I know I had something I wanted to write about from my meeting Saturday night, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I can’t really think of anything at all. It’s the usual busy time before the holidays, at home and at work. Long-haired cats are freaks of nature and should not exist. That’s all I’ve got, so I’ll look at some search terms that brought people here.
spiritual axiom that every time we am disturbed
That would be, every time I am disturbed. Bummer! There is something wrong with me!! Usually, in my life, I’m disturbed by relatively little things. I’m disturbed when the people I supervise don’t do what they should do. I’m disturbed when I perceive I getting an unfair workload. I’m disturbed when I think I don’t have enough free time. I’m disturbed when I pay the periodontist. Each and every time, there is something wrong with me. I’m not accepting that everyone makes mistakes, that my workload is fair and I’m lucky to have it, that I have plenty of free time and my obligated time is usually spent in very agreeable ways, that I’m privileged and lucky to have the will and the means to go to and pay the periodontist. And the way I understand it, even when the truly big and truly bad things come along, I am still to aim for serenity, and to try and achieve it. Because such is life and the human condition. And if I stay unserene for long enough, I’m in danger of drinking. And for me, to drink would be to die.
how to replace alcohol
With life, and real, effective, grown up coping strategies! Somewhere in the Big Book it says something like we had a hard time choosing between a life of alcoholic misery and a life lived on spiritual principles. I did! I refused to accept, for a long time, that my life with alcohol was always and forever miserable. The good news is that a few decades down the road, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
And now I’ve remembered what I wanted to write about. It was during the meeting after the meeting that some people were talking about someone we know who recently went out with something like 12 years. This person is, by report, drinking, sometimes one beer. The people around the table said the usual things about how frightening that prospect is, how she probably won’t last for long doing that, how for us that would lead back to the alcoholic misery.
What I thought was that I would rather have what I have. I would rather have the people around that table, the books and the meetings and this way of life, than one beer. Much more than one beer. I understand and I remember wanting that little buzz that took the edge off of everything. I remember chasing it and that I was unsuccessful. But truly, if today it was guaranteed to me (which it never would be, this is just for the sake of argument) I would not take that beer and give up the AA way of life. I would not.
Barbara
/ December 11, 2012Me neither