Small Meeting, Big Message

9:00pm, laying on the couch absorbing Mass Medias thoughtless offerings, when my wife crashes through the door. "I have figured it out" she says as she throws her books to the floor and kneels beside me. "What!" I say as I mute the TV in anticipation of hearing the worlds problems had been solved and our credit card bills were going to be shredded at the source before ever reaching or local post office.

"My Program," she responds and begins to explain to me her night at a new meeting place she went to. Turns out the turn out, was on the slim side, a meeting where there was only one other member. Now we have all heard of big things coming in small packages, and this was to be no different. Apparently during some Big Book study, she realized what her Higher Power was, is and always has been. She dropped the title of "Dry Drunk," bestowed upon her by a passed sponsor who in my opinion should not be a sponsor.

To my wife's credit, she has never been bitter or resentful of having to give up the vino. She also was not walking a road of denial with the all empending "Bottom" looming in the distance. My wife embraced her program for almost two full years with great focus, it was only when she started doing what she thought she had to do such as take a sponsor or quickly power through some step work that her program became hard, pushy and time consuming.

Now her sponsors were asking her to put meeting before family, work the steps now, now, now and when my wife would question why she needed to go to more meeting, why she couldn't do the steps in the time frame that worked for her personal and professional schedule, she was branded as a Dry Drunk and resistant to the program.

My wife is the most loving, caring and supportive person I know. Her program only suffers when she is being told she is not doing it the right way. Now I am not in the program, but if I recall they use lots of slogans, one of which is "One Day at a Time." So if a person in recovery is going though life and each day they start with a stretch, and end with a yawn and no alcohol touches there lips I think that would be working your program right!! Call me crazy, seems simple. Live, Love, respect yourself, others and don't drink. If you need a drink, call someone and leave the situation.

So that night when my wife came bursting though the door as excited as I had seen her in a long time, it seemed that a light bulb not only went off, but it blowup!!. She realized that what she was doing was working and it was OK to keep doing what shes doing. The hard part for her will be mustering enough strength to tell her sponser that how they run their program is great. If it keeps them in recovery then it is doing it's job. That does not mean that it will work for my wife, or anyone else but that is ok. What she has and what she does is working for her, and she is sober and recovering, and I lover her the most when she is in love with herself.

Meeting on a train

Well obviously it's been sometime since I last posted. I think a lot of the reason I quit blogging about recovery was because I felt that I needed to just be me the Father of our son, the husband of my wife, not the spouse of my qualifier. Yesterday while on a Vanpool Van I was talking to a coworker about my wife's recent attempt to quit smoking. Now my wife just celebrated her 18th month of AA recovery and is doing great in her program. The conversation in the van pertained to my perspective of the Friend's of Bill W. and why they don't use the 12 steps and AA tools and apply them in other areas they feel they want to be freed from, in this case smoking.

My wife had quit smoking several time and recently had quit for what I recall being several months when she took on a new AA Sponsor. This sponsor has multiple year in the program and has what sounds like a few sponcees. But what I have never been able to get my head around is that though my wife had quit smoking, her sponsor offered her one. My wife is now trying to quit again.

I digress, This is about my program ahhha!!! My coworker on the vanpool said in so many words that though we Al-anon on the outside looking in see the AA program and it's tools as something that could be applied to any and all of lifes situations. Friend's of Bill are so focused on the recovery of Alcohol, Narcotics or what every other 12 Step there is, that they seldom consider asking their higher power to release them from some other issue or addiction.

This brings me back to my initial question, why do friends of Bill look at smokes differently then drinking. They will both destroy, and they both can kill. So with that in mind would an AA sponsor not see offering a cigarette to a recovering smoke as being the same as offering her a drink? Or am I over analyzing this?

My wife suffers from an intestinal disorder, and as I type this she is in another room under the knife remove portions of her small bowl that were damaged from Crohns. Thank god she does not drink anymore, but we will never know if the drinking increased the deterioration on here bowls. We do know that the smoking has to stop, this for sure is known to cause damage to the cellular intestinal walls

Thoughout our conversations my coworker used many slogans and statements, I then realized she was speaking from experience, she too has been in and out of AA and Al-anon rooms. I now have a new Friend to talk with and a refreshed reminder that my program needs to be worked if I am to understand what my wife is working.

I will try not to be away so long. This was an uplifting exprience to free these thought from my head.

On my knees if you please!!

Don't go looking over the title of this entry and start think anything weird! There is a seriousness to being brought to your knees both literally and metaphorically speaking. This experience can be an awakening and religious in a sense. Alongside my recovery and self-knowledge gathering I also have to continue to walk in what is my life. This can often times mean that with every step I make in coming to an understanding of myself, I also continue to deal with the situations around me that attempt to tear away at my newly found serenity.

Recently when I was notified that our tenants would not be renewing their lease on our rental property, I could not begin to see any positive outcome. The economy is down, interest rates are down and rental rates are down. This means we possibly would not get a new renter in at the same rate as the previous tenants, and also being that it is September, we most likely would not get one in anytime soon. This was a very scary reality that I was having a hard time facing. If you are new to this blog, then I will catch you up!! I am a spouse in recovery alongside my wife who is a recovering Alcoholic. When you walk in life's recovery, you are cautiously optimistic about the possibility of relapse for the Alcoholic. Obviously that is the last thing they or you want, but this situation was doing a fine job of testing me, and I found myself hoping I could shield my wife from this harsh reality. I have an extreme appreciation for my newly found serenity, and was not about to let this situation jeopardize it. I held back all my desires to take control and push to a point of resolution, knowing that those efforts would have only caused me pain and sleepless nights.

I sat out on my deck one evening looking out across the star filled night sky and told my Higher Power "If I need to be brought to my knees, if I needed to suffer in order to grow then I will accept that." WOW!!! Man that was a moment let me tell you!!! I felt so at ease after that. I knew that what was to be would be. I would go about my life on the path that I am on, and deal with what ever was to come. My Higher Power would take the wheel and I was ready for the journey.

I got a call from our renters today. Seems that the place they were moving to just was not as nice as ours and they wanted to see about renegotiating the current lease. I was somewhat surprised, but not really. You see, I honestly was ready to lose it all in order to gain humility and live a closer relationship with my Higher Power. He heard me, believed in my sincerity and in turn, gave his hand to me so that I my raise up from my knees and walk with him. Let Go Let God!!!

"12 Step" Not Just for Alcoholism Anymore!!!

"God grant us the serenity to accept that our condo does not have a Renter. The courage to lower the rent if needed to get a Renter. And the wisdom to know when to let it go to foreclosure."

Yes this was my modified version of the "Serenity Prayer" for today. How peaceful life’s craziness can be when you finally put the 12 steps in to daily practice. I have found myself almost to calm it seems at times! I have learned what I can't control and have given those to my Higher Power to work. This is sometimes difficult for me as I always attempted some form of fruitless control  and stressed over some of  life’s situations. I would push and push to make things work out the way I thought they should be. Now I just try hard to not "Try Hard."

There is beauty in letting go!!!

Steps One - "We admitted we were powerless and our lives had become unmanageable."
Step Two - "Came to believe that a power greater then ourselves could restore us to sanity."
Step Three - "Made a decsion to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him."

Those three steps continue to help me in everyday life. I am no saint, and like most there are days when I have to recite them to remember why I started working the Al-Anon program. There are many more steps, and many more days in my life to come, but as long as I continue working the 12 Steps I will always have a place to turn to when I need to "Let Go and Let God!!!"

Experience, Strength & Hope for $6.02

I recently purchased a copy of "As We Understood" from Amazon.com which is a book of Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. I like purchasing used books from Amazon and have purchased many books for a fraction of the original cost. The copy I purchased, was listed as being in "Very Good" condition. When I received my copy of "As We Understood," it was completely highlighted with dog ears and folded pages throughout the book. So many in fact, that it was difficult to open the book without instantly being brought to a page that was dog eared. I was frustrated and a little upset with the books condition, so I sent an email to the seller advising them that I have purchased many books from Amazon, all of which were listed in "Very Good" condition and most of them were in what I would call almost "NEW" condition when they arrived.

Today I really needed some Experience, Strength and Hope so I opened my book bag to grab out my copy of As We Understood for a quick read. The dog ears opened to a page with a story about an Al-Anon who one day noticed that life before working the steps could be likened to what could be called "Acceptable Insanity." They described acceptable insanity as times when the mind wanders from making sense, to obsessing, over what they called "Mind Garbage." I appreciated the wisdom in this story, as it was a reminder to me that the program is not just about Alcohol, the 12 Steps we work can be applied to all our affairs.

Upon reading this story I realized that I had in fact created mind garbage of my own, as I wasted time and energy obsessing about the condition of the book. All of a sudden while reading this story, I truly believe my Higher Power wanted me to see through the mind garbage with absolute clarity. I realized that his book in all it's highlights, dog ears and folded pages was not in poor condition!! It was beautiful!! For in my hands I held a meeting, the attendees were those who read this copy before me. The highlights, dog ears and folded pages were their shares to me of their Experience, Strength and Hope!!

The next day I wrote back to the seller and apologized for my email. I explained my new found view for the copy they had sent me, and thanked them. I am glad for my program, I am happy to be learning to not sweat the small stuff, and to be able to see the good in places I was unable to before.

To those who had this copy of "As We Understood" before me, I thank you for your shares!! I am learning much, and hope to someday pass my dog ears to someone else who needs a little Experience, Strength and Hope!!

Humbling Can Be Stumbling On The Road To Humility

On my road to recovery, I've had to face many fears, emotions and personal beliefs that have been brought to my attention as preventing me from being "Humble." If you have read my other blog "Let Go, Let Me!!!" you know that I have a wife who is an Alcoholic in recovery, and along side her I am in my own recovery program from this disease. Recently I was in a week long conference for Families affected by Alcoholism. One morning before the rest of the family members joined the session, The Counselor asked me how I was doing. I replied that I was doing well, and felt that I was learning a lot; as our topics were really helping me to understand the disease. She seemed somewhat condescending when I told her that, so being that no one else had came in to the room yet I said "Why do you ask." At this, she stopped what she was doing, came and sat next to me and in so many words stated that she did not think I was humble, and she was worried how that would effect me if my wife were to relapse back into alcoholism.


This topic baffled me as I thought that for sure the disease had already humbled me to the fact that my own desires to stop my Wife’s drinking were not going to work. Alcoholism defined my limitations for me in the battle against the disease, and I was sure humbled when I reached that sobering conclusion (No pun intended.) This disease started tearing me down emotionally, mentally and physically long before I ever stepped into a counselor’s office in search of help.


So this lead me to my search for exactly what "Humble" in the counselors definition meant, as I most certainly wanted to be humble if it was going to help me on my own recovery journey!! As always I find myself googling for everything, and this search for Humility would be no different. Armed with several search terms, I fired up my browser and into cyberspace I went. Of the many sites I found, the following articles seemed to have relevance to my particular needs to quantify "Humility."
 

1. >Humility vs. Humiliation I found the following passage to be eye opening and informative!
   
   In the philosophical context, humility is synonymous with teach-ability. The old adage, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is commonly used among Doctors, Psychiatrists and Psychologists. So much so, that it is a rule of thumb in some circles. The exception to this rule is humility. It is easy to see why the Greeks saw meekness as having a cleansing effect on the human soul. It, in effect, turned meekness into a “Tabula Rosa” (clean slate) allowing new knowledge to be written on the blackboard of the soul.
   
   Another big advantage for those in recovery is that humility serves as an instrument for seeing through the ego’s attempt to deny the severity of the sufferer’s addiction. No matter how much one suffers as the result of addictive behavior, pride will always grow back, not unlike a weed, and attempt to cover up the damage with denial. Humility serves as the perfect gardening tool for this relentless emotional weed by pruning pride and allowing the truth to show through about this disease.
   
   Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Humility is seeing the truth about ourselves and the truth about our potential to change (the truth shall set you free). Paradoxically, there is an ancient proverb that is the functional equivalent to the Greeks “Tabula Rosa”. It goes something like this; “you must suffer to get well, you have to surrender to win and you must give it away to keep it”.
    
2.  HUMILITY  The following passage was quoted from the Alcoholics Anonymous book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" Page 59
   
   Obtaining Humility - "Only by discussing ourselves, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility."

I feel as if I relate well to the those passages especially "Obtaining Humity." During the week I spent in the Families with Alcoholism Conference, I was open, I shared my soul, deepest feelings and cried often. I once stated " I came here to bare everything thing I have. I plan on leaving all my sadness, emotions and fears of Alcoholism here on the floor. I plan on taking back with me only those tools that will help me on my journey through recovery!" Humble?? I would have thought so!!
 

So for me this journey to find out whether I am Humble will become an on going soul searching, life experience with it's own motto for my soul "Tabula Rosa."

Let Go!!! Let Me!!!

Before I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting, my need to relieve my anger, resentment and dispare over my wifes alcoholism lead me to the Internet. I searched and I read, read some more, and I searched some more. One day, I found a page entitled Detach with Love. As I sat reading, all the while asking myself "What does this mean?" will this be some "How To" guide on leaving ones relationship on a positive note...? Shall I pack my bags, say "I love you" and kiss my Wife goodbye?

As I kept reading, anxiously waiting for a sentence that would free me of all my fears & worries, a sudden calmness washed over me. Words entered into my Heart, "Let Go and Let Me!! My Higher Power wanted me to know that it was OK!!! That I could continue to stay in my relationship, I could love my Wife, but most of all I could Let Go!!! I could take care of me!! With time, I am learning to see my Wife separate from this disease called "Alcoholism." This new view I have found allows me to have HOPE!! My Wife is finding her Higher Power, and their walks together are working for her. I no longer feel the need to fix or save the Alcoholic. This awakening comes with rewards, sorrows and a promise of a new journey I have titled "Recovery with Love."