A Chance A Gift

A common thought that is often shared in AA meetings is that people's lives are much better than they could ever have imagined when they first started in the program...and also much different than they could ever have foreseen. This is usually followed by some sort of acknowledgement that there continue to be problems...often serious ones...but those problems are now faced without drinking or drugging about them. And that, of course, makes all the difference in the world.

This is true for me. When I entered the program in March 2004 I was well on my way to divorcing my wife and moving out of my home. I was spending much more money than I was earning - a lot of it on my "boyfriend" who was starting to look like an inevitable but horrifying next chapter in the sad book of my life. To put it simply, my life was unmanageable and the future held little promise.

None of the scenarios I could play out in my sick mind included: staying married, staying sober, realizing that I had a lot of work to do in healing/restoring/creating a true loving relationship with my life partner, finding a God of my understanding, even understanding what finding a God of my understanding meant, driving to a state correctional facility on the other side of town once a week to talk to prisoners about restoration / redemption / spirituality and being inevitably inspired by them, having a closer than ever relationship with my children, joining that "cult" of religious fanatics called AA, burying my best friend after his tragic, way too early death courtesy of alcoholism, beginning once again to dream the dreams I had as a child and believe there might be a way for them to come true, having a blog, having a beloved cadre of blogbrothers and blogsisters around the world, the list goes ON and ON.

Is it all great? No. I still fight desires for anonymous sex; sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I still ride a rollercoaster of mood swings. I have no doubt that countless miseries await. But that's life.

And now I have a chance to participate in it.

That's a gift.

Take care. I love you all.

Flip

Clarification and Recommendation

Clarification

I just want to let you know a few things that may or may not be clear from my blog.

1. I've never been particularly religious - in fact at times I've been an avowed atheist. I write a lot about spirituality and the God of my understanding in this blog because it is a new and exciting part of my life that has come about because of my involvement in AA. It is very much on my mind these days. Writing about spirituality, and more importantly reading your comments about what I write, helps me immensely in my thinking.
2. I write a lot about AA because it means a lot to me. It is a gift that has saved my life. I use AA as a blueprint for my life right now. But I'm NOT a spokesperson for AA. I often hesitate to write about it in this forum because of the Eleventh Tradition of AA, which states, "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films." Obviously this blog is not "at the level of press," but it's important to anyone who reads my blog to understand that I do not represent AA. If I fail, it is not because AA does not work.
3. I sometimes hesitate to share what is going on in my life because I know what goes up must come down and vice-versa. But it is a true representation of my life. Therefore I usually record the large swings.

Recommendation

Tom recommended the current post, "Church Outside the Bottle" on the blog, The Golden Ass. It is a great view of AA from a non-member's perspective. I found it very interesting, especially in light of my ongoing thoughts on spirituality and religion.

Thanks for the recommendation, Tom. And thanks for helping end my latest pity party, too!

As always, I appreciate all of you more than you will ever know.

Flip

Oh Yeah

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

I don't understand what It / She / He is. But I DO understand what She / He / It isn't.

He / It / She is NOT me, my committee or anyone else in the boat with me.

F