Category: living sober

Opportunity

Getting sober allowed some important changes to take place. These changes collectively allowed me to have an opportunity to face and deal with my life. This does not mean that I do deal with my life better, just that this is now possible. I did not have this opportunity before. My perspective before was like seeing the world as a blurry black-and-white picture. I was not only unable to see things clearly, my ability to know what I should do in my dealings with others went from bad to worse. Self centered fear, a lack of clarity, and increasing isolation were a recipe for decline – not growth.

Change came with working the the twelve steps. Attending meetings and not drinking of course helped. I couldn’t have the former without the latter but the converse was not true. Not drinking and going to meetings did not bring about the change I needed. It merely cleared some ground to allow me to begin heading down the path of sobriety.Today, twenty years on, much of the time I am able to see reality for what it is. The unfocused, misguided, distorted viewpoint is now atypical. At times I do lose my improved perspective and yet more often than not, because of practiced what I have been taught, there are people around me that will tell me that I have lost my focus.

Seeing reality for what it is, being sober, and having been more carefully schooled in understanding right and wrong I can approach most situations in my life with an opportunity: do the best or right thing, knowing fully well what that is and what the situation calls for – or – take the wrong or self centered action, which is what I seemed to always know to do before. The promises spell this out “we will intuitively known how to handle situations that used to baffle us.” The rub today is that I don’t always do the right thing. Why? Because having the opportunity to do the right thing does is not the same as doing the right thing.

Still, just having the chance to do better in many situations does lead me to taking better actions. For that I can be thankful. When I do the wrong thing, well that is another reason I needed to have my sponsor take me through the 12 steps for the first time. By taking the actions I did then I learned through experience how to begin to start handling my life. Do the work that can help me to try and do and better and, when I fall short, to understand that nature of my screwups and do what I have to do to clean up my messes. And I still need help with this, and the steps, today.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Freedom from the mental obsession

At my meeting today the discussion was about having the obsession to drink lifted from us and how, once lifted, it can remain so provided we stay on a spiritual path. It filled me with gratitude to recognize that my life has been free of the desire to want to drink for so many years. Yet this program is a day at a time and my current state, not even being able to imagine a situation where I would want to take a drink, can be replaced by the insanity that was once surely killing me. I am fairly certain I will not revert back to who I was provided I keep doing what I have been taught – trust God, clean house, and help others.

One of the benefits of continuing to go to meetings on a regular basis is seeing, hearing, and watching others demonstrate for me how seemingly simply decisions that can lead me away from my sobriety are so easy to make. It seems there is no end to the number of people that want and need to stop yet return to drinking. One common thread in so many of these cases is an inability to keep sobriety as the number one priority. I have spent countless hours with people who have gone back out and heard them describe how life was just too difficult, how they felt so much pressure, and how they just couldn’t handle life on life’s terms. They are not able to see with any clarity how their perception of life’s problems allowed them to lose sight of remaining steadfast in doing whatever they could to stay sober.

I too can find my thinking going down this path from time to time. Up until this point though I have always somehow been brought to recognize that my thinking was misguided and wrong. Relationship woes, dealing with work, physical challenges regarding my health, unwanted changes, financial worries, or whatever are just not that big a deal. Staying on the path of guarding my sobriety, regardless of how life is, must always trump everything else. If it does not, the thought of a drink and the obsession could return. My change in perspective that knocks life’s “big deals” down to size is not brought about by the same consciousness that created it (the self-centered and defeatist part of my mind that just never seems to get totally squashed). The realization that whatever my current troubles are, whether they be real or imagined, are relatively unimportant in light of staying sober is brought about within me by what I have learned in AA and by my connection with God. It can come to me as a result of prayer, going to a meeting and hearing just what I need to hear, talking to another drunk, or reading the big book. Much of what I have learned has so permeated my life that it does not even need to be an AA thing per say that changes my attitude.

This morning for instance, riding my bike home from the meeting, I passed a few homeless fellows that were helping each other dig through a dumpster. I see these two guys just about every day and this morning I thought, there but by the grace of God go I. And with this thought I could put my life into a proper perspective. The obsession to drink, which had brought me to the very brink of death, is something I have not struggled with today. Every thing else really is gravy and knowing this is true, I can enjoy the many blessings I have rather than worrying, being fearful, or not appreciating this day.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

The Good Life

Yesterday morning I went to see my doctor about a number of health problems. Individually my physical challenges generally do not ruin my day. Some of these problems are more serious than others though and I do have to be careful with how I deal with how my health influences my mental, physical, and spiritual state. One easy check against my getting into self-pity or fear about this stuff is to recognize that the only reason I am able to get older and face some of these physical problems is because God and AA were able to help me quit drinking. I could be dead and not be blessed with an opportunity to experience any part of my life, good or bad.

Anyway, in seeing my doctor I had to deal with all my big and small health issues all at once. Then I went to work and dealt with my responsibilities there. It was a little bit of a stressful day but nothing extraordinary. In the early evening I left work, riding my bicycle, and got on my way to my step study meeting. It is my longest ride of the week, about 45 minutes. I ride right through downtown Houston and through a lot of different neighborhoods. Run down, downtown, upscale, you name it. After riding for awhile I was able, without really thinking about it, to shed my more harried work state-of-mind and get more in tune with being in the moment. I was able to just observe the traffic, smell whatever odors were wafting through the air, and notice the trees that I was riding past.

Getting more in tune with the here and now, I became aware that I seemed to be feeling a bit glum. In thinking about why this might be I realized that seeing my doctor had made more worried, which in turn had led me to be fearful. I had also been diligently working hard on a project at work that had been keeping me very busy for days. This was becoming increasingly problematic because the project I was working on only had a small chance of bearing any useful fruit. The more time I was spending on that task, the more aggravated I was becoming.

Both of these insights into my mental and emotional life were somewhat surprising but I saw them in more of an abstract rather than emotional way. With this detached point of view I was able to see that my work problem was kind of like an extension of my spiritual life. I had been operating on faith that my work of the last few days was what I needed to be doing. I simply needed to finish it, let it be what it would, and not be attached to the outcome. I instantly felt much better about that situation.

The problems concerning my health were just as simple. It was clear to me that going to the doctor and talking about my health had stirred up my emotions. There are fears I can easily fall into when I am not careful about dealing with issues surrounding my mortality, well being, and everyday comfort. In the end I can either give into the fear and let it get the best of me or I can decide my sense of what I see as my suffering is something I can choose not to dwell on. Faith or fear, the choice is always mine to make. I choose to recognize and be grateful for: my doctor being very helpful, that I have health insurance, that there are actions I can take to try to improve my situation, and that right now my physical problems are relatively minor. They might be worse tomorrow, when my jobs end in June I may no longer have health insurance, etc. but I should deal with those things when they happen.

For now I think I am just glad to be sober.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

The Quincy Bar

The Quincy bar. Right on Main street. A real-alcoholic refuge – a single door that opens onto the sidewalk and no windows anywhere. Perfect. If you were to go inside you wouldn’t know if it is day or night. No one can see that you are inside and, just as important, you can forget that there is an outside beyond your sheltered world.

This bar is one block away from a bagel shop that I frequent. At times I get to walk right by, often in the morning, and the bar door is usually propped open. Seemingly so they can air the place out a bit…and maybe so I can get a glimpse of the insanity that is only a bended elbow away. The smell of stale beer, stale people, and cigarettes wafts out as I pass.

The last few times I have passed by the Quincy there is something new happening. The state initiated new no-smoking laws and you can no longer smoke in a bar. Now I get to see little groups of hard core alcoholics hanging out in front of the Quincy. Wow. Such a bunch of hapless souls. The few people I have seen are not a pretty sight. Skinny, sullen, hunched over in a way that makes them look like they are shrinking, and faces that look like they are wearing many lifetimes upon them.

While it is chilling to see these folks, especially during the times when I exchange a word or two in passing, I am really grateful to see so starkly what things are like for some actively drinking alcoholics. Definitely not what I want. I’m so thankful for AA, my sobriety, the people I know that work at staying sober, and for those that have taught me to live my life on a spiritual basis.

I hope to see you in a meeting – and not smoking a cigarette while taking a short break from drinking in the Quincy bar.

All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

New Tires

I spend a lot of time taking my compact economy car to places where it would be better to be driving a four wheel drive SUV. I am a biologist and I do a lot of fieldwork, with my preference being to work in remote places. For the last few weeks I have needed to take my car somewhere to have some tire problems taken care of. I discovered one of my tires was low on air, which lead to finding it had a slow leak and that another tire had a bubble on its sidewall. Yesterday, when I was about 20 miles in on a gravel forest road, I noticed the leaker was almost flat. Today I finally was able to run some errands around town and I took the car to a tire shop. I was surprised to learn I needed two new tires but I paid the bill and happily drove away.

What does this have to do with sobriety? For me, a lot. I am sober today and can be responsible (except for driving around with two slightly wonky tires for a few weeks!), I can be proactive about things like making sure my car is safely maintained and I even have money to pay for things like car tires. Taking the type of action I did today was way out of my league of possibilities when I was drinking. I had tires blowout on me because I would ride them as long as they held air. Little or no tread, some radial wires sticking out of the sidewall – that was fine with me. When I would finally have no choice but to buy a new tire I was always resentful that I had to spend that money. Sure I needed to get around but how come tires didn’t last longer? How come new tires are so expensive? And on and on.

The fact of the matter was I simply hated to part with any money to pay for things like tires, insurance, or anything to do with my car. I wanted to spend more money on getting what I wanted – booze, drugs, and cigarettes. You see drinking a lot on a regular basis wasn’t leading to my having great success in life. I would try to save for things but I never seemed to have any money left before the next time I got paid. I couldn’t even plan well enough for my regular monthly expenses. Buying new tires meant I would be short of money. This would literally cut into what I had available for obtaining my trinity of necessities. Consequently I would get angry even when I paid my regular bills. The rent, the phone, even the price of food irked me when I was short of cash.

Being sober, responsible, and having what I really need is so much different. I take care of my part, like showing up at the tire store when I notice there is a problem, and the rest seems to take care of itself.

Now I am less likely to get stuck in some out of the way place. I am also not mad that some money I had in the bank went towards allowing me to keep doing my fieldwork. Life is just a much better bargain being sober.

All the best in sobriety,
AABlogger