I have been laid up now for just about two weeks after having surgery. Blech!!
Literally I have been allowed to go downstairs twice a day and that's it. I have been keeping myself "connected" with AA through online meetings and talking to fellow AAers. And I thought
I was doing pretty good.
The online meetings work in a pinch as a meeting. The actual meetings that they hold are very similar to irl meetings. Someone shares the experience, strength and hope, then a topic is chosen and others share regarding that topic. So though it filled a need, it is kind of like eating pretzels when what you really wanted was french fries. Same food family, but not what you wanted.
Friends have been awesome calling in and seeing how I am doing. (Grateful nod to Nurse Deb and her daily calls!!!) Visits too have helped so much. Even if the talk is not really recovery AA talk, it is just so good to still have that connection to AA.
Friday night I got to go to my first meeting since April 14. That is a loooong time for me to not hit a meeting. I do still go pretty much every day. I tell you, it felt so good going to that meeting. It really felt like coming home. The hugs and seeing everyone was wonderful, missed my peeps big time. But it was the meeting itself that just made me feel so good. I did not realize how unbalanced I felt until after the meeting and I realized just how much better I felt!! I NEED my meetings. This enforced abstinence from meetings is really showing me just how big a part meetings play in my daily sobriety and mental health. Again, I had been feeling fine, no backslide thoughts or anything even remotely close to it. But I just felt so much BETTER after going to the meeting!!!
Saturday night dad and I hosted our traveling Steady Eddie meeting. Everyone was gracious enough to come over here because of my travel and stair restrictions. And again, I can't even tell you just how good I felt having that meeting. And yes, wonderful to see that group of peeps, some I only see at this meeting once a month, what made me feel good was the meeting itself. There is always good quality sharing at this meeting, and there was one person who had a bit more to share. What a privilege to be a part of that sharing. To be trusted with it, and to be able to respond with absolute love and no judgement. To see that happening around the room like that. So wonderful, such a gift.
Today, just for today at any rate, I understand why meeting makers make it!!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Amazing Amends
I have mentioned before my struggle with step 9. The who, the how, the when. I have surgery coming up on Wednesday. Pretty basic nothing to worry about I should be fine .... but there is always the "risk"........ So, if, God forbid, something does happen ...... I want my side of the street clean. Not so much thinking that if I stand before the God of my understanding I can say "see what a good doobie I am" ... but more because of that line in the promises.. " I will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it".
I will always regret the past if I don't try and do something about it. No, can't go back and change it, or fix up the screw ups. Done is done. But I can own it, and apologize for my bad behavior and judgement. Having done that, I no longer have to regret it.
Today I did, what for me, my most important amends. I talked with my 19yr old daughter. And she amazed me. She gave me the unmerited gift of forgiveness and understanding in a way beyond her years. She opened the door a bit to let me see into her life. It is still going to take a while before I am allowed all the way in, but I can't begin to tell you how full I feel right now with just the bit. I was not sure I would ever get that. The person I was did not deserve it, and how could I expect her to trust that I was worth having in her real life now.
We talked and talked, and listened and listened. She is such a smart person. Something she understood way more that I would have ever expected. People go to school for years and don't have the insight into this disease that this young women does. She is learning to accept that it is a disease, that it controlled my actions to the point that I would choose the booze over her and her father. She is trying to understand that although the disease controlled me, I am still responsible for what I did. This is all pretty weighty stuff for me at age 40, she is getting it a lot better and with more wisdom at age 19!!
So today, some burdens were lifted, for both of us. In place of those burdens that have been weighing down our relationship I really do believe that the seeds of something wonderful were planted. I received so many gifts today. All of them so undeserved, and cherished from the tips of my toes to the top of my head!!
Today, my daughter said " I am proud you are my mother"
Thank you God, thank you AA.
I will always regret the past if I don't try and do something about it. No, can't go back and change it, or fix up the screw ups. Done is done. But I can own it, and apologize for my bad behavior and judgement. Having done that, I no longer have to regret it.
Today I did, what for me, my most important amends. I talked with my 19yr old daughter. And she amazed me. She gave me the unmerited gift of forgiveness and understanding in a way beyond her years. She opened the door a bit to let me see into her life. It is still going to take a while before I am allowed all the way in, but I can't begin to tell you how full I feel right now with just the bit. I was not sure I would ever get that. The person I was did not deserve it, and how could I expect her to trust that I was worth having in her real life now.
We talked and talked, and listened and listened. She is such a smart person. Something she understood way more that I would have ever expected. People go to school for years and don't have the insight into this disease that this young women does. She is learning to accept that it is a disease, that it controlled my actions to the point that I would choose the booze over her and her father. She is trying to understand that although the disease controlled me, I am still responsible for what I did. This is all pretty weighty stuff for me at age 40, she is getting it a lot better and with more wisdom at age 19!!
So today, some burdens were lifted, for both of us. In place of those burdens that have been weighing down our relationship I really do believe that the seeds of something wonderful were planted. I received so many gifts today. All of them so undeserved, and cherished from the tips of my toes to the top of my head!!
Today, my daughter said " I am proud you are my mother"
Thank you God, thank you AA.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Earth People
For those that don't already know, my dad comes with me to just about all the open meetings. Dad is also a " earth person ". He is not a alcoholic.
Dad started coming with me a month or so into my sobriety. I would come home from meetings and head into his room. We watched a lot of CSI ..lol In between shows I would talk. Talk and talk and talk. I would talk about what I heard at the meeting, what I learned at the meeting, what I did not like at the meeting. Dad would listen, and sometimes ask questions. But I would have a hard time trying to explain. How do you explain AA to a earthling?
So dad started coming to meetings with me. He wanted to understand, he wanted to help. He loved me that much. I know for a fact that neither of us expected the journey we ended up on, together. We are still trying to figure it out!!!!
What I do know is that I see changes in my dad. Through coming to the meetings dad has opened up a entire new world for himself. He has made friends with people he never would have met. He is using what he hears in AA to make changes in himself. He will use the fact that he is not an alcoholic at times to skate on some of the self cleaning .... lol But for the most part he is trying to incorporate the principles of AA and the 12 steps in his life.
Dad has been going to church on a daily basis for about 7 or 8 years. He believes in God. Yet, it was just recently that he really started to "turn it over". He finally got it. If you give it over to God, well then you don't have to worry about it anymore. That's AA working in his life, for him.
Dad still comes to meetings with me. He gets me to go to meetings when I might have skipped. He still supports me and is there to listen to me when I need to talk. When we go tot he beginners he still says "Ron in support of Kris". But it is so much more. Its not just support of me, it is support of so many. People count on seeing dad at the meetings.
What dad would like to do most now is find a way to share what HE has learned with families of alcoholics. Kind of give them a short cut, but also try and jump start them into providing the support that could very well be life or death. As he says, before he started coming with me, he did not know what he did not know. He has turned that over to God as well.
He might be a Earthling, but I think he is hatching from his AA pod ......
Dad started coming with me a month or so into my sobriety. I would come home from meetings and head into his room. We watched a lot of CSI ..lol In between shows I would talk. Talk and talk and talk. I would talk about what I heard at the meeting, what I learned at the meeting, what I did not like at the meeting. Dad would listen, and sometimes ask questions. But I would have a hard time trying to explain. How do you explain AA to a earthling?
So dad started coming to meetings with me. He wanted to understand, he wanted to help. He loved me that much. I know for a fact that neither of us expected the journey we ended up on, together. We are still trying to figure it out!!!!
What I do know is that I see changes in my dad. Through coming to the meetings dad has opened up a entire new world for himself. He has made friends with people he never would have met. He is using what he hears in AA to make changes in himself. He will use the fact that he is not an alcoholic at times to skate on some of the self cleaning .... lol But for the most part he is trying to incorporate the principles of AA and the 12 steps in his life.
Dad has been going to church on a daily basis for about 7 or 8 years. He believes in God. Yet, it was just recently that he really started to "turn it over". He finally got it. If you give it over to God, well then you don't have to worry about it anymore. That's AA working in his life, for him.
Dad still comes to meetings with me. He gets me to go to meetings when I might have skipped. He still supports me and is there to listen to me when I need to talk. When we go tot he beginners he still says "Ron in support of Kris". But it is so much more. Its not just support of me, it is support of so many. People count on seeing dad at the meetings.
What dad would like to do most now is find a way to share what HE has learned with families of alcoholics. Kind of give them a short cut, but also try and jump start them into providing the support that could very well be life or death. As he says, before he started coming with me, he did not know what he did not know. He has turned that over to God as well.
He might be a Earthling, but I think he is hatching from his AA pod ......
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