The caption to this cartoon is "Dancing on thin ice"....lol
I was blessed to be in a meeting today where there was the gamut of life in recovery. A picture of humility. A surly long timer. Several scared shitless newcomers. 2 supposedly sobers that smelled like booze. A biker. A soccer mom. A chronic relapser. An art professor. A used car salesman. An arrogant and unconvinced factory worker, sent here by EAP. An angry person. And me, who laughed too much and said too much and made a couple of people mad and a couple of people happy. All in all, a good use of my time. I always said, I'd rather give a resentment than get a resentment, any day! lol
I was especially blessed to be in a room with all of the examples of drunkeness and recovery, each teaching me some important and valuable stuff. I want to live a life where everyone I meet teaches me something. What TO do, what NOT to do...something. And I feel rooted in my own recovery. I feel an unending gratitude for the old timers in my first homegroup (that place where I learned that you have to crawl before you walk, that time takes time, that I will never be perfect, so I may as well get over THAT. Where I learned that there is nothing so bad in my sober life, that a drink will make better. Where I learned that relapse is NOT a necessary part of recovery).
I looked around that room at all those blessed folks who may never get what I have. The odds for us are not particularly good... I look at my own family...generations of people who drank until they died, because they never got the gift of sobriety. I think of my own child, my precious baby boy...of his struggles and his triumphs and the miracle that he is today at 9 years sober. I think of The Universe, conspiring to give us the lives we want, if we can only get open and willing to get out of the way.
And I think of kittens, and daffodils and the blooming quince trees at the end of my driveway. And the bright yellow forsythias, whose branches are dotted with the brilliant red of cardinals, swaying, swaying in the breeze.
And all is right with the world, for now. For me.
Namaste.
5 comments:
Oh boy I am in the right place... my first thought was "Yeah, would rather give than get a resentment Yeah YEAH!" then I realized I'm still a very sick girl and should just stay quiet until I cannot contain the spirit, then I better pray that God's in it :)
I still have so much arrogance that I didn't know was buried in the "helpfulness" that I wield like a Baldric... Thank God for revealing this a little at a time.
I do feel rooted in recovery today! Thanks so much for showing me a lot of Light!!!
I said baldric I meant broadsword...
For now? Forever!
oooh, you and I would be a BAD mix in a meeting. Or they would have to separate us. I tend to giggle-I am trying to do better-I AM. But I enjoy life today. I truly do. But part of me is still bad, in a good way though-if that makes any sense.
Annie, I too, look around me at meetings sometimes--not a 'best' thing to do--and wonder just how many of them will still be here 30...40 years from now. We are experoenceing LOADS of new people these days, I'd guess the treatment centers are using us, which is fine. That's why we are here.
That's also why we can have 250 people at a 'cookie' meeting, end up with $57 in the basket. The biggest single meeting in town, and we have trouble making the rent each month.
But when I read about the husband-wife 'team' across the lake, arguing,etc., I know that Gos HAS already smiled on me/us. And here I am asking for MORE????
Shame-a-roni
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