Away from My Peeps

I am away for a long weekend in Phoenix with my wife and youngest daughter.  This is my fourth day in a row without a meeting and we won't get back home until late tonight.  It's rare that I go four days without a meeting and I'm missing my peeps greatly.  What I've been doing to stay sober these last few days is to read books somehow related to my recovery.  Yesterday, my brother-in-law gave me a book that he thought I might like: it's by Mel B. and is called Three Recovery Classics.  The idea behind the book was to provide people in recovery with access to three key pieces of literature that were a big part of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith's life in recovery.  The three works are: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond and The St. Francis Prayer.

I think that Mike gave it to me because he knows I love reading anything about the history of AA and anything about recovery in general.  Not sure where he got the book, but it's autographed by the author.  The book has this "I haven't been read" feeling to it, so I'm guessing that Mike gave it to me just to free up a little space on his book shelf.  He's not as "in" to AA as I am and that's perfectly fine with me. 

As a Man Thinketh is a really good book and fits very well into my own experience: my thinking, right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, has a lot more to do with my circumstances in life than chance, happenstance, luck or a Santa Claus-like God. 

As I mentioned in one of my early blogs, I developed this weird habit, early on in my recovery, of memorizing all sorts of things that I cam across in my recovery reading.  In a sense, I was almost "brainwashing" myself by committing to memory all sorts of things that I found beautiful or utterly true for me.  By repeating them over and over, they eventually became part of my way of seeing and interpreting things that were happening in my life.  Some of them became tools for personal inventory or self-examination.  As I read through As a Man Thinketh I realized that I couldn't but agree with almost everything he said.  The same was true for Drummond's book on Love (which "is" The Greatest Thing in the World).

Whatever.  Reading this book helped me reconnect with another alcoholic (Mel B.) and that sets things back on path for me.   Like Bill W. and Dr. Bob, I've found much value in reading non-AA literature and using it to give greater depth and width to my own recovery.  What I most looked forward to in reading these early classics was not so much the truth that they might contain, but rather, I looked forward to finding more about the founders of AA through sharing something that they read and incorporated into their lives and their writings. Helps me put more "context" into their writings.

In addition to this book, I also was able to talk to a sponsee yesterday and that was great.  He's having a hard time not only with staying sober but also with depression and isolation.  The depression and isolation seem to feed on each other and he tends to get caught in a very negative cycle with these-----but at least this time he's refrained from drinking during this bout with darkness and loneliness.

There's a part of me that wants to suggest refocusing his attention to more positive things (as suggested by James Allen) or on helping/loving others as a means to get out of himself (as suggested by Drummond) --- but making such suggestions has rarely been my way (as suggested by Dr. Earle!).  I may pass on this book, Three Recovery Classics, though --- it might suggest some alternative ways out of the painful place he tends to go when he runs out of solutions.

I am very much looking forward to returning to my home and work and regular routines.  I like routine.  Except when I don't.

Take care!

Mike L.