Daily Reprieve

Hardened.  A resurrected defiance against religious appeasement.  I continue to do the next right thing.  Sponsee 1 and I went to the Hut tonight.  Struggled through a sponsorship workshop.  It was good, and the panel was three men with a lot of sobriety behind them.  But my mind, my heart wandered.  I talked to a new friend tonight.  Somethings die while others are born.  Life goes on.

If I am vague in this communication, forgive me.  I do not wish to break the confidence of others.  But there are situations with significant people in my life that cause me great concern.  I am experiencing emotional pain tonight.  I didn’t realize it until I went to the meeting.  It surfaced, and I damn sure didn’t want to get publicly emotional.  Everything in me just wants to run, to squash the ability to feel.  But I know where that leads me.  I almost drove away from the meeting without talking to someone.  I turned around and returned to the Hut, and found one individual not otherwise involved in conversation.  I pulled him inside and let it out.  I talked and he listened.  No rose garden promises.  Just an understanding ear.  Something to shine a light on the horrors that haunt my mind. 

Alanon was mentioned again.  Probably something I should look into.

I have finished the Promises and Prayers document.  If anyone has anything they think would be good to add to it, let me know. 

As of August 16th, I have made it to 50% on the amends process.

There is a balance between setting boundaries, and making time to include others in my life.  Too much of a fortress can become a life-starving prison.  Demolition of the walls altogether allows life to loot the market of my soul.  It is hard being a father on a part time basis.  I love them some deeply.  But this balance is hard to maintain as they are here and then gone and then back again. 

I am re-learning to connect with others, to have and enjoy relationships while also learning to love and respect myself.  I have the two greatest offspring in the universe.  I have time with my father, to get to know the man who endured much in life to do what needed to be done.  And I have my consensual slave, who has come to know her Master like no other person on this planet. 

And I have this Entity, this friend and guide in life, the Higher Power.  “Just call Me John.”  Sometimes male, sometimes female, always a great help and comfort to me.  It is far superior to what I had among the churchians.  It is akin to the freedom of my childhood experiences with the early magic of Christmas as the practice of intuitive interaction allows me to unwrap one gift after another.  And none of these gifts or insights cause me to lose this new-found freedom in the pursuit of spiritual development.  For this one reason alone, I am thankful that I am an alcoholic who was forced to find recovery to stay alive.

I am really tired of this “recovery” job.  I am very interested in moving into a medical research position.  Microbiology maybe.  Takes time and money to do that.  But maybe if I take it like I did with recovery, and eat the bear one bite at a time.  I live so close to UAB and they are known for their medical emphasis. 

What have I done for my recovery today?  I immediately sought contact with my Higher Power this morning.  It was difficult to achieve, because of my dread for going into work.  I am impatient and find myself resenting life.  Nothing has come from the congressional I put in a month or so ago.  What could possibly be so difficult for Senator Session’s office to resolve?  Did I do something really bad while in active alcoholism?  It makes me sick inside to think about it.  All those years I proudly served my country, and now I am to be defined by . . . what?  I am both curious and afraid to know.  Anyway, back to the question.  Recovery.  I prayed, and have had to work to filter out my personal fears.  Fear has its own still quiet voice. 

How has my disease tried to kill me today?  I guess by getting me in conscience contact with my Lower Power – fear.  Makes me unable to accept or wait.  Robs me of serenity. 

Have I done anything else for recovery?  I talked to one of my sponsees.  I came home and got plenty of rest.  I considered my slave, and that almost always gives me a feeling of gratitude to the Web of the Universe.  If you think a wife catches hell being married to an alcoholic, imagine being a slave.  There just is not an alonon group out there to deal with their issues.  Tough Love is not  in her toolbox.  And I am thankful for that.  Gratitude.

I kept my word to a customer today and put up information at Wal-Mart meat department to show her where to find the Sirloin cut on Pork the next time she comes in.  I went out of my way to do that, even though she may never actually know it.  It made me feel good about myself.

I have much self-assigned homework to get done.  I really would like to get the guiding questions completed for the study of the first 164 pages of the Big Book.  See “Explore 164.”  I have made it to page 18, plus the forwards and the Dr.’s Opinion.  I also would like to load the rest of the Big Book promises on the page “Prayers & Promises.”  I feel like that is a form of service work.  Doing something for someone else.  Service to others is another way of supporting my recovery.  And it gets me into the book.

I guess I will retire to the solitude of the night and enjoy another day off.

I have had a wonderful morning breakfast with the Female aspect of my Higher Power.  She gave me the plan of the day.  I don’t know what to call Her.  For loss of a better term, I just refer to Her as My Lady.  I will be working on my Heretic blog site today, in Her honor.  She has helped to stabilize me, and I am deeply grateful.  I also conducted some amends business, coupled with last week’s time with the Pastor, brings me from 45% to 48% complete on the amends process.

Great 1st step meeting.  Someone said that before she could identify herself as anything else, she had to recognize that she is an addict.  This resonates tonight, while I am having such an intimate encounter with my own insanity.   Fatigue?  Probably one facet of the negative impact.  I am doing better but, lost.

I didn’t make it to the meeting last night.  The fatigue made it too risky to drive.  I definitely need to make one tonight.  Something is brewing inside.  Darkness.  Quiet anger.  Remembering the death of My little one in Germany.  So many quiet and furious thoughts.  “Too many mind.”

I am going to head out to an 8:30 meeting at the Hut tonight.  Today was a very active, physically demanding day.  But the rush of customers, the fast pace, seemed to fill me with an adrenaline rush.  It was very exhilarating.  I found that I was able to climb like spiderman, and focus, and move quickly.  And this all seems to derive from starting the workday off with a plan.  And working alone also helped.  No one to interrupt my plans.  I am sure that somewhere along the way I am going to collapse.  But I am still up.  Tonight is a 10-12 step meeting.  Spiritual maintenance.  Beginning to drag emotionally.  I guess its time to get moving.

I went back to a church that sponsors a program called Celebrate Recovery.  It was the church I had great resentments for, particularly for its pastor.  I felt I had been a VICTIM of a witch hunt and that they were instrumental in the break-up of my marriage.  Resentments are inner courtrooms that record the negative impact others have had on us.  But the 4th step taught me that when I view myself as a victim, it is usually because I am disregarding my impact and amplifying everyone else’s.  There are exceptions of course.  But recognizing my part in a scenario repaints my self-image as being someone who had power, used it wrongly, and others reacted.  The 4th step tells me that in my life, I have the greatest impact.  I am the giant.  And when I release others, I deny their right to rent space in my head.  This is the beginning of being empowered by this program.  That power is sealed by changing the way I connect with others.  In steps 8/9, the amends process affirms the mightiness of my impact, allows me to take responsibility for it, and causes me to reconnect with others in a way that supports my sobriety.  I already knew how to connect to others in such a way as to support my alcoholism.  That way has to be undone. 

Tonight, the pastor and I reconnected.  I am not sure he would enjoy the nitty gritty of my spiritual life and how I exercise my personal freedom with the Higher Power, but so what.  We embraced one another.  I could witness him being of benefit to other addicts and alcoholics, and could see that gift of his in action.  In reality, we are all fucked up in some way or another.  We are all in this boat together.  No one survives under a social microscope.  And both my sponsees were there and benefited from my walking back into that church. 

And I have no desire to become religious.  No guilt.  No need to appease an uninterested god.  I walked out of that building and I am still free.  For that I am beyond grateful.  Good night all.