My brain is no longer a volatile mixture of booze, cocaine and insanity. The booze and cocaine have been removed and by the grace of G-d, the insanity is down to an almost tolerable level.
One benefit of this decreased volatility is my increasing ability to notice things that had previously escaped my attention.
Things like patterns of events and synchronicities that have been popping into my world.
Antecdotes and experiences others relate to me - both in and out of the rooms.
Running into friends, classmates and others right at the time I happen to be thinking of them.
Messages in books, on signs and overheard in conversations that oddly coincide with ideas, concepts and things I am wrestling with.
This past week I was able to put these newfound observational capacities to use.
For two months, I have been attending classes at Metro State here in Denver where I am studying Geology. Part of my science curriclum involves a math class wherein we are learning about various types of infinities - big infinities, small infinities, etc.
Continuing on...
Within the past week, I attended several different meetings wherein someone seemed to invariably say something to the effect of "I don't have that much time in the program..." This statement strikes me as odd and self-defeating for two reasons:
1. AA by it's nature is not competitive, but rather collaborative, and
2. You only have as much time in the program as you have. (If that doesn't make sense, please bare with me, and it might.)
So after hearing this so many times, I felt it necessary to share on it and what follows is an inexact retelling of that share:
I haven't attended school or taken a math class in 15 years so when I try to understand why I need to know about infinity to work with rocks, I become confused. So I don't try to understand it. Rather I just attend the class, do the work and see what comes of it. Now I have learned there are different levels of infinity. There is the infinity that you see when you look up at the night sky. That is a big infinity. Them there are the infinites that exist between numbers. Those are small infinities. Those are the infinities between numbers like 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. We can chop up the space between numbers into smaller pieces and get numbers like 1.5 and 2.7 and 10,685,392.1678. We can keep chopping until we get numbers like 1.05 and 1.005 and 1.0005 and 1.0005 and 1.00005 and 1.000005...ad infinitum...
What this means is staggering to me: the difference between 1 day do sobriety and 2 days of sobriety is the same as the difference between 1 day of sobriety and 10,000 days of sobriety and that is infinity...
If I haven't drank or drugged today I have 1 day of sobriety and infinite sobriety...
Such is the weird and wondrous nature of my journey into a spiritual solution...
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
Showing posts with label AA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AA. Show all posts
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Turning Point
Yesterday something happened.
While it was not what I had wanted to happen, I was moderately ok with what did happen.
In the past, my first reaction would have been to attempt to exert some sort of ham handed control over these events, circumstances, trends and the people ancillary to them.
How did that work out?
People ended up hating me.
Courts locked me up.
Not one person involved came out better for the situation.
One of the things that I am learning since coming into the rooms of AA is that I don't have any control over people, places, and things and when I think I do, the results are only negative.
Yesterday marked the first time on my journey into sobriety that I didn't engage in the aforementioned behavior which for me, was revolutionary.
For a single moment I stopped and did nothing.
For a single moment I was just there with my circumstances.
For a single moment I just existed with all of it.
What I did was acknowledge it for what it was - a court ruling. Then I finished my coffee and made a few phone calls to people who I thought should know. They summation of those conversations went something like "Well that sucks. I hope you are OK and we are here for you."
This is a single court ruling in one of many misdemeanor cases in the unfortunate history of a single human, one of billions that currently suck oxygen on a tiny blue planet orbiting a small yellow star in the backwaters of a typical galaxy in the expanse of one of an infinite number of realities that exist in the mind of G-d.
I am nothing special.
There will be those who claim that I am a terrible human being and should have all manner of terrible thing done to me as a result.
They are probably correct.
Or not.
They are is free to voice their threats and opinions and thoughts and views.
In that same freedom, I am able to acknowledge those things for what they are: ones and zeroes stored on computers.
They are nothing more.
It only has power over me if I let it.
In the words of our Serenity Prayer: "May G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
Truly the only thing I have the power to change is myself.
G-d, please give me the courage to do so.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
While it was not what I had wanted to happen, I was moderately ok with what did happen.
In the past, my first reaction would have been to attempt to exert some sort of ham handed control over these events, circumstances, trends and the people ancillary to them.
How did that work out?
People ended up hating me.
Courts locked me up.
Not one person involved came out better for the situation.
One of the things that I am learning since coming into the rooms of AA is that I don't have any control over people, places, and things and when I think I do, the results are only negative.
Yesterday marked the first time on my journey into sobriety that I didn't engage in the aforementioned behavior which for me, was revolutionary.
For a single moment I stopped and did nothing.
For a single moment I was just there with my circumstances.
For a single moment I just existed with all of it.
What I did was acknowledge it for what it was - a court ruling. Then I finished my coffee and made a few phone calls to people who I thought should know. They summation of those conversations went something like "Well that sucks. I hope you are OK and we are here for you."
This is a single court ruling in one of many misdemeanor cases in the unfortunate history of a single human, one of billions that currently suck oxygen on a tiny blue planet orbiting a small yellow star in the backwaters of a typical galaxy in the expanse of one of an infinite number of realities that exist in the mind of G-d.
I am nothing special.
There will be those who claim that I am a terrible human being and should have all manner of terrible thing done to me as a result.
They are probably correct.
Or not.
They are is free to voice their threats and opinions and thoughts and views.
In that same freedom, I am able to acknowledge those things for what they are: ones and zeroes stored on computers.
They are nothing more.
It only has power over me if I let it.
In the words of our Serenity Prayer: "May G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
Truly the only thing I have the power to change is myself.
G-d, please give me the courage to do so.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Six Months And One Day
Six months and one day ago I was alone, homeless, broke, hopeless, dealing with untreated mental illness and didn't have a reason to live.
Now I am not able to say if I came up with the idea that going to sit in a roomful of drunks, junkies and degenerates was better than stepping in front of an oncoming light rail or if G-d Hisownself was responsible, but either way, I made my way to a meeting.
As I walked to the York Street Club, my mind actively plotted how it would end me were it not satisfied with the outcome of this meeting because anything, including death, was better than what I was dealing with, or rather NOT dealing with. My mind had convinced itself that a meeting was only an hour long, and given the 30 minute walk there and back, it could have me stepping in front of a light rail in time to make the drive time newscast if this AA bullshit didn't seem like it would do anything.
The topic of the AA meeting that I first attended was "What G-d Has Done For Me" and when I heard this I laughed not so silently to myself as I already knew what G-d had done for me.
G-d had fucked me.
G-d had taken from me the love of my life.
G-d had robbed me of my livelihood.
G-d had made me homeless.
G-d had deprived me of my very will to live.
Whether or not this was some cruel cosmic joke or some cruel cosmic coincidence I did not know. Either way I was intent on sitting through this meeting as my mind had decided that was what I was going to do and if it didn't work, well, I had a date with a light rail.
Sitting there in that room of sober drunks and me, I passed judgement on this and derisively mocked that until a large, shiny jowled man sitting right next to me said "My name is Joe and I am an alcoholic." His voice hit me with the force of a lead pipe to the head as I had not noticed him sitting there when I sat down. He spoke tersely and forcibly and without embellishment and while I don't remember everything he said, I do remember his closing words "Like G-d will fuck up my life any worse than I have."
That was six months and one day ago.
In that time I have carried Joe's wisdom with me and "Like G-d will fuck my life any worse than I have." has become a very powerful mantra for me.
In that time I have not drank or drugged.
In that time I have started looking for a job and have even had several interviews.
In that time I have started developing a community of people who care about me and I have cried from happiness because of it.
In that time I have started to live honestly and embrace my past misdeeds.
In that time, three people have allowed me to stay with them from time to time so I am no longer sleeping in an abandoned house.
In that time I have begun to deal with my mental illness by attending group and individual counseling sessions and sticking to a medication schedule.
Please keep in mind that my life, by any measurement, still sucks. I've no job, no source of income, no permanent place to live, rely on public assistance for food and healthcare and still have terrible days that see me sobbing uncontrollably for seemingly no reason at all.
However, what I can say exists in my life where before it didn't is an emerging sense of possibility. This has been given to me by people I have met both in and out of the rooms who have gone down this road, suffered what I am suffering and can give me the experience, strength and hope that I don't yet have.
They can help me match serenity to calamity and know that while it won't get all better right now, what I have gone through and what I will yet go through will someday help someone, somewhere.
Just like Joe's words of wisdom helped me exactly when I needed it.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
Now I am not able to say if I came up with the idea that going to sit in a roomful of drunks, junkies and degenerates was better than stepping in front of an oncoming light rail or if G-d Hisownself was responsible, but either way, I made my way to a meeting.
As I walked to the York Street Club, my mind actively plotted how it would end me were it not satisfied with the outcome of this meeting because anything, including death, was better than what I was dealing with, or rather NOT dealing with. My mind had convinced itself that a meeting was only an hour long, and given the 30 minute walk there and back, it could have me stepping in front of a light rail in time to make the drive time newscast if this AA bullshit didn't seem like it would do anything.
The topic of the AA meeting that I first attended was "What G-d Has Done For Me" and when I heard this I laughed not so silently to myself as I already knew what G-d had done for me.
G-d had fucked me.
G-d had taken from me the love of my life.
G-d had robbed me of my livelihood.
G-d had made me homeless.
G-d had deprived me of my very will to live.
Whether or not this was some cruel cosmic joke or some cruel cosmic coincidence I did not know. Either way I was intent on sitting through this meeting as my mind had decided that was what I was going to do and if it didn't work, well, I had a date with a light rail.
Sitting there in that room of sober drunks and me, I passed judgement on this and derisively mocked that until a large, shiny jowled man sitting right next to me said "My name is Joe and I am an alcoholic." His voice hit me with the force of a lead pipe to the head as I had not noticed him sitting there when I sat down. He spoke tersely and forcibly and without embellishment and while I don't remember everything he said, I do remember his closing words "Like G-d will fuck up my life any worse than I have."
That was six months and one day ago.
In that time I have carried Joe's wisdom with me and "Like G-d will fuck my life any worse than I have." has become a very powerful mantra for me.
In that time I have not drank or drugged.
In that time I have started looking for a job and have even had several interviews.
In that time I have started developing a community of people who care about me and I have cried from happiness because of it.
In that time I have started to live honestly and embrace my past misdeeds.
In that time, three people have allowed me to stay with them from time to time so I am no longer sleeping in an abandoned house.
In that time I have begun to deal with my mental illness by attending group and individual counseling sessions and sticking to a medication schedule.
Please keep in mind that my life, by any measurement, still sucks. I've no job, no source of income, no permanent place to live, rely on public assistance for food and healthcare and still have terrible days that see me sobbing uncontrollably for seemingly no reason at all.
However, what I can say exists in my life where before it didn't is an emerging sense of possibility. This has been given to me by people I have met both in and out of the rooms who have gone down this road, suffered what I am suffering and can give me the experience, strength and hope that I don't yet have.
They can help me match serenity to calamity and know that while it won't get all better right now, what I have gone through and what I will yet go through will someday help someone, somewhere.
Just like Joe's words of wisdom helped me exactly when I needed it.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
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