This is something I wrote about four years ago on what I was like then. I am leaving it the way it is as it is a pretty good picture of what I was like then.
When I got to AA 30 years ago, I had no confidence that I could stay sober, and didn't really want to, with sober sounding like somber to me. Still it seems to me that AA was a bit oversold back then, promising nearly continual bliss if I could stay sober for a while as few seemed willing to say anything bad about it at meetings, so I also had some pretty unrealistic expectations about would would happen if I could manage to stay sober as long as I have now. I thought that, in that case, I would have a successful life, walk in serenity and happiness and become some sort of AA guru who knows all the secrets behind the steps. I believe that I have found a way of life I am comfortable with and don't miss anything I got from drinking, which now seems like a form a self-delusion and a way of trying to feel well by getting sick. I am probably saner and happier than most of the 'normals' around here, although they don't need to maintain that the way I do. I enjoy life, but it can still start to smell if my attitudes are off, as they sometimes still are, and I can still have trouble with the basics at times, such as living a day at a time and trusting in God. When I finally found serenity, it seemed a bit boring, but I enjoy it now, although it still isn't a continual state. I know the AA answer to just about everything, but sometimes fail to follow my own wise advice. My personality is still split enough to have a few rowdy arguements in my head. My ego is still a problem. I have a friend who says he thinks his might linger for a few days after he is dead just to make sure. I can still obsess on occasion. I just got into one about a problem selling Japanese stock certificates I brought when I moved here a year ago and will probably have to go back to Japan to sell. Part of me can say it isn't really isn't an important problem, as I don't really need the money and they are likely to go up in value if I sit on them even though I haven't worked out a way to draw dividends on them here. But part sees it as bureaucratic insanity and injustice to all in this situation(righteous anger on behalf of others - noble but dangerous. I like the idea that holding a resentment is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die). I suppose one good thing about an obsession is that my head eventually gets tired of processing circular nonsense and lets go of it, at least now. I tend to think that old timers can be a bit crazier than a newcomer on a pink cloud on a given day. The difference is that I know that the ups and downs of life are temporary and I know what to do about it. I can look as where my attitudes are out of whack and try to correct them. I can try to look at things with a bit of perspective - trying to count my blessings instead of my hang-ups. I can talk to or email an AA friend, take a long walk to think things out, pray or think about what I would tell another member with the same problem. It is a matter of having the same problem but more tools to deal with it. I recall hearing a member say that he had once tried a sort of AA pilgrimage, going to New York from Australia. He managed finally to get to a meeting where Bill W. was asked to speak, but started with something like, "My name is Bill and I've just had a hell of a day. One expectation which proved to be a delusion was that staying sane and sober would get easier and easier over time. I feel that I have to work about as hard at it as I did when I was fairly new, but I enjoy doing it now. I don't believe a slip is just a matter of fate. I think at happens because some think they are cured, can get by on less, or don't think they need to keep doing the things we do. I believe I will stay sober and reasonably sane if I do what I think I need to do, and then some, but would be quite likely to get nutty and uncomfortable enough to pick up a drink if I don't. It seems a bit like going down a road at reasonable speed and stay on it. I believe that there are warning signs if I start going off the road into the insanity that lies beside it, but they will not stop me if I ignore them. Life still happens and it will always be a mixture of what seems to be good and bad. At least I have gotten to the point of not expecting everything to happen for my amusement and satisfation. If life ever became a bed of roses, I would still soon find myself sleeping on a compost heap if they didn't come with their thorny stems. I recall a saying that I heard occasionally in my early days, "All sunshine makes a desert." Even the land of milk and honey would have dung and stings. Life in sobriety is still life, not nirvana in Never Never Land - even Michael Jackson couldn't buy that. I tend to see aging now as the process that will help me let go of my physical body when it becomes a write off. If recovery was, as I expected, a matter of life getting better and better until I die of excess serenity at the age of eighty, that would not be the case. It seems a bit like retirement in which I was able to contentedly let go of a job I had loved, but became something I had just had enough of, like living in Japan. I can know see how fruitless it is to try to live in the past or future. I recall hearing something about birthdays that went something like, "When we are young, they remind us we are not grown up. When we are grown up, they remind us that we are not young." |