Recently, I've felt more and more pulled in all different directions. What's weird is that I'm relatively calm with this awareness. I've got a six different project schedules running at work and seem to walk into the office day these days "triple booked" most of the day. My wife's developing a long and ever expanding "to do" list of things I need to accomplish before our daughter's wedding in September. I'm continuing my regular meeting routine pretty much, although my average numbers of meeting per week is probably slipping below ten a week now. I meet regularly with my sponsees and feel relatively good at my ability to listen to them and do my best to offer a helpful story or word.
I have been cutting back on some activities just by necessity and one of those is blogging. I've done this now for almost 8 months and have really enjoyed it. It's added a great deal to my recovery and over this time, I've actually connected up with several "anonymous" folks along the way that I would not have touched were it not for my decision to try this blogging out. But it's been hard to find a few moments, like this one now, where I can sit down without much interruption and write.
My interruptions though are my life. Blogging, somewhat like my meetings, involves stepping back for a brief moment to reflect on that life and find a moment of replenishment. In addition, blogging and meetings are both places where I most frequently encounter other suffering alcoholics with whom I can share what I've found and can find what I'm most looking for...
That's it for now. Back to life.
Mike L.
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2 comments:
yours is one of my favorite blogs, i hope blogging doesn't fall off the to-do list!
TEN meetings a week? very impressive!
I once heard someone warn not to "let the life that AA gave you get in the way of your AA life."
I frequently struggle with that -- and what's more, I struggle with the fact that it's mostly my fault. One of the most maddening things is how it can all slip away and go out of control in an instant -- and the precipitating event can be rather innocuous. My case however, is rather dramatic, and I won't go into it here.
One bad decision, like taking the first drink, took away ten years of my life. Gone. What started the recovery was when I woke up one day in 2005, half-blacked-out, crying, and realized that it wasn't 1996 anymore. Friends, family, opportunities, good times, gone, just gone. During the ten years, death, divorce, and many geographical "cures". I've since heard it referred to as "the day the earth stood still", which I feel is a` propos.
We may be able to live one day at a time and have an enhanced awareness of "the moment" -- where we're at, what we're doing, why it's important -- but it still doesn't stop us from making one bad decision, and blinding ourselves to the incremental, progressive, hidden costs of that decision.
Recovery is costly, because we pay the costs of our past poor decisions on a daily basis. And I don't know if the books'll ever be balanced.
Talking to my sponsor yesterday he told me that I have to take one crisis at a time. My problem, he says is that I don't know how to budget my time. So he suggested that I make a budget, allocating time for this thing and for that thing -- and also be flexible enough to change when necessary. Ha! That's the ideal -- which rarely works in practice.
He also suggest a 2% solution: 2% of a day is approximately 15 minutes. He suggested I give 2% of my day to God. "What do I do with those 15 minutes? Talk to God? Meditate?" His response was to do what feels right if and when it comes. But take the time.
And he suggested that when I get overwhelmed, blame God. This I laughed at, but he was serious. He had some rationale behind it that had to do with getting out of denial and it seemed good to me.
Another person suggested I pray, saying something like, "God, I can't handle this right now, so I'm going to give it to you and give it back to me later piece by piece."
When I can't see the consequences of my actions and I don't have enough information to make a decision, the uncertainty will kill me and I'll be paralyzed, or I'll rashly and impulsively make a bad decision for which I'll pay every day. About the only thing I can do is get closer to God.
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