A Change in Perception

On Friday morning I attended a memorial for an oldtimer from around here who'd died with 39 years of sobriety.  A great man.  His name was Wayne Smith from Walnut Creek.  He'd sometimes begin his shares with, "Hi, I'm Wayne S. from Walnut C."  He was a master storyteller and will be greatly missed.  At the reception, someone had placed a bunch of CDs of a speaker meeting talk that Wayne had given years ago and on the way home from the memorial I listened to Wayne's pitch.  It was wonderful, but it was even more wonderful to hear his voice again, full of life.  He mentioned in it that he'd loved AA from the very beginning and it was the longest love affair of his whole life.

In his story though, he said something about The Steps that I'd never heard before and that was that the Steps were all about perception, or more accurately, changing our perception on a variety of important things in our lives.  Each step was, according to Wayne, all about changing our perspective from what was unhealthy and/or untrue to a new perspective that was more healthy and true.  He then gave examples from his own life to explain what he meant.  He said that the 1st Step was, for him, all about changing his perception about who he was in terms of his relationship with alcohol: for years, he had thought that alcohol was something that he could control and manage....  And that the 1st Step was about changing that misperception to something more accurate and true: that alcohol was not something he could control and that with alcohol in him, his life had become totally unmanageable.

I knew exactly what he meant, I only wish that he had gone through with more examples from his life to show how each of the remaining 11 steps helped him change his perspective to become more healthy and true.  And since yesterday, I have been mulling over how each of the 12 steps have helped me change my perspective on my life and on myself.

For me, the 1st step didn't involve changing my perception of alcohol.  Rather, it changed my perception of me as an alcoholic.  In the past, I'd thought that it was possible to avoid becoming an alcoholic (like my dad, I must add) by controlling my drinking, by proving to myself (when necessary) that I could stop drinking or by drinking like a non-alcoholic.  What happened in my 1st step was waking up to the reality that I was an alcoholic and that being an alcoholic wasn't my problem!  My problem was my 30 year attempt NOT to be an alcoholic. Thirty years of trying to drink "like" a non-alcoholic!  That delusion changed the morning I woke up on October 20, 2001 and realized that I couldn't stop drinking and that "not being able to stop drinking" was called "alcoholism" and that I was, like it or not!, an alcoholic.  That morning, being an alcoholic was perfectly OK.  It was just a disease and I just happened to have it.  Everything in my past life immediately became understandable.  It all made sense!  That's why I did what I did!  Ahhhh.  That was two days before my first meeting of AA.

The 2nd step then changed how I was going to move forward with the remainder of my life.  It wasn't so much about believing in a particular concept of God.  It was more about my own letting go of the idea that I was God or God-like.  And my drinking was an essential part of me being God-like: that is, I could change people (me and others), places and things all by means of a drink.  And another.  And another.  People, places and things all had one thing in common: they were not the way I thought they should be!  And if God wasn't going to fix that problem, I would help Him out.  And when I couldn't do that on my own, I resorted to the use of alcohol.  Once I got sober, my perspective changed in relatively short fashion:  I began to realize that I wasn't God and that I didn't need to do that God Act any more.  Everyone, everything and every situation was perfect just the way it was at that moment in time and I didn't need to get back into the battle of making the universe conform to the way I thought it should be.  For me, the return to sanity didn't involve some sort of return to mental health.  My alcoholic insanity wasn't mental illness.  It was the deeply ingrained belief that there was something wrong with me and that I needed to be or to become someone different than who I was.  Trying to be someone I wasn't is my definition of insanity.  Sanity then was the gradual awareness that I was perfect just the way I am and that this perfection includes the fact that my body processes alcohol and other mind-altering drugs differently than non-alcoholics and non-addicts.

The 3rd step continued that change in perspective from the inside out.  My 3rd step did not involve kneeling down to some Higher Power or even a decision to do so.  My 3rd step involved letting go of my death grip on life and letting things be just the way they were.  I no longer needed to play God.

The 4th thru the 9th steps all changed my perception of myself in that I had deeply held beliefs that there was something very wrong with me.  I came into the rooms carrying quite a heavy sack of shit: an invisible but still heavy sack of guilt (for things I had done) and shame (for who I thought I was).  In the 4th step, I began this change from the inside: with who I was and with what I had done, both the so-called good and the so-called bad.  I wrote down all the things from my past that "made me wince".  With the help of my sponsors, I wrote without judgment or condemnation.  

In my 5th step, I shared my secrets and ultimately, I shared the "exact nature of my wrongs."  For me, that process changed me in the most profound of ways.  I was no longer a bad person trying to become good; I was a sick person trying to become well.  And I still am.  I began to look at myself with eyes of compassion and understanding and I was able to do that by first seeing that compassion and understanding reflected in the eyes of my sponsors as they looked at me.

The 6th and 7th steps were a continuation of 4 and 5: they were all about changing how I saw myself.  The change has not been so much one of identifying or changing what's supposedly wrong with me (i.e., shortcomings or defects of character) but rather, coming to see things that I thought were wrong with me and now seeing them more as being just perfect!  The greatest example of that truth is my alcoholism.  I'd thought for 30 years that being an alcoholic was the worst possible thing I could become: it turns out that it was the best thing that could ever happen to me!  Having alcoholism is not a shortcoming or a defect.  My shortcoming, if you want me to have one, was trying to be someone I wasn't.  The 6th and 7th steps have been extremely helpful in identifying other aspects of who I am that I once thought to be "wrong" and changing that perception to become more healthy and accurate.  More compassionate.  More loving.

The 8th and 9th steps started me on a journey more to the outside of me: to my actions and behaviors and how they impacted or harmed others.  Both in the past and now.  These steps allowed me to take my newfound perspectives and apply them to my relationships with others.  While all my past actions were needed for me to become who I am now, the fact is that much of my past acts harmed others in some significant ways and the damage to those relationships continued into the present.  These steps gave me a mechanism to go back to these people and begin a process of healing and forgiveness.  Only in a few instances did this amends process involve saying the words, "I'm sorry."  Most of the time, it involved my sharing my story and what was going on with me back when...  I hadn't meant to hurt them as I clearly did and I was now wanting to clean up those messes and harms as best I could.  My sack of shit got lighter and lighter as a result.

The last three steps have given me a regular daily routine whereby I can continue the basic "inside out" work I did in the previous nines steps.  The 10th step gives me a daily process where I can refocus my view of myself and my actions.  Where have I done harm and what can I do to repair the damage I may have done?  How can I do that with compassion and loving-kindness, both for others and for myself? 

The 11th step gives me a daily practice where I can be quiet and know that I am not God.  I am Mike and I'm an alcoholic.  And that's perfectly OK!  It gives me breathing room.

The 12th step has totally turned my life upside down and it happens again and again as I try to share what I have been given with others who struggle with this disease.  Each one of my sponsees, as well as many others in my life, have changed me by the fact that they trust me with their secrets and struggles.  I really don't think I give them much other than an ear and a few stories of what happened to me in similar circumstances.  I inevitably walk away from our time together with a totally different perspective on my day and myself.  I am blessed.

Wayne was right: The Steps and this whole recovery process are all about changing our preception and our perspectives.  I'll miss you my friend!!

Take care!

Mike L.

What's Not a Blessing?

At today's meeting, the chair suggested the topic of blessings --- in our recovery, what sort of blessings had we received as a result of our sobriety.  I never got called on, so I got to practice listening.  Everyone who shared talked of a wide array of blessings that they received since getting sober, most commented at least in passing on the blessing of sobriety itself and that certainly resonated within me. 

OK, I have to admit my listening during the meeting was frequently interrupted by memories.  I couldn't help remembering was the many things in my life which I never saw as gift or blessing when they were being experienced by me at the time.  It was only in retrospect, after getting sober, that I began to see the blessing in these supposed unfortunate or unfair circumstances in my life.  Of course, the greatest misfortune in my life was all the issues related to alcoholism: my father's alcoholism, my fear of becoming an alcoholic "like him", my son's addiction and his unknowing struggle to be just like me: a son who was not an addict like his father.

It was only after getting sober that I started looking at all these "wrongs" in a different manner and that's in large part due to a man named Earle.  Earle had gotten sober two days after I'd been born and by the time I got sober, he'd been sober for over 48 years.  Although he taught me many important lessons during the short 14 months I knew him before his death in January 2003, the greatest lessons involved learning to see myself as perfect, just as I am.  This was a message that was difficult for me to accept or even to hear.  It was seemingly inconsistent that much of the message I was hearing in the rooms of AA in my early months of recovery: the message which I heard being preached by many was that there was something terribly wrong with us and that sobriety involved not just "not drinking" but also cleaning house, being rid of defects of character and doing the right thing.  At least, that was the message that I was hearing --- probably because of my own self-hatred, guilt over what I'd done over the years and shame over the alcoholic I had become despite my fears to the contrary.

Earle seemed to speak a different and discordant language.  "Mike, you're perfect just the way you are!  You don't have to change anything!"  He seemed to know how much I wanted to be anything and to feel anything other than who I actually was and what I was actually feeling.  He would elicit from me what I was feeling at any one time, but didn't want to feel and certainly didn't want to talk about with him or anyone else.  Feelings scared the shit out of me.  I was highly sensitive, in large part because I had been without my self-prescribed medication for too long and the feelings were sensing open season on assaulting me and paying me back for years of repression and denial.

He'd ask me how things were going.  I'd try to evade him, but he was persistent beyond belief.  I'd try to appease him with a tidbit of what was going on, "Oh, I'm doing fine, thanks."   But he'd smile and say, "You wouldn't lie to an old man like me, would you?"  I'd be disarmed by his smile and laugh back and say, "Well, yes, I guess I would."  He'd laugh, and begin his gentle assault, "No, really.  How are you doing?"  I'd look up at the clock, praying that the meeting would begin soon -- but no such luck.  "Well, I'm feeling a little down I guess."

He looked like he was really listening to me.  But that obviously wasn't true, because once I was finished telling him how I was feeling, he'd ask me, "Well, what's wrong with that?"  What's wrong with feeling down?  Come on!!!  Down is not a good feeling and I deserved to feel better!  I'd been sober for two months and my reward was feeling down?  Where's the happy, joyous and freedom experience I'd been reading about?  I knew enough not to say all this to him, because he was clearly dangerous.  But he was persistent and wouldn't let me off the hook: "What's wrong with feeling down?"

I'd try to give him a few more morsels, just to tide him over until the beginning of the meeting: "Well, when I'm feeling down, I start getting depressed."  I'd give him a little more detail than that, but he was relentless.  When I'd run out of breath explaining why depression wasn't a good thing to be experiencing, he'd look at me with uncomfortable kindness and ask me again, "Well, what's wrong with feeling depressed?"

This guy was a licensed psychiatrist and a surgeon, and he didn't know what was wrong with depression?  It's an illness, for god's sake!  People go to doctors when they are depressed and I had no business being depressed.  I needed to stay sober and I wasn't going to be able to do that if I kept feeling so damned depressed!  I know, I was sitting there with such a doctor and telling him about my depression certainly didn't seem to be helping.  He just didn't seem to understand.  Ultimately, I resorted to my own scare tactics as an attempt to get him off my frustrated back and said, "You know Earle, if I keep feeling all these feelings of saddness, anger, depression, remorse, etc. -- I'm going to start wanting to drink again!"  I mistakenly thought that would shut him up and put him back in his place and far away from me.

He only smiled again and countered my evasive maneuver with, "Well, what would be wrong with that?"  Earle died before the truth of his lesson really sunk down to the core of my being.  It took a long time before the habit of distrusting and manipulating feelings began to dissolve and to be replaced by a general attitude of acceptance for whatever feeling I happened to be feeling at any particular time.

So as I listened to people's stories of supposed "good" things that had happened to them since getting sober, I couldn't help but think of Earle and I silently began compiling a list of the hidden blessings in my life that were once seen as bad or wrong: 

• my alcoholism
• my feelings
• my body
• my past and present
• death
• pain
• suffering
• my wrongs
• my mistakes
• my ignorance
• my confusion
• my uncertainty

All blessings without exception.  And when something strikes me sideways, I may not see it as blessing right away.  But I am more likely as not to eventually hear Earle's voice asking, "Well, Mike, what's wrong with that?"  Sure, I can fence around with him trying once again to evade the master.  But I inevitably end up smiling and laughing with Earle as I let him know that there's simply nothing wrong with anything in my life.  It truly is perfect just as it is.  I don't need to change a single thing.  Including the desire to change...

Take care!

Mike L.

Change

Over the last 7 years of sobriety, I've heard two seemingly contradictory messages: (1) to stay sober, you only have to change one thing: everything and (2) you're perfect just they way you are and you don't need to change anything. There are many authors/sources of the first message and only one or two sources for the second: two of my sponsors, Earle and Dave.

The first message scared me when I first started hearing it in my early recovery. That's because in the past, when I was still drinking, I had one primary agent for change: alcohol. Alcohol was my mechanism for changing everything: my wife, my kids, other people, my feelings, my perceptions, my reality, my self. If things were wrong (and they were ALWAYS wrong!), a drink (or two...) would quickly and magically change them and make them better. Or, at worst, the alcohol would make the problems unfeelable.

So after getting struck sober, hearing this message that if I really wanted to stay sober, I was going to have to buy into this commitment to changing everything. Even after I realized that the intent of this message was limited to changing myself and not others or other things --- it still terrified me.

That's about the time I met Earle --- who I've talked about here so much that I'm going to stop introducing him to you. If you're new to my blog, click on the "Dr. Earle" keywords on the right side of my blog and you can read past blogs where I've talked about this man in depth. Anyway, one of the first things that Earle passed on to me with the idea that "I am perfect just the way I am." He repeated this to me again and again and again... You're perfect, Mike! You don't need to change one damn thing. There is nothing wrong with you. This defect of character stuff is bullshit (he was 48 years sober at the time so I let him get away what that heresy...) and over talked about in AA. There's nothing "wrong" with being an alcoholic. What's "wrong" (or maybe, fruitless) is the attempt of an alcoholic to try existing as a non-alcoholic. That's dumb and deadly. I can't drink alcohol like a non-alcoholic in the same way that I can't swim and breathe underwater like a fish. I'm not a fish. I'm not a non-alcoholic.

So I was still bothered by Earle's insistence that I didn't need to change and never got to resolve this issue with him before his death (he died when I was about 14 months sober -- he was over 49 years sober when he died). But over the last couple of years, I've decided that there's nothing wrong with my wanting change in my life: that's part of who I am and that's OK. It helps me when I understand and accept that I am rarely the agent or controller of significant change in my life. That most significant changes seem to come about in their own time and as a result of a wide variety of "causes" -- including actions I take, adjustments I make in my attitudes, changes in my habits and diet and routines, and a whole bunch of other "outside factors" totally outside of my control or influence.

So it's no longer a question of whether I have to change or not. Change is really not an option for me or anyone else. Change is a fact of life. It happens regardless of my belief in or attitude about it. The more important question and/or challenge for me is how I am going to participate in this changing body and world. Am I going to go with the flow or am I going to swim upstream? Both are options available to me and either one might the the right approach at any one time in my life. I think this is all the hidden truth in the Serenity Prayer: accepting what we cannot change, changing what we can and knowing the difference between what we can/can't change.

There are certain things that are unchangeable: past events are what they are and I can't change them. I can though, change my attitude toward past events: I can learn from them, I can be resentful over them, I can accept them, I can be grateful for them. But I can't change the fact of them. I also can't change the future: because it doesn't exist anywhere. Feelings also seem to fall into this category of things that can't be changed: they just are what they are. That said, I would point out that feelings do change, they are not static or life long. What I need to remember with feelings is that "I'm" not the agent of change in terms of feelings. They will change in their own course: I just need to be aware of them, listen to them and avoid acting on them until that can be done with kindness (or at least, without harm).

And lastly, there are some things that I can change sometimes but not all times. My wife is a great example of that. I can sometimes bring about changes (pleasant or not) in her by my words and actions. But in other ways, I am totally powerless to change who she is or what she feels. Just like I am totally powerless to change who I am or what I feel.

Change does not scare me like it used to do both before and after getting sober. Change is actually what's making my life exciting, interesting, challenging and meaning-filled.

Take care!

Mike L.

Ahhh, The Good ol' Days....

An AA friend passed on to me an email that's circulating around the Internet by some AAer going on at some length about how AA has gotten corrupted as a result of treatment centers and the influx of their graduates into the rooms of AA and that, as a result, our proven "success rate" (whatever that is and however anyone could ever measure that!) has dwindled to unacceptable levels. The email basically concludes that the only solution is to get back to the basics, go back to doing it that way they used to do it in the good ol' days of early AA. Ahhh, then things will be as they should be!

I think not.

The email resulted in my own counter-rant email to my friend --- a rant against the position espoused by the forwarded email's anonymous author. I even forwarded my AA friend a link to a previous blog of mine on this dangerous theme of some old timers that we need to get back to the way it was done when they were getting sober. I mean, why not get some more mileage out of that previous rant of mine? Anyway, apparently, I've still got some steam in me over this, so I thought I'd let it go here.

First of all, one of the cornerstones of early AA (at least as I read it...) is their humility. They didn't claim to have found a conformist or dogmatic cookie cutter kind of a program that would work for everyone in exactly the same way. They knew that such a dogmatic approach wouldn't work for alcoholics like them. I suspect if the early timers in AA heard the dogmatic "back to basics" chanting of some of the folks I hear in AA meetings today, they'd stand up and tell these "I Know the Way" gang of folks to sit down and shut up. They want to hear more about what happened to these folks who found part of their answer by means of a treatment center....

They might remind us to re-read that paragraph toward the end of the first part of the Big Book, on page 164, where they closed this section with the most clear statement of their humble, not know-it-all approach to a program of recovery: "Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us."

Why is it these "Beware the end of AA is near-sayers" don't consider that treatment centers are part of this "more" that would be disclosed to us?

Why is it they don't consider that the reason AA stopped doing things like they did in the good ol' days---like having newcomers get down on their knees and saying/doing their 3rd step prayer before ever being allowed into an AA meeting---is that this shit didn't work? They adapted and looked for ways that worked more effectively at allowing people to come into the rooms of AA and to stay as long as they wanted.

Why is they seem to be fighting a never ending battle against the trends currently being seen in AA where we are more and more tolerant of others and their paths into the rooms of AA? Weren't we supposed to get to a point where we ceased fighting everyone and everything? Isn't that one of the "basics" old time AA? The grumpy old men and women who chided new and not so newcomers for identifying as "andas" (alcoholic and a addict) seem to be dying out now and it just doesn't seem to bother most folks how other folks identify themselves in an AA meeting. Personally, I don't see a distinction between alcoholic and addict. Alcohol is a drug. A recovering addict will not do well in their recovery if they consider alcohol "less than" any other drug. A recovering alcoholic will not do well on any sort of marijuana maintenance program. We all know that. I really have more important things to do in my life than concern myself with these semantic nonsensical pissing matches.

In fact, I think I'm done with this rant. Feel better now.

Take care.

Mike L.

An Improved Vocabulary

I was in a meeting the other evening and the chair noted that she was feeling like her life at 12+ years sober was "unmanagable" and then went on to describe some of the circumstances or situations underneath that so-called unmanagability. Her topic was the 1st step and how were people dealing with unmanagability.

As I listened to this woman's share, I began to sense that what she was describing as "unmanageable" wasn't really what I would call "unmanageable". It was something else... It seemed to be more of a feeling of "discomfort" or "uneasiness" with the situations in which she found herself at this time in her life. She wanted things to be different than they were, especially on an emotional level. That they weren't different when she wanted them to be was being categorized as a sign of her life being "unmanagable." I'm not sure if it was her life that was unmanagable as much as it was her feelings of discomfort and dis-ease. I shared this sentiment at group level and her head seemed to nod as though my words were helpful.

Since that meeting, I've begun to reflect on the fact that one of the greatest gifts I've received over the last six years of sobriety has been the gift of a greater vocabulary for my feelings and emotions. When I got sober, I had only a few words to describe whatever emotional state I found myself: 1. Fine, 2. Depressed. 3. Angry (especially if you kept pestering me about why I was depressed!), 4. Getting Angry and 5. I dunno.

I think that of those five words or phrases, I liked "Fine." the best. For me, "Fine" meant that I really had no clue as to what I was feeling and no care about finding out. True, I took "Fine" and "I dunno" to be synonymous, but Fine seemed to work better with my wife, most of the time at least. "I dunno" made me sound like a 48 year old idiot.

Finding out what I was feeling was painful and I didn't like pain. When I felt pain, I drank. Now that I think of it, when I didn't feel pain, I drank: not to feel, but to feel "better".

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I received some great mentoring on dealing with emotions and feelings when I came into AA. I was taught that there were no good or bad feelings. Feelings were without moral judgment or categorization. In addition, I was taught a whole new vocabulary for human emotions and this vocabulary is expanding at an exponential pace. Anger, saddness, sorrow, joy, fear, love, frustration, tenderness, passion, grief, jealousy, excitement, anxiety, comfort, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, etc. Oh, and of course, Fine. I actually do feel "fine" sometimes. It's ok. In fact, "I dunno" is a great tentative response to someone's inquiry as to how I'm feeling or doing: if I don't know the answer, that fact can get me to begin listening more carefully to what's going on within me.

Another thing that I've learned recently about feelings is that they are not static and unchanging. They are in a constant state of flux and change. Some times that change is almost imperceptable, but the fact is if I'm getting frustrated about the fact that I'm still feeling "anxious" about something, then my feeling has already changed! It's no longer "anxiety" it's now "frustrated anxiety"! I'm making progress. I'm walking through it and I'm not being destroyed or annihilated by my feelings.

In fact, my feelings are becoming my greatest teacher and mentor as I go through my life. They tell me much about myself. I used to blame my feelings on external things (e.g., my wife, my son, my boss, my "situation", my father, etc.). "They" were the cause/source of my unwanted (or wanted) feelings. What I've learned, or rather, what I'm learning now is that my feelings are just a reflection of how I'm choosing to perceive life. Sometimes that "choosing" is done out of habit or ignorance, but I can break habits and become more learned about my self and my life. My recovery work is certainly an "inside job" and really doesn't need to involve all those significant others out there in my life. It's amazing how much "better" all of them have become since I've started taking care of myself!

Take care!

Mike L.

How's Your AA Program Working for You?

This was the topic of the Concord Fellowship meeting this morning. After the great chair, I didn't really have anything of interest to say on topic so I kept quiet for most the meeting and did something unusual for me: I listened. Normally what I'd do is not listen and try to think of something interesting to say on topic. And if those potential shares bore even me, I usually don't grace others with my boring share. This morning I bored myself with ego-based, ego-building thoughts of all the great albeit obsessive things I do as a part of my program....lots of meetings, reading, meditation, sponsoring, blah, blah, blah. It bored me so quickly and completely that I stopped and listened to what others were saying.

And then someone said something that got me to thinking about another less ego-based way to assess how I was working my program: have them ask my wife of 26+ years 'how is Mike working his program?'. THAT would give a valuable and in some ways more truthful perspective on how my program is really working!

I remembered back to when I was about 18 months sober and I was feeling a little stuck in the process of the steps. I had then inner sense that I was done with the third step but didn't have either the sufficient amount of pain or desire for more happiness to motivate me enough to begin the 4th/5th step process...

Anyways, I was sitting in my living room 18 months sober talking with my youngest daughter (who for various reasons has adopted the role of my personal Protector when anyone dares to hurt her dad) and my wife (who's never deemed the need to take on that particular role!). I can't remember the context of what happened, but at one point my wife said something to my daughter to the effect that 'Well, Dad's just a drunk...'. Now, she didn't mean that to sound as mean as it might out context, but daughter The Protector shot back that 'Mom! Dad's a recovering alcoholic! He's been sober for almost 2 years!'. My wife/her mom just looked over to me and said, 'I know that....but when's he going to change?'

Ouch.

Now that also was not as mean as it might sound out of context. But it hit me square in the middle of my gut. She was right. I had been not drinking and/or sober for 18 months, but bottomline, I hadn't really changed much of my day-to-day behavior during that time. I hate it when she's right! I hadn't taken my program "on the road" as someone once said in a meeting....

While I didn't say much to my wife and daughter that day (didn't need to: my Protector was doing for me what I couldn't and shouldn't do for myself!) I did make the commitment at that time to jump start my step work and begin my 4th step in earnest.

So now several years later after having had all of the steps worked---or rather, having been thoroughly been worked by the steps---how would my wife respond to this topic?

Well, if we'd asked her a week ago she would have given a glowing report that would do my ego proud! Our marriage is the best it's ever been, our children have all moved out of the house (the last to go was my son Pat...who left home in February 2007, picked up his 6 year clean chip in May 2007--I picked up my 6 year sober chip 5 months later-- and then this same son turned 22 years old in June 2007), we're enjoying our life together, blah, blah, blah.

BUT that was last week and this morning in the meeting it dawned on me that two things happened in the last week that resulted in my wife feeling disconnected from me and, most importantly, I know I had a part in that reality.

This morning I shared this story at group level and shared with my friends that my program IS working because I'm continuing to do what has worked so far and every once and awhile someone will say or do something which leads me to see myself more clearly and honestly. When that happens, when someone intentionally or not pulls my covers, I understand that I have work to do---and in this case that means figuring out some way(s) of making right what's happened this week as a result of my actions and talking to my wife about some things I'd previously swept under the rug. It is working....

Mike L.