Posts Tagged ‘Honesty’
Winter Night
December 13th, 2009 | 
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My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does. December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old. My “birthday” is not really a big deal anymore. No, the anniversary I celebrate tonight, the reason this day is important to me, is that on this night, three years ago, I suddenly saw myself clearly and suddenly had a little hope that recovery would be possible.
The first two years were easy. This last one has been a bitch. There have been times recently when I have wished that I had died back in May. It would have been so much easier. I’ve even, at times, tried to tell myself that if that illness had killed me that I would be a hero. I would have died sober. I would have died doing the things that I was supposed to be doing. My family and friends would mourn me, sure, but there would be something happy underneath the sorrow; the knowledge that they had known me and that in my last years I had been sober.
Lately things have been much, much harder. I’ve had to return to being medicated to stop the insanity that has been going through my mind. The medicines are working, so that is good, but I still have a ton of stuff to face.
Somehow, in spite of everything, I have remained sober. In fact I’ve been sober longer now than I have ever been since I was 14 years old and I attribute it to that moment at the corner of 6th and Pueblo, under the street lamp, in the snow, when I finally understood that the pain I was in then was the very best that I could hope for, unless I got sober, and when I suddenly believed that it would be possible.
” God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen”
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Say it ain’t so, Joe.
My friend Robert’s sponsor told him early on that he can say anything he wants to in a meeting, anything at all, so long as it’s honest.
I guess my pride is intact on some level or something because I don’t do that, at least not at meeting level. I share honestly, mind you. I just don’t share “anything”. I save the anything for you poor guys. I’m more comfortable spilling my “anything” here, where I know you show up because you want to, and not because you have to. I also know that with a wider audience I have a greater chance of reaching someone who gets it.
So here’s today’s “anything”; the kind that I cannot bring myself to share in a meeting around here-the kind they’d probably lynch me for here in the northwestern corner of Jesusland. Read the rest of this entry »
Occam’s Razor Burn
I just hate it when I suddenly realize the truth behind those stupid things we say to each other in meetings. Keep it simple, stupid? Don’t you dare call me stupid. Motherfucker.
But there you go. I am making too hard a work of a simple thing. Recovering addicts and alcoholics everywhere, from every walk of life, no matter how far down the scale they have gone, get up in the morning, go to their jobs, do their dishes and laundry, make their beds, go to meetings, sponsor people, return to school, save money for things they want. They even find time and energy in there to have relationships with people and a life outside the rooms.
I actually have done a load of dishes today, taken out the garbage, flipped my mattress. And here it is only 9:30. So there ya’ go.
Keep it simple, stupid. (Would it be too much to ask for ‘studly’? Keep it simple, studly? Seriously.)
Picking up the tools
The first tool they “lay at our feet†in DA is tracking; carefully recording all income and expenditures. It is pretty easy to track total abstainance, but in a program for something you absolutely have to use, tracking becomes very important.
I had some money in my pocket since I got paid for a little side gig I do, so I set out to go buy the little spiral notebook they suggested I get so I could write down everything I spend and everything I take in. Of course I only became willing to go shopping for the notebook after trying out 7 different home accounting software programs and finding that none of them were magical.
I couldn’t stand the idea of a little spiral wire living in my pocket to I took the suggestion of someone else and bought index cards. If you’re going to have index cards you need something to put them in so I bought an expanding card file. I know there are pens around here somewhere but you can’t be too careful, so I bought pens, too. Picking out a pen took 20 minutes.
By then I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I bought a salad, some snacks for at work. I decided that K2O Special K water is going to be just the thing to magically take off the weight I’ve packed on since I started on the “I’m so poor I only eat carbs†diet. $35 later I walked out with the index cards I went in for.
I got home and there were 2 bills in my mailbox. They totalled $2,700. I got to work the next day and my boss wiped 24 hours I’m supposed to work this week off the schedule.
And while I’m at work I hear a radio commercial for Happy Fish, a local sushi bar and trendy alcoholic emporium, and they’re naming and describing all these drinks. On the radio. And they get to to one that’s made from Godiva chocolate and Stoli and I just KNOW I would be SO SEXY on those. My god I want one of those.
I shared all of this at DA tonight, along with the fact that my bed hurts me so much to sleep on that I’ve taken to sleeping on the wood floor. It’s less painful to get off of. I shared that and I shared the fact that myspendingplan.com suggested, after I told it my expected income and my rent, that I set aside $41 per month for food.
After the meeting some well meaning jerk tried to tell me about some mattress pad that “isn’t very expensive. You wouldn’t have to save for long to get one,†and I wanted to punch her in the face.
I want to run. I want to jump on a motorcycle and hit the road. I want to write bad checks everywhere, get drunk on chocolate martinis, get high, get laid, and disappear. I feel terrible writing that, but it’s true. It would probably all end the same way for me that it did for Sam Nelson, just 2 blocks from where I had my moment of clarity 20 months ago.
The only progress that I’ve made is that I’m actually tracking my spending now, and at the moment it is making me feel even more hopeless than I felf when I was just in denial about the situation.
I picked up the tool, damn it. I want to feel better now.
The Checkout
I had just left the all time, well at least one of the bottom 10, all time worst AA meetings I have ever been in. I’m not judging. I’m just saying. I left grateful that I’m me, and I’m at this place in recovery. Enough said.
So the 10:00 meeting I was at is right next door to the supermarket and I had to pick up stuff for lunch so that I can eat lunch when I go to work (WAHOO! YEAH BABY! I GOT OFF MY FAT, POMPOUS ASS AND GOT A FREAKING JOB! WHOOO!) tomorrow. (In a related story, I’ll be designing and selling storage solutions -closets. I figure I’ve spent enough time in them that decorating them is the next logical step.)
In line in front of me were a couple of great looking guys. The one in his early 30s was just fantastic looking. Gorgeous teeth, stunning blue eyes, breathtaking legs. The guy with him, a mid-20s twink, was kind of red eyes, not nearly as impeccably groomed, but handsome just the same. The were both pretty animated; pretty smiley. Obviously together.
They were buying a 12 pack. And a roll of aluminum foil.
You know where my head went. I’m irritated and disgusted. And I’m kind of sad and lonely.
The Cheerleader
Dennis is a “30 day wonder†and an unfortunate artifact of my bad old days; and he was at the meeting I went to last night. I don’t normally attend the local gay AA meeting except on milestones. I’ve heard that all you need to start a new meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot. I was halfway there when I realized there were 179 other meetings in the Treasure Valley that weren’t Gay AA, so I saved myself the cost of a Mr. Coffee and looked for the solution elsewhere. The meeting I attended last night, though, was nothing like. No. That’s a lie. It was not so much like the dull and decidedly non-spiritual meetings I grew resentful at. I was really happy I was there.
When the topic of the meeting came up, which revolved around the recent suicide death of another member’s sexual abuser and brother, Dennis got up and left the room. Read the rest of this entry »
My Name is Chris and I’m a Compulsive Spender
Tonight I’m going to my first Debtors Anonymous meeting. There is only one DA meeting. There is only one of them a week here in Boise. I checked out the DA website this morning and it is really directed at people with incredible credit card debt. I don’t have debt like that, though I have tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt. In terms of spending, though, it seems like I’ve earned a seat there.
I had a sponsee call this morning who I got to confront about lying to me about using. I’ve been pretty irritated about that. I don’t know how you can offer the solution to someone who can’t be honest about the problem.
Welcome to another day in paradise, right?
And There I Was . . .
Caught in the Snide
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky empty pants and I
Were standing face to face.
I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried.
Oh! Save me from those pale green pants
With nobody inside.
-Dr. Seuss
Isn’t that the essence of fear? When we finally find the courage to face our fear we often discover it is empty. Having conquered one, we move along in life, unaware of which of our unknown or unacknowledged fears lies ahead; what opportunity for incredible spiritual growth remains to be discovered. Read the rest of this entry »
The Last Chance Texaco by Chris M. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
