beginning of the set.

The meditation itself created imagery for us to use while meditating. At first I didn't want to shut my eyes, but I did soon enough. Two imageries stand out to me, the first was writing my worries in the sand on the beach and letting the waves wash them away. I might actually try this soon. The second was a box, which contained something we wanted very much.

Curiously, I couldn't think of anything to get out of the box. It had a nice big ribbon on it, but basically nothing inside. Vaguely for a moment I thought a bike might be nice, but something so trivial hardly seemed worthy of having meditated for twenty minutes to get it. So I stuck with nothing.

We did the typical mild stretching and letting ourselves become aware of our surroundings at the end, and then the sharing began. One guy had a picture of his father in the box, another his kids. Unusual for me, I refrained from sharing. At the very end a woman raised her hand and said she also had nothing in the box.

Does this mean we're perfectly happy?

Does this mean I have a limited imagination?

Like a good alcoholic, I'll probably spend at least part of the rest of the day or week trying to think of something to put in the box for next week.

Yep, next week.

Meditation has been a constant challenge for me since I first encountered my 11th Step a year or so ago.

Like many things in my sobriety, if it makes me uncomfortable, it's probably a good idea for me to participate a little longer.

Keep coming back.

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The Geographic

So it's been less than two weeks in my new city.

Today, looking around, I realize why the geographic never works.

My apartment, though different, in ways looks the same.  Has the same feel.  Has the same clothes.  I eat the same food.  Go to bed around the same time, wake up around the same time.

Luckily, I wasn't really looking for a change by moving, because I wouldn't have gotten it.

My friends are seeming different, but I'm willing to bet that soon they will seem the same too.

Which is great, because I miss my home.  Today I'm glad for my program, because I know wherever I go, there it is.

I've heard this said another way before.

Geographics don't work, because wherever I go, there I am.

Gratitude, Freddie and Love

Some days, I am so filled with gratitude. My disease likes to pick at things. To always see the faults in the world around me. I only moved to this new city I'm in a week ago, but I feel so amazingly connected.

I drove and picked up a newcomer yesterday after someone from my new home group gave me a car to drive around.

The newcomer, I'll call him "Freddie" was in the toils of a rehab romance. At this point, I have seen this several times over. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy, girl meets girl, and the priority that sobriety needs to survive goes out the window.

Freddie, like me, also recently moved here. For a girl he met in treatment a few weeks ago. He's in love with her because when they first met, she said he could come here and live with her.

The first time my sponsor asked me what the definition of love was, I had no clue. It was always centered around what the other person was doing for me. I've now come to understand that my definition of love is caring for someone else and asking nothing in return.

My sponsor loves me, I love my sponsees. Through these relationships I have learned to have a relationship with my partner, and with other people that I could never have before.

Freddie kept repeating that he didn't understande why the girl could keep saying that she loved him but could't be around him after his relapse. Likely, she has a good sponsor telling her to stay away.

My relationships have come a long way from getting my selfish sex needs met.

Today I am grateful for the ability to love.

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No.

No.

Is a complete sentence.  I learned this from my sponsor in early sobriety. 

"Do you want a drink?"

"No."

I don't have to further qualify.  I don't have to talk about the weather, or my terrible childhood, or my condition, or my shoes, or my fuel tank.

No.

I later this also applied to things that I didn't want to do.  I am not talking about suggestions.  These I follow to the best of my ability.  But I have to put my sobriety first.

"Do you want to go to a later meeting instead?"

"No."

"I know it will make you late for the meeting, but can't you just wait on me?"

"No."

As my sobriety has grown, so has my ability to say no.  I am a people pleaser to the core, and this tool has become so powerful to me.

AA has taught me to say yes to so many things, but it has also taught me to say no.

Time

Some of the first things I heard about time in AA:

Time doesn't mean anything.

Time moves slower in early sobriety.

Listen to old timers.

Time takes time.

One thing I do know, is that as I have better cultivated the ability to manage my time in AA, the rest of my life has gotten easier to organize. My sponsor taught me this.

If I am late to meetings all the time, or leaving early all the time, the same thing happens in the rest of my life. I'm late to work, and I can't sit still.

The more I prioritize AA, the easier it becomes for me to prioritize everything else.

As AA slips away, so does my life.

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Friendship and Hi

Hi, my name is "Ed" and I'm an alcoholic.

This identification helps remind me who I am. An old timer once told me to always look someone new in the eye as I said it, to remind me that it's an introduction, which it is.

I also practice, "Hi, my name is Ed." I put out my hand, smile, and ask someone where they are from. I try to steer clear of "How sober are you?" or "Do you have a sponsor?" in my initial conversation. In the book it says to speak to the new alcoholic of normal things first, THEN move to my drinking, then their alcoholism...but I digress.

I've learned the smiling and introducing myself in AA makes quick friends. The people that come up to me, new in a new city, are people I want to talk to.

I say this with new appreciation today. I'm continuing to have the experience of AA picking me up here in my new city, and loving me.

As I watched the basketball game last night with all of my new friends, smiling, and laughing, I thought how connected and safe I felt.

Connected and safe.
Connected and safe.
Connected and safe.

I never felt.

Drunk.

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Gazpacho and God

So i went for my health exam at my new job today. Phew! Glad that's over with. I became accustomed to how well they treated me in the employee health office at my last job. They knew that I'm in recovery.

More importantly, thet knew how special I am. My sponsor always says: Treat an alcoholic special he feels normal. Treat him normal he feels rejected.

Today I was treated like everyone else. Normal. Rejected.

They never closed a door during my questionnaires. People were walking all over the place. As I talked about my alcoholism, rehab, recovery, the girls in the front office right next door talked about recipes. Gazpacho as a matter of fact.

But I was able to smile and carry on the conversation without much difficulty. Some people I know, their sponsor suggests that they say their first AND last name when identifying at a meeting.

Most of the shame of my disease is gone. Except when it isn't.

Luckily today I had God with me. I can't imagine how it would have been any other way.

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Look around

Helping Others...

So I'm here in a new city.  And feeling like a newcomer.  Another guy I met moved here a year ago and told me he felt the same way.  Up and down and up and down.  And then somebody said it.  As a matter of fact, that guy.  The more people he helped the better he felt.  Sheesh!  That's like, always the solution.

So then I started reaching out.  And reaching out.  One guy feels that no one is friendly but then when people come around doesn't talk, and plays with his phone the whole time.  Another can't sleep but is also the first one to suggest going to go start watching a movie at midnight.  This one is speaking for his second time at a meeting and nervous. This one is starting to believe but isn't entirely convinced. 

I can help these guys.

I am them.

Wait, what was it I was worried about?

I forget.

Early Morning Obsession

So I'm up this morning, unable to sleep anymore.

Because I feel like a bum.

I'm in an apartment that I paid for, in a city because of a job at a very well known and respectable institution that still wants me even though I'm an alcoholic, on a trip that I paid for, using electricity that I paid for.  I have a service commitment in a city where I barely know anyone.  I have a washer and dryer and laundry detergent.

And I still feel like a bum.

This is my disease.

He talks to me, his name is the same as mine.

Seems creepy.

Wonder what God thinks of all this.

Time Traveler's Prayer

Dear God,

Please remind me today that I am not a time-traveler.  I do not know the future, and I cannot change the past.

Love,

We prepare ourselves for the adventure of a new life...

So I don't know how long I can keep this up but I will try. 

Things are going amazingly well with my arrival in Miami.

It started yesterday morning as I stared at the phone wondering if I was too busy to answer or not as a sponsee called.  I picked up.  He asked me what was wrong as I frantically scrambled around for the screwdriver in the trash I had thrown away, necessary to take the bed apart.  "I'll be right there."  From my sponsee, this man who when I first suggested he ask someone out for coffee, looked at me like he was going to kill me.

He came over, restoring order to me and my partner's increasingly panicked efforts to pack or throw away everything we own.  This again for me was an illustration, that helping others, even doing something as simple as answering the phone sometimes, leads to places that I would never dream of.

All along the way, thousands of tiny miracles have continued to occur. 

In embarking on my new adventure, I've been super paranoid about dropping out of AA, falling on the map, ending up homeless and then dead.  As a good alcoholic, homeless and dead easily happen in 2 leaps.

So when we first arrived in our new home, realizing that I accidentally left a suitcase in the airport didn't slow me down from going to the meeting I planned to go to.

The first meeting we went to was a Young People's meeting, and before I could think too much, I stood up for service.  Literally, I am now the service coordinator for Young People.  I barely know anyone, but as it turns out, this commitment is the best way to get to know people.

As it turns out, an important item that was in the suitcase I forgot was the air mattress we were going to sleep on.  Before I knew it though, I was being dropped off at our new home by the first guy who stuck out his hand at the meeting.  With an air mattress.  And blankets.  And sheets.  And pillows.  He even remembered to stop for us to get toilet paper and toothpaste.

Today, I have learned quickly that my new city, unlike my old city, is not very pedestrian friendly.  The car we're going to drive hasn't come yet, but again, as God is in charge and not me, we have plenty of help. 

AA, since we have arrived, has, exactly as has always been told to me, scooped me up and taken me EVERYWHERE I need to go.  As I started a little manly crying in the Target because the dollar priced bowls I was going to get were even in my favorite color, I was filled and overwhelmed with the sense of God taking care of me.

God put me here, and God is going to restore me to sanity, as soon as I let him.