Things change

Coming home was not what I expected this time. It's not bad - it's great to see my nephew and brother and sister-in-law. It's just different. I feel different than I thought I would. I've been gone for 2 years (I've been here to visit - but not for more than a week at a time, and usually only for a weekend maybe once every 3 or 4 months). A lot can change in 2 years. I guess I am thinking mostly in terms of the program, the people. I don't recognize the people. I come into town expecting it to be the way it was when I left 2 years ago. I expect to walk into the noon AA meeting, sit at the back table, which will of course go over the hour because we have squeezed so many people around it, with all the people who were there when I got there. But none of those people are there.

I did something today I never do - I walked into a meeting and then turned around and walked out. I left. Since when do I walk into a noon meeting at the Alano club, sit down at a table, and I'm the one with the most sobriety there? That's a strange feeling. There were so many newcomers, and yeah, I know, I am supposed to help the newcomer. But I wanted some good, quality sobriety. I wanted long term sobriety. I wanted to talk about honesty and integrity and what it means to make a right choice instead of a wrong one. I wanted to talk about what happens when you don't work a program of rigorous honesty. I didn't want to talk about what it's like on day 15 to feel like you are going to die if you don't go drink. So I left.

Those people who where there when I came into the program - I want them to still be there. A lot of them are still sober - maybe they just don't go to the same meetings, or maybe they don't go anymore or not as much. Will I be one of those people who just stops going - or will I always go? Some of the people aren't sober. In fact, the odds are good that a lot of them aren't. Some of them are dead. I just want things to be the same and they aren't. Now when they ask during the opening if anyone is visiting the meeting from another group that would like to be recognized - I identify myself - because this isn't my group anymore.

I expected to come home and feel more at home here in the program than I do in Chicago - and I didn't feel that way. I expected to come home and feel like here is really where I want to be - and I didn't feel that way either. I expected to come here and know what I want out of my life. I expected for it to be obvious. And it wasn't. In fact, I think the whole damn thing may be less clear. I didn't feel the sense of urgency that I felt over the past few months to get out of Chicago. Here isn't obviously where I don't want to be - but it's just not obviously where I do want to be either.

I guess that was why I decided that I needed to wait a year to see how I felt before making a decision about whether to stay or go - it's such a huge decision that impacts so many things. It feels more like I want to run - that feeling of - I would rather be anywhere but here. Or anyone but me. Escaping.