In my first year of sobriety, I went to a meeting almost every night, and felt I needed to in order to face going to work as a high school teacher the next day. When I got home, I would read a bit of AA literature, with the most useful being Came to Believe as Living Sober wasn't out yet, to try to keep my mind from speeding up again before trying to sleep. One night, Iread the part of Chapter 5 after that usually read at meeting about the actor trying to run the play. I couldn't square that with my job in which I was held responsible for the large classes of teenage boys I was teaching, feeling that my position was more like a director than an actor. I eventually learned that I couldn't control anyone, but I could try to keep their interest in one way or another. I was classmaster responsible for a class of year 11 boys when a mother came to see me about her son, who was frequently getting into trouble. She toldme she wanted him to stand up for himself, and my reply, with far more wisdom than I had at the time was that I had learned that most battles were not worth fighting. That still seems to be a large part of getting along in this world. |