The Star

A few years ago now, maybe like 3 - my friend Elyssa did a tarot card reading for me. I don't really know what I think about this - she was into it and we would do this for fun. She used to do these every time we hung out. I've only seen her once in the past 3 years. The last one I had, was a past, present and future reading. So 3 cards, one representing each. My future card was one of the best cards you can get. I was cleaning out my wallet today and I found the description of the card. I've been carrying it around ever since. It was the star card and it says this:

The Star

"This is the card that tells you that you are being guided in the right direction. The picture displays a naked woman kneeling down beside a river with two jugs in her hand. She is pouring water from the jugs into the stream. In the background is a large star, almost directly above her head and seven other stars around it. There are birds, flowers, trees, shrubbery and green grass around her. She appears tranquil and at peace in her natural surroundings. If this is yourself, you are intuitively heading towards the direction of where you should be on your own personal path in life. You are also about to have much abundance enter your life through many and varied ways. If you have been looking for a certain job, more than likely you will achieve it and this will reflect what is going on inside you, which is finding your true niche in life. You are also able to express yourself more truthfully without hindrances from your past or your upbringing. Your intuition is extremely heightened at this time and can bring on flashes of insight to guide you through the many decisions you are going to be facing. Trust in your future and show great faith against the odds and you will succeed. Something to do with the country, or near a river or ocean may figure strongly in an event which will occur within about one month."

Funny, but reading this now, I think it is strangely accurate and reflects what has happened since I got this card. I got sober - my life is filled with abundance because of this - moved for the job I always wanted (I work near the river - not sure about that connection), had breast cancer which changed my whole life - had to make hard decisions but felt guided in doing so, I have faith that I didn't have before - basically my whole life has changed since I got this card. I feel more free than I ever have, more myself and like I can honor my own truth and be who I am. I feel like I am at the beginning of a new journey. Here's to my leave!

Today is my two year AA anniversary

To thine own self be true.

To tell or not to tell

That's always the question I guess - to tell the truth or not tell the truth - to be who you are or to pretend to be something else - or to pretend not to be something - like an alcoholic for example. How do you pretend not to be that, when it's you and so much of the way you are is colored by the "ism" of it. I struggle with this - being myself. With not feeling like I have to pretend to be different things in different situations. Because in some ways I do have to pretend. My work life and my AA life feel very distinct - so much so that I feel like two different people. At least two different people - maybe more - because there is also my non-work and non-AA life which involves people that I don't work with and who are not in the program - and with these people, some of whom don't know I'm sober - I am someone else completely. I have been trying to figure out how to integrate these versions of myself into something authentic and real.

First I should say that I don't believe that telling the truth is always the best thing to do. I'm not advocating for all out lying - but I think there are truths that shouldn't be told.

Anyway, this little dilemma over truth telling and being myself surrounds my father. We have never been close. I don't really know how to describe my relationship with my dad - it just is, because it's supposed to be, but there isn't a lot of substance to it and there never has been. We aren't close, but we aren't not close - it just is the way it's been. I wonder sometimes how to change it. I would not describe it as an honest relationship - he doesn't really know much about me and I don't really feel like it's that easy to be me around him. I just don't find him easy to talk to, or deal with, or interact with. I think the first time we had a conversation about anything real I was maybe 24. My dad was there the whole time we were growing up - watching - participating - yet he seems to have missed the degree to which our lives were completely and utter dysfunctional.

My dad appears to be living under this illusion that my brother and I are happy, functional, well adjusted people, and I think the illusion makes him feel okay about what happened in our house when we were growing up. He is somehow absolved of it. I'm not saying that my brother and I aren't these things that my dad believes us to be - I'm just saying - there is definitely some illusion to the way my dad sees things. For me anyway - he believes these things because I have a successful career - I must be okay, right? And my dad cannot even seem to comprehend that I could possibly feel unhappy or depressed, even given everything I've been through. I've mentioned this recently to him - feeling unhappy - and his response is something just less than shocked.

Every once in a while I feel the urge to shatter my dad's illusion - I feel like saying - do you know just how fucked up I have been, how many bad relationships I've had, what I've let men do to me, how depressed I've been, how much I hate myself? Do you even have any idea how completely horrible growing up in that house was? I would never say those things to him - but sometimes I want to, because it feels like he got off easy. I know I have talked some about my mother, but she is not the only one who has failed to take responsibility.

Out of a feeling of needing to protect my father's feelings and the illusion that he is living under, and out of a fear of his reaction, I have never told my dad that I'm sober. For two years I have wondered whether to tell him that I don't drink and why and that I've been going to AA meetings for the past two years. The years go by and he knows me less and less - and I've been hiding this huge, incredibly huge part of myself from him. I'm worried he will be devastated. I mean, I wouldn't have a clue about what that's like to have your child tell you something like that. Maybe it's no big deal - I mean these days, recovery is perceived differently than it used to be - but my dad is from a different generation. Not only that but he doesn't understand - he may grasp on some level that it can be genetic - so he may be able to fathom it because I have an alcoholic mother (who is not sober) and grandmother (who died of the disease), but I can tell, based on conversations we've had, that he definitely doesn't get it.

I am worried about a couple of things - mostly that he will be angry and that his opinion of me will change. But at the same - I can't keep living this kind of half truth with him. I'm not being honest about who I am with him and it's getting to me after all these years. Our relationship has always been based on half truths - pretending and hiding and covering things up - a legacy of my childhood (maybe if you don't talk about it isn't true, but definitely, don't let the neighbors find out). That's what my life has always been about on some level. I am finding that I can't do it anymore - and not just with him. I'm going to tell him when I go home on the 13th for my anniversary. I really thought that I would never tell him, but I am going to. It isn't to shatter his illusion or hurt him or upset him. It's so that I can be me around him, finally. I just hope he isn't devastated by who that person is.

One by one

One by one I am ending my friendships. Call it cleaning up some messes from the past. The one I ended the other day though didn't mean much to me - it's like the person slips from your existence unnoticed and it doesn't seem like anything is missing. It is easy, ending it - there is really no ending to it, you just stop engaging in it and it goes away. You don't even miss it.

This one though, I'm upset about. And I can't tell you why, I can't tell you the story - but just trust me when I tell you that you would agree with me. You would agree with me in ending it - you might not agree with being upset about it. I wish I could talk more openly about it - for some positive reinforcement, but I can't. The thing is though - this person, for right or wrong, meant something to me. They meant a lot to me actually, and I hate that. It's pretty painfully obvious to me at this point however, that they don't really care about our friendship. I've ended this friendship multiple times. And each and every time I get talked back into it. The person asks for my friendship back and I give it to them. It's never clear to me why they want it, but I give it to them anyway. And then I end it again and give it back again and end it again. And I wonder when I'll ever learn. Maybe this time.

This one doesn't slip away unnoticed. This one leaves a hole, a giant hole and I desperately want to fill it with something. Anything. All that is left is the same hole that was there to begin with, but it's still a hole. It's the same hole and it's the same size, it just has a different shape. This friendship played upon every weakness that I had and the very things I most hate about myself and I was powerless to stop it. It is the perfect example of everything that has ever been wrong about my life and relationships. It is the perfect example of the things that haven't changed, despite all the work I've done, I still feel the same about myself. If I didn't, I wouldn't be writing this post, I wouldn't have had this day. The thing about these friendships that I'm ending - they are very clear to me when they aren't mine. The answer is clear, if it's you. But if it's me, well...it's another story about low self-esteem, actually, this time it's the same story.

And it's been twisted around and convoluted - the story. It's been spun into something else. Because I know that I have a part in it. It's hard to be angry when you've been trained to look at your own part of a situation instead of blaming someone else. It's hard but it's not impossible. My part is that I keep participating, expecting it to be different. I willingly participate. I lose sight of the reason why I was angry in the first place, and that's what I need to remember, because I had no part of that. You know what they say - the first time you treat me shitty, shame on you, the second time, shame on me. What about the third and the fourth and the sixth and the seventh time someone makes you feel bad? You start to look like the stupid one.

I don't know where the anger goes, it just dissipates and that allows me to continue as if what happened didn't. Because if the options are to lose someone, to feel abandoned, or to keep someone, no matter what it says about me - I choose to keep them, because I am so desperately afraid of abandonment. Even if it means I couldn't possibly have any self respect.

We all tell the same story

That's why it works - because the details are different but the story is the same. Your story is my story is everyone else's story. You show up, and over and over again, you hear your own story. Some of us lost everything, some of us lost nothing, but the story is the same. I've been feeling a little anti-AA lately. Not that I would ever stop going or anything, it's just some times I get sick of it. I get sick of the meetings I go to, the people who show up to those meetings, the quality of sobriety there, the gossip, the lying, the bullshit, the drama the chaos. Sometimes I just want to be around women with a lot of sobriety - I mean a lot of sobriety, not a couple of years, but 10, 20 years. I want to be around quality sobriety - not a bunch of people who don't have what I want.

I always feel on the outside here - like I've never been connected the way I should be or the way I was where I'm from. Sometimes I try to reach out more than others, and then I withdraw again. So I was talking to this woman after the meeting on Saturday night, because she said she got sober somewhere else and then moved here. And she was talking about being in the middle of AA, versus being on the edge. I always feel slightly closer to the edge than the middle, but close enough to the middle not to fall off. Anyway, she invited me to this Big Book study that someone has at their house on Friday nights. It's a women's meeting and they are about to start over from the beginning of the book. I used to go to one of those when I first got sober. Of course, every part of me doesn't want to go. But I'm going to - cause there is a lot of sobriety there and I want to see if it's quality.

When I get irritated with the program like this, I change up my meetings. I start seeking whatever it is that I'm looking for - strong women, good, quality, long term sobriety. I went to this meeting this morning that I go to sometimes - there is this woman there that I wanted to see. I like her because she got sober when she was 28 (which is when I got sober), and she is still sober 30 years later. The meeting was great though - the lead outstanding. It was this guy who's 54, used to be in the military, cut off half of his hand in a printing press accident when he was drunk, got sober 22 years ago. My story isn't his story, but it is. He was talking about the pain, the unbearable pain of living, the reason why we drank, the way we try to escape ourselves, because when you drink, you can become anyone. He said the very thing that I said yesterday, that it was all so painful that he used to wish he could just be someone else. The good news is, 22 years later, he doesn't wish for that anymore.

Grace

I went to my favorite meeting last night - it's my home group. It's a candlelight meeting. We have a reading, a silent meditation, a lead and then comments. There is just something about this particular meeting - there is a peacefulness to it - maybe it's the candlelight. There is a calm when you walk in the room, an intensity, an intimacy. Last night we were talking about grace. The grace of God - what it looks like and how easy it is to miss it, or to convince yourself that you deserve the bad things that happen and don't deserve the good things. How to open yourself up to it, or receive it, or tune into it.

My understanding of it has changed in the time I've been in AA. I have heard it defined all sorts of ways - that grace is an unexpected and undeserved reprieve for which you owe nothing in return. It is a gift. It is as huge as the fact that I am sitting here writing this, and as small as not having to sit in an airport bar with the head of my group while traveling back from a client meeting last Friday. It is as monumental as the ability to surrender, and as insignificant as having patience while waiting in the slow line at the grocery store. It is everything. It is all around you, if you know what to look for.

I have these days sometimes, like lately - these past few days, where my level of peace and serenity is so much higher than what I consider to be my best days, my average days. It's like being on some other plane of spirituality or something. It's hard to describe. There are just days like this - when I have faith, for no other reason except that I just have faith, and it's powerful, it's stronger than normal and it's pretty strong to begin with. There are days when I just believe that it will be okay - that it is okay and that it's right and that belief is based on nothing other than a feeling of connectedness. It's just a feeling.

On days like today, when I feel such serenity, such peace, I know it is because I have achieved real acceptance - real surrender, however fleeting that may be. And it is fleeing. On the days that I accept everything as it is, just exactly as it is, and I believe that it will be okay, no matter what that means, I am able to see the grace all around me.

And to practice these principles

To practice these principles in all our affairs - step 12. This is what has been on my mind lately - not so much the part of the step about carrying the message - but the part about practicing these principles in all of our affairs. I think people always think of service work when they think of step 12 - but that's only one half of it and it isn't even really the point. Service work is the easy part. It is easy to carry the message but it is difficult to live it. Over and over again I encounter people who do just that - they can talk the talk, but it's all just talk.

It is one thing to be sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous - but that isn't reality, or even a close approximation really. It is this safe little cocoon but it isn't reality. It is one thing to show up in the rooms and tell the truth and to have accountability to the people around you - it is something completely different to be an honest person and to take responsibility - for your choices, your past, for the way that you treat and have treated people, and so on. Being accountable to the people outside of the rooms is different. Being sober in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous isn't the same as living your life on a sober basis, by the AA principles. If you never get there, you've missed the point completely and I don't think it takes being on step 12 to practice the principles in all of our affairs.

What the hell is the point of any of this if when you walk out of the room - you don't tell the truth and you don't take responsibility. What about acceptance, faith, willingness, courage, humility, forgiveness, perseverance, patience - all principles of the program - do they translate into the rest of your life, have you, or haven't you really changed? "I had to face the ever-present knowledge that my every action, word and thought, was within or outside, the principles of the program. I could no longer hide behind self-rationalization."

Self-rationalization. One of my favorite things to say when I first got sober was, "yeah, but...." Everything - was a yeah, but - yeah, but I...., yeah, but he...., yeah, but it's not...., yeah, but I don't want..., yeah, but he said.... They told me that the only thing that comes after a "yeah, but" is a lie, a rationalization or a justification. I mention it only because a lot of things have suddenly become clear to me and this speaks to so many things about not sober behavior. The moments of clarity that I do have - when I have them - are sudden. It comes all at once in a burst of realization and you know things will never be the same. You will be unable to ever excuse yourself again - that's the hardest part - that you have no excuse and you know it.

Even on my worst day

I imagine how this blog is starting to sound. One minute everything is great - I'm happy, content, at peace, grateful, life is good, it couldn't be better. The next minute - I sound like I am complaining - I'm devastated, life is miserable and what is this thing called happiness that I can't seem to find? Then it's great again, my job is great, things couldn't be better, I have acceptance, I wouldn't change anything. Then I'm crying on the floor again about why I'm not happy. Are you picking up on the pattern here? My therapist actually suggested that I track this for a while, and that I try to pay more attention to what sends me spiraling downward rather than just acting surprised when I find myself there. Except that it isn't like a downward spiral, it's more like I teleport there. It's like flipping a switch.

I don't have the faintest idea how it happens. One minute I am one way and the next minute I'm not that way anymore. Nothing triggers it really. I guess I'm just used to it. I've cycled through this up and down every few days since I can remember - at least since I was 15. Sometimes the cycle is more than a few days - and it's never extreme - I just hover around the middle. Slightly better than normal, slightly worse, slightly better, slightly worse. Okay, maybe saying that I am devastated on the floor sounds more extreme than slightly - but I don't go very far into depression and I've never been manic. Although one could make a definite argument for depression. Anyway, I'm having a hard time sorting this one out. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the more I work the AA program the better I feel - and though I shouldn't say this - it's like a drug - work the program better, feel better. Which makes me wonder if at least half of feeling bad, if not more, isn't really depression, but instead, just untreated alcoholism

So anyway, today is a good day. If I had to really rate the day, I would say it is a "good day plus." It's not a "plus plus" because I am staying up too late and I have to work all weekend, but it's definitely one plus for being better than average. And I'm talking about the way I feel - I feel good - it's not just that my day was good. Today is one of those days when I feel overwhelmed with gratitude, happy (wait, did I just admit to feeling happy?), content, at peace with the state of things, accepting of the things that have happened to me, my faith is strong and I love AA. I know how it must sound - like I can't make my mind up. Am I grateful or not, happy or not, do I believe in AA or not? Of course I do.

I just have bad days sometimes - I have days where I slip into old ways of thinking and old ways of behaving, where my thoughts and actions are fear based and where I lose sight of the purpose, and can't pick out the details, where I lose myself in the future instead of staying present in the moment. I slip into the me of my former life, like slipping on a different pair of clothes. I just lose perspective sometimes. But even on my worst day, my most negative, and unhappy and miserable day - what I really believe is this - that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. That it saved my life and changed my life and I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing but humility about it. Even on my worst day I am grateful beyond words and I believe deep down to the very core of me that the program works, that miracles will happen right in front of you, and that your life really does become infinitely more amazing than you could have imagined. Even on my worst day I know that I have happiness - it may not look the way I wanted it to or be what I want it to be - but it is there. Even on my worst day, I still believe that anything is possible and that things really will be okay in the end - even if okay doesn't look the way I want it to. Even on those days, I have unshakable faith. And I know that I'm lucky, even on those days - I don't have to be sober, I don't have to go to AA meetings, I don't have to carry the message - I get to. It is a gift.

Congratulations to A. on 30 days sober. You continue to inspire and amaze me.

San Francisco in August

I have this day - at the end of October - that I both don't want to remember and can't seem to forget. It is burned in my memory. It holds a different meaning than it used to in light of the things that I have recently been through. In fact - as the years go by - it becomes more painful, as opposed to less. I would have expected the opposite. The pain sharpens while the rationalization seems less clear and it is all mixed with regret and uncertainty about the future. I always hope that the end of October will come and go unnoticed, but it never does.

So years ago - years after the fact - I wrote something, about that day - it was about that day but it wasn't. I had wanted to replace the day with another memory. I just wanted to remember something else. I can only talk about it here on my blog without actually talking about it, so I'll just post the only thing I ever wrote about that day.

August 23, 2003,

She has spoken only to a limited extent about that day in October. And she has certainly never recorded the words, perhaps never even spoken them aloud. The most she has ever been willing to say is right now – that she remembers the smell of the room, the inappropriate conversation between a mother and her teenage son, what she was wearing, and the absence surrounding the days that followed. She remembers the pain like it happened yesterday and she knows that such intensity is reserved for those moments in life we are meant never to forget. And she knows that she did not belong there because she was the only one in that room not crying. She thinks that it is telling, what we choose to remember. The way we sometimes like to carefully select the words believing that what we are recording is a memory with such precision and such accuracy that it is like a photograph – but distorted in its own way. And it is equally as telling, what we choose not to remember, whether out of a fear that the words will not be enough, or perhaps out of a desire to forget the moment altogether. Things unwritten, but conjured up later in a form all their own. Her memories, like all things, are a fabrication.

She says that day is like San Francisco in August – a night unrecorded in history. Unrecorded, because like that day in October, she wanted there to be no distortions and no mistakes. She uses that night in August as a substitution for the day. She remembers the density of the air and the color of the paint – she could tell you what it felt like, as if that same perfect picture of a San Francisco night in August, could make a day never exist.

What has been lost in the space in between? In the days and the pages that are missing? Not everything is as vivid anymore. She has wondered all this time if she had given up her self respect for him, and has concluded, finally, that what was lost upon those nights, is not in fact regained in the morning. The question for her has always been – how to live through the day that you wake up and realize that you are not who you thought you were – and in so many ways.

She is acutely aware now, like on that day in October, just exactly how every moment, every interaction, can change your life. Those split seconds in time in which a choice is made – to utter the words – to reveal the truth – or to keep the secret. A yes, instead of a no.

This is how it works

I've been thinking a lot lately about how AA works - mainly because I have been working with two sponsees who are in really early recovery - and in trying to impart the message to them, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. How does it work? Not why, but just how. I've been feeling really good lately, better than I have in a long time actually. It can only be because I am working with these two women and have been working the program even more diligently than normal, and in so doing, I feel my life and myself changing, rather rapidly. I have experienced these times in my program where I stagnate for a while, and then something pushes me back into action and things change quickly and then I stagnate again. I think I am just entering a period of rapid growth, brought on by the pain of living the same and the desperation of wanting the relief that I know is possible. I really don't know why it works, but it does work.

One thing I learned from my sponsor is that I shouldn't tell a sponsee to do something if I am not also going to do it. This means that I've been going to more meetings than I normally do, being more honest, praying more sincerely and more often, reading the literature more...I do the things I tell them to do - they may not do them, but I do them. I can tell them how to stay sober - and when I do - that almost guarantees that I stay sober. They may not stay sober - but I will. That's how it works when you carry the message. In some ways, it is a selfish thing - you have to give it away to keep as they always say. Not only that, but I've had to change some behavior - I can't very well tell a sponsee to stop doing X, while I go do Y, when Y is just as harmful to me as X is to her. So - I stopped doing Y, just like that. It's no wonder I feel better. You have to do something different to get a different result.

I find it frustrating sometimes though - trying to convince someone that it works - how to articulate it, how to make them believe you, how to get them to try anyway. All I can do is be an example of the fact that it works. I mean - the odds of me staying sober through moving to another state, changing jobs, surviving breast cancer and marrying and divorcing my boyfriend in my first 15 months of sobriety - the odds of me getting sober and staying sober through that - were 0%. I am a walking miracle by all accounts and I have nothing but humility about that. I had nothing to do with it. It was the miracle of the program and the miracle of how it works.

The thing about how it works is that the Big Book gives us very specific instructions. I used to sit in meetings and listen to the reading of "How it Works" and hear the words but not hear them. It probably took hundreds and hundreds of readings of these paragraphs before the words meant anything to me. Today, I love to hear how it works at the beginning of a meeting. I like to close my eyes and listen to the words as someone reads them. I like to really hear them - process them, think about what they mean. There are things contained in how it works that I remind myself of on a daily basis - the things that are the key to this program that were lost on me in really early sobriety. I've written about some of them below, though I haven't included the entire thing - just a few key things that I wanted to point out to someone.

This is how it works from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 58-60 . "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." It doesn't say - you might succeed or sometimes it works. It says, "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." It says thoroughly - that means completely, not partially.

"Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." Rigorous honesty - the half truth is not enough. You have to be brutally honest. You have to tell the truth.

"If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps." Willing to go to any length - that means willing to go to any length. That means I must be willing to work this program thoroughly - completely - not partially. I must literally be willing to do absolutely anything that is required. - as if my life depends on it - because it does. Anything short of "willing to go to any length" will not be enough.

"We thought we could find an easier softer way. But we could not." This is the easier softer way, trust me.

"Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." I have to let go of my old ideas - that means my thinking and my behaviors - and try it another way. You have to do something different to get a different result. I have to let go completely, not partially. Anything short of completely will not be enough. The result is nil until you let go absolutely. That means you do what you don't want to do, even when you don't want to do it. You do it anyway. You do it just because. You have to surrender to it.

"Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point." This is the most important part. Half of the effort does not get you half of the reward. Half measures get you nothing. Half measures will get you drunk and if you don't stay sober you can't change. And if you don't change, you won't stay sober. I have to let go absolutely and surrender, I have to work this program thoroughly and completely and with the willingness to do absolutely anything necessary to save my own life. I have to tell the truth while doing it.

"We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." It is progress, not perfection. I don't have permission to beat myself up for not doing this perfectly.

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas: (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives; (b) that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism; (c) that God could and would if He were sought." This last paragraph - it says the same thing that it does at the beginning. It doesn't say, God might help you. It says "God could and would." Here's the catch though - it says "if He were sought." You have to seek Him (or Her). It also doesn't say that if you seek God, you might be relieved of the desire to drink. What it actually says is that if you seek God, God will relieve your alcohol-ISM.

During the pause

I am taking a second - to breathe, to asses how I feel, to asses my mental state, to check my connection to my higher power (which, oddly, is missing). When things get crazy at work and I lose myself in the midst of what feels like chaos, I really have to make a conscious effort to check in and see just exactly what is going on with me. It can be easy for me to go for weeks, or a month even with no real awareness of myself. I just go through the motions. I often find, in that moment when I pause - that things aren't what they seem - my reality and actual reality are not the same thing - and I also find that I am right in the middle of trying to ignore or avoid something. It doesn't take alcohol, or anything for that matter, for me to check out for a while. It's automatic and unconscious even. I don't realize until I come out of it, where I've been. I repeatedly have those moments where I think wow - I don't think I have felt anything in like a month.

My stress level is pretty high at the moment. I haven't had the greatest week - between the stress of my job, the fight I am in with Volkswagen, the aftermath of the situation with my mother (I'm still waiting for that to hit me, aren't I going to have an emotional reaction to this?), and last Friday when I almost drank...when I actually stop to think about how I feel, I don't feel great, which isn't surprising. I feel tremendously stressed and on edge. I guess if you look at the situation from a higher, broader level - everything is fine, great actually. But down here where I'm at, in the moment to moment, it feels sort of unbearable and like it's never going to end. My natural tendency is to look for immediate relief. My tendency is not to want to go through the feeling, it is to go around it or avoid it altogether if possible. I'll go through the experience - just so long as I don't have to associate any emotion with it. That is how I have always survived. There is a just a disconnect between what I experience and what I feel associated with my experiences. You might say the feeling part is lacking altogether.

People tell me that I tell the story of surviving breast cancer as if I am reporting the story of someone else going through it - as if I have no emotional connection. I would say that is quite accurate. I really don't feel much of a connection to that experience. I have only bits and pieces of emotion here and there that I associate with certain things that happened during those 7 months. I have anger over some things, I have sadness, I have mostly fear, but, for the most part, like all things, I have compartmentalized the pieces and removed myself almost completely from the situation. I was there right, I must have been. Or was I just working 50 hours a week and pretending to be somewhere else? If it weren't for the fact that my hair is still shorter than it used to be, and if I didn't have a physical reminder every time I take my shirt off - I think I could seriously convince myself that it never happened. Much like my childhood actually - my brother and I will tell stories and there always seem to be a lot of things I don't remember. It's like I wasn't there - and in fact, in a lot of ways - I don't think I was.

That's how I feel right now - not here. I do this sometimes, where I let my job consume me. I just let it swallow me. It wasn't planned, it just happens that I have a major deadline on a major project and the whole thing is riding on me. And while I am not enjoying the stress of it or knowing that I will be working all month with little break, even on the weekends, part of me thought - ahhhhhh - here's a little relief. This is what it's like to escape from myself, to escape from the emotion - it is to be somewhere else completely while physically present in front of you. It's like a drug sort of. I've learned though to both love that and hate that about my job. It's like dreading the up-swing of my mood which can change pretty rapidly, because I know there can only be a down swing to follow. There is no easy way to come off of the high of working like I'm working and the stress that goes with it. The only way is to crash. I love it and I hate all at the same time.

It's different this time though - I don't usually realize that I've been in a period of total avoidance of myself and my emotions until I crash, somehow surprised every time that it's happening. It hits like a tidal wave and knocks me over. I'm more aware of it this time. I know there is something there and I'm stuffing it. So aware that I paused yesterday for a second - it was like flipping a switch - just to see what, if anything, I am not processing. And there it was - in that pause, all I could think was - but I'm still not happy. I had written all those posts about why I can't just be happy - what is wrong with me that I can't just be happy? And when you strip it all away, my job, the stress, the money, my car, my friends, my family, there is a very definite hole, a very definite emptiness. You take those things away from me, all those things that I am trying almost frantically to lose myself in the midst of - you take them away and there isn't anything left. Something is missing.

CAN I GET YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?

You are not immune. So don't think for even a second that you are. You have to be vigilant, always.

I feel better today, but wow, these past few days, since Friday, have been about getting my attention. Maybe I just needed a reminder, that's all. I didn't think that I was being complacent in my program, but I guess you can never think when you walk into such a situation, like dinner with non-sober people, that you are really safe. These past few days have felt like very early sobriety. A lot of my past feelings and thoughts are in front of me, I am experiencing them, my sensitivity to everything is heightened, and talking to this new friend of mine is like talking to myself two years ago. I am sure that it has just brought stuff up and she describes what it's like to feel that anxiety and compulsion to drink with such precision that I feel it right along with her.

I do feel better though. I feel grounded again. I feel like my sobriety is stable and in tact and like I might not lose it to the bottle of vanilla in the cupboard. Yes, that's right. If you stop drinking and you are suddenly obsessed and all you can think about is whether there might be something you could do with the vanilla in the cupboard - the only thing in the house with alcohol in it - maybe mix it with a little cold medicine - to get some relief - you might have a problem.

What I wouldn't give for a little relief.

I am extremely stressed about work, not to mention the fight that I am in with Volkswagen. Sometimes I think my ability to deal with stress was better before I was sober - not because I consciously drank to deal with stress but because my life was in constant chaos and I am good in the middle of the stress of it. Before my life was drama, chaos, stress, turmoil, upset and I used to operate on auto-pilot in that world. Today my life is relatively uncomplicated and stress free. I have a certain amount of serenity or a certain calm about me so that when the chaos switch gets flipped I am not used to dealing with it anymore.

It's probably no surprise that I nearly lost it on Friday. The holidays are coming - which is always upsetting, my level of stress at work just doubled over what it has been the past two months, then there is my car situation, the situation with my mother...I know these things don't seem like a lot, but they are getting to me. I really feel like my level of stress at work is going to push me over the edge. I'm not making it to meetings this week - I already can tell that I am not going to make it tomorrow, I am going to have to work this weekend, and probably 12 hour days to get this project done and I seem to have no ability to concentrate.

I wish my sponsor would call me back. I feel better, but I don't feel right. Something is still off.

Coming to terms

I like anniversaries of things. They are milestones - markers in time against which I judge both progress and failure. In a couple of days, it will be the anniversary of the second to last time I ever drank. That was October 5, 2005. It probably seems insignificant, or like something I wouldn't want to remember - however, it is actually critical that I never forget what this night was like. The second to last time I ever drank matters to me greatly, as does the last night I ever drank. The second to last night, was the night that landed me in AA. The last night I ever drank, is the night that kept me there.

As I mentioned, I have been talking to someone new - or I guess I should say - someone who is just trying to figure it all out. It is fascinating actually to be on this side of it because I remember, and very vividly, what it was like to come into AA. A friend from ACOA who was sober 12-stepped me. It took a few weeks - almost a month. A month of conversations that took place mostly on email - me trying to figure it out, much like this friend is, and him just guiding me through the process as I tried to identify and come to terms with what was and wasn't true about me.

The fascinating thing about this process - of me coming into AA, of realizing the truth about myself, of admitting to it - is that I have a written record. I've saved every recovery related email that I exchanged with this person. From the very first email in which I questioned my behavior - right up until, well, today. Between all of the emails and this blog that I have been writing for a year now, I have the story of my recovery. Nearly every last detail of everything I thought or felt or did in this process called recovery is recorded. It is vivid, it is descriptive, it is incredibly honest, it is painful, depressing, sad, heartbreaking, hopeful, inspiring, and amazing all at the same time. I am incredibly grateful that I have this journal/story-like version of my sobriety and my recovery. I feel lucky to have that.

Every once in a while I pull those emails out and read them - around now, around my sobriety date, around my birthday. What was I doing, what did it feel like, what did I think about it? Have I changed? She and I have been talking about what it's like to come to terms with the truth about yourself - to see your past behavior in a different light, in a more honest light (which is what you see as the denial lifts away - you see the truth), and what it is like to admit that truth about yourself. What it is like to say I am an alcoholic, what it is like to admit it, to accept it, to surrender to it. So what I'm posting below is really for the benefit of my friend who is trying to figure it all out. This is just a very tiny excerpt of hundreds of emails.

October 25, 2005
"I started reading the big book from the beginning - I'm on page 38, I have 126 to go until the stories start - and I've already found things that pertain to me. I'M FREAKING OUT NOW. I don't want to read this book anymore. I can't breathe. I feel like I am going to have a panic attack. How many times have I said - once I start, I can't stop and I don't know why? And how many times have I said I drink more than I want to all the time? When I say that - why don't you - say - HELLO HELLO HELLO. "Potential problem" here.

Okay breathe. I don't think I have a problem like other people have a problem, BUT, I think I might have the potential for a problem, if not a teeny weeny very small sized problem that I really wasn't aware of until I decided to stop. Cause I can't stop thinking about it and I just want to go do it, for some unknown reason, shit, I don't know. I can't even explain it to you. But it's like I just have to do it - I am honestly surprised that I have made it 3 weeks and that just sounds really bad. I don't think "normal" people feel this way or would have this much trouble. I personally would prefer to rely on the opinions of others? Do you think I have a problem? Do I sound like I have a problem? I think I might have a tiny sized problem. Although - I have to say, I am managing it rather well."

He wrote me back and later that day I responded:

"Okay, I would say, objectively, the person you are talking about has a problem, perhaps not a huge one, but a problem nonetheless. But I don't see how this could have happened. I HAVE BEEN SOOOOOOOO CAREFUL AND SO OVERLY AWARE. This is making me feel sick. I DON'T WANT TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM. I HATE MY MOTHER AND HER MOTHER. I HATE THIS RECOVERY SHIT. I WAS BETTER OFF BEFORE WHEN I WAS LIVING IN OBLIVION. Okay, I don't mean any of that - I mean about recovery or before. Cause I am way better off now than I was even a month ago - cause a month ago - I was too blind to even realize that I might be headed in a bad direction.

I told my brother this evening before the meeting that I was freaking out about this after I started reading that damn book. His jaw dropped, initially, and then he said duh - quit drinking. DUH - QUIT DRINKING. DUH. Because I'd been lying to him you know about my recent activities, until tonight. I told him I was having a problem stopping and that it was not easy. And he was just standing there looking at me as if to say - are you a fucking idiot? Get it together. NOW.

Why is this so hard? Can I say - okay maybe I shouldn't drink, but not actually admit to having a problem? Cause the thing is, I would feel bad admitting that. Or can I say - I only have a wee sized problem - so not really a problem.

Wow am I hung up on this, aren't I? To be totally serious for a second. This is what I think - I think that I have a serious predisposition to having this problem and even though I have not had anything really bad happen I am headed in a bad direction and to the extent that I am having difficulty with this, with stopping, with controlling myself and wanting to drink for totally wrong reasons - then I do have a problem, though a mild one at this point. However not severe it might be, I want to stop before I can't stop. Seriously, I want to stop. I have sworn my entire life that I would not go down this road and I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever let this happen to me or hurt anyone in the way that my mother hurt us. I have promised myself that so many times. I have to stop while I can. I can't let this happen. I have to tell you, this is really scaring me - the way I feel, the way I feel such a lack of control, I'm really really scared."

The truth is, I laugh when I read these emails today - I laugh because it is so obvious to me that I am totally an alcoholic and that the things that I was doing and thinking at the time were so completely alcoholic. At the time though - I thought I could outsmart this disease. I thought that I had no so much knowledge and self-awareness that it simply could not be the truth about me. Because if it were, I had been completely blind. Admitting it was not easy. Even now sometimes, admitting it is not easy. I feel ashamed sometimes about it. There are times even now when I don't want this to be the truth about me, in a desperate kind of way, I don't want it to be the truth - but it is. It is the truth about me.

"But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge." Big Book, page 39.

What is this feeling?

It's a little something like being lost - or like you've lost a piece of you. You've lost a piece of your life. You don't want it back but something is definitely missing. Instead of your life, which is pliable, reshaping itself to fill in this once occupied space - there is just a hole. You have to fill it with something, because you can't stand an absence like that, the way you can't stand a feeling - the way you can't stand uncertainty. There was always drama and chaos, pain and rage, and God only knows what else involved in our relationship. I think she has been like a tornado in other peoples' lives at times. My mom told me today that she didn't know why she was talking to me, when it only made her feel worse.

That might be the story of my life and of my relationships - not just with her, but with men in particular. Why do I participate with this person who only hurts me and makes me feel bad - makes me feel as worse as my mother can - with this person who makes me feel like the most worthless thing in the world? I go back for more. I practically beg for it. I suppose on the theory that just once it will be different, and it never is. My relationship with my mother can only be described as one of both love and hate at the same time. That was the message I always got/get - I love you/I hate you. I love you, but.

My relationships with men follow this pattern. It is sickening really and not at all surprising. I've struggled with trying to break the pattern but my self-esteem has never quite been good enough to break it. I always find myself having the same relationship over and over, just with different men, with slight improvements every time, yet with the same underlying fundamental failure. I love you. I hate you. Come here. Go away. I want you. I don't want you. I keep trying. Trying not to be abandoned. Willing to do anything to keep myself from being abandoned. Tolerating the unthinkable and putting up with the unacceptable.

I can only hope that standing up to mother this time, once and for all, is the end of that pattern. Maybe it is the end of trying so hard, the end of feeling bad about myself, the end of tolerating people's bad behavior, the end of settling for less than I deserve. Maybe what I've needed all this time to change my relationships with men, is to change my relationship with my mother. At first I felt angry about the situation she has put me in, and then I felt sad, I still do, a little. Right now, I feel empowered.

There is somewhat of a hole here though. There is something that is missing. An absence in the shape of the space that she occupied.

This thing that I feel - it is like being lighter.

My higher power, times seven thousand

The strongest thing that I can think of is my higher power. Imagine the strength of that, times seven thousand. What could be cooler than sitting in a meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous with 7,000 people - nothing that I can think of. 7,000 people saying the serenity prayer and the Lords Prayer. Years and years and years of sobriety. All I could think was - the strength in this room is amazing - indescribable. The power in the room - the spirituality - palpable. Talk about a great way to witness how it works.

I went to the big annual Chicago AA meeting tonight. I had never been to a meeting like that. I contemplated lying my way out of going (tsk tsk)...but a friend convinced me that it is actually cool to be in the presence of something so amazing and see the fellowship on another level.

I actually left there feeling renewed hope for myself. Maybe I am not destined to be miserable. I left there wanting to do service work - which is odd - cause I don't do a ton of it and seem to be unwilling these days. I thought - what am I doing whining and complaining about my life when I could help someone? I want to be one of those people who have what people want. I want to be happy, joyous and free as we say. I want peace, serenity and contentment. Those are really the only things that I want.

The root of the root

I need to make a correction to my last post - or rather, an elaboration. I knew I wasn't digging deep enough when I wrote that. My problems with men, the bad relationships, lack of self-esteem, etc., and feeling like a guy can "fix" my life - that is like the root that you trip over when you aren't looking cause it is sticking up above the ground. That is a surface level issue, a symptom of the problem. AA tells me to look at causes and conditions. What lies beneath this thing lurking just at the surface?

Fear of course. Fear is the root of the root - it is the root of all disaster, drama, bad relationships, failures and even successes in my life. Like I said, anxiety (fear) is the great motivator of my life. It plagues me, drives me, colors my thinking, taints my decision making - both the good ones and the bad ones. Every thing I have ever done has been based on fear. It is woven through every last nook and cranny of my life. What does the Big Book say - it is the corrosive thread that touches just about every aspect of our lives - or something like that.

It all comes back to fear, every time, every problem, every issue, every unhappiness. The fear of losing what you have or not getting what you want - this is the key to everything. So if I can be free of the fear, I can be free of the unhappiness, in theory, because if I can be free of the fear, I can be happy with what I have. I can be happy alone, if I am no longer afraid that my happiness is dependant on someone wanting me. This is all in theory of course because in practice I still feel how I feel.

I will say this though - I do know that hanging your happiness on the behavior of another person is never a good idea. Eventually, people always disappoint you. Friends, they don't show up when you want them to. My old sponsor used to say that engaging in a relationship with me (this is going to seem a little harsh) would be like being forced to play a game (that you can't ever win), but not knowing that you were playing it and not being told the rules, and then getting in trouble when you lose.

This guy, this mythical guy who is going to materialize in my life and give me everything I've ever wanted and change the way I feel about myself and change everything - this is destined for disaster.

The root of it all

This series of posts has been me - trying to get to the root of it all. Just what exactly is the root of my unhappiness? And why do I still believe that something material can fix it? Is it because the rest of life is so intangible that I can't even really wrap my mind around it? Is it really inevitable that we always want what we don't have, or can't have? Could it be that material things are the cause, when so often we think of them as the solution? Just what is it about the material things in life that has such a hold over us? It is the way we measure our success, and the thing we use to compare ourselves to other people. For example, my father deems himself a good father because I am financially successful - he has told me that. The material things in our lives are tangible, measurable, quantifiable, like my job. Happiness is not like this, or so it seems, although we tend to approach it like it is.

It has only been through AA that I have learned to look at the less tangible aspects of people 's lives, like happiness for example - and start to ponder what might make up the contents of this thing we call "happiness." I might on the one hand say, my sponsor - she has a kind of serenity in her life that I want. I want what she has - peace, serenity, contentment, happiness. But how do I know that she has these things? I see them, but how, how do I identify them? Rarely do we look at someone's life and say gee, I wish that I could practice the patience and tolerance of others that that person does - look how much serenity he or she clearly has. No, of course we don't - we think, I want that person's car, job, house, husband, etc. - look at how happy they seem. This phenomenon of comparing your insides to another person's outsides is a dangerous one and also very inaccurate.

How exactly do we measure these intangible things that we want - how do we measure the degree of our happiness? It seems that we measure this by the material successes and failures of our lives. We are back where we started. It is a vicious cycle. I'll happy be if, and I'll be happy when. So am I destined for a life of unhappiness then? I cannot seem to untangle my material wants from my ultimate happiness. It will always be true that there will be something I want that I don't have. Can't I be happy in spite of this? How do I actually know that I am not happy at the present moment? Maybe this is happiness and I just don't know how to identify it. I feel the need to figure this out in a desperate kind of way. I need to get this. I need to figure this out. I desperately want to be happy.

Separate from this issue of material and intangible wants, I think I know what the problem actually is - what the problem is that underlies all of my other problems, both real and perceived. No matter which around the issues I go, I conclude the same thing every time. I have no self-esteem, or very little anyway, and that is basically the root of it all. I think so little of myself, that I believe that there is something wrong with me if no guy wants to be with me. The fact that I am 30 and alone, with no prospects in sight, means there is something fundamentally bad about me. I can't figure out what is so terrible about me, why am I so unlovable - and there is a part of me that just knows that if a guy wanted to be with me, I would be "happy." I know this isn't true like I know the sky isn't green, but this doesn't change the way I feel. I have never really been able to muster any self worth of my own - I've just tried to obtain it from others.

I landed in AA largely because I hated myself. I hated myself and I wanted to die and I was so unhappy that I didn't think I could live another day. I stuck around AA because I thought I would learn to at least like myself. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how little progress towards that goal I have actually made.

What is this thing called, "a more amazing life than anything I ever could have imagined for myself"

My last post and the comment that was made, has really gotten me thinking about this so called journey that I am on, or rather, over analyzing my increasing lack of motivation about life. If you know me, you know that I am pretty motivated on a day to day basis, and pretty motivated at work. I have realized that much of my motivation in life has been anxiety driven, and now that I'm not anxious (which is a mystery because I am not on anything - one could probably attribute this to AA in action), I feel almost no need to move forward in life. I am still trying to figure this whole anxiety/depression thing out - but I do know one thing - anxiety was the great motivator of my life - and maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Anyway, as life would have it, I am on this AA journey towards "a more amazing life than anything I ever could have imagined for myself." What the heck is that supposed to be? I mean, if I believe in AA, and I do, then I don't exactly get to choose the contents of that amazing life. My higher power will put into my life the rights things at the right time. Of course this requires action on my part, I have to work the program, but the program has taught me that no matter how bad I may want that new job or more money, or any of the other things I want - they will come to me when they come to me. And if those things don't come to me - something even better will. Even if my life doesn't look the way I always thought it would - that's okay. For me, this is part of having faith and working the AA program.

Just as an aside - I am torn constantly about what this life is supposed to be about. On the one hand I will tell you that my life is not about me. That there is a purpose to me being here, still, that I survived breast cancer for a reason - and that the purpose is for me to help other people. I believe that - I believe that my life is not really about me and that I can help many people by showing them that you can survive something tragic or devastating and have a life and stay sober while getting through it. Those are powerful stories. That doesn't stop me from turning around and complaining about the revised compensation structure at work and how I am going to be really peeved if my bonus isn't big enough. It doesn't stop me from wanting what I want. I can't always figure out how to want what I want and live within a life that isn't supposed to be my own and isn't supposed to be about material things and instant gratification. So I'm lucky to be here, and grateful to be here, tremendously grateful to be alive, that's true and yes, I want to help people, and I want a raise in January. Does that make me evil?

So, I'm on this journey, and I have to admit, the fact that the destination is completely intangible, means you are going to lose me somewhere along the way. It can be hard to motivate yourself when the goal that you have is something you can't describe. Yes - the goal is something I want. I want it and I want it badly, but what is it? It is a more amazing life than anything I ever could have imagined. That is the goal. But what the hell is it and how much input do I get to have? What if I want to make partner at my firm - is that part of the plan, how am I supposed to know? The line between my will and my higher power's will is blurry and there is a part of me that feels guilty for still wanting what I want, even though I claim to have a great appreciation for life and a greater understanding of what it is supposed to be about.

I like predictability, defined outcomes and definite goals. I like a destination that I can see clearly. I like to be on the path, at the end of which I obtain something. I understand that life is about the journey and not the destination, but I like there to be a destination even though the destination is not the point. I have learned about this, the hard way, by missing the journey as I desperately tried to get to the other side of life. My life has been a series of defined goals, each of which I have achieved. I have always had something to work towards. First it was get out of my parent's house, go to college, do well, graduate, move out of Ann Arbor, go to law school, get into a good one, do well, graduate, get a job, get another job, move out of Ann Arbor again and get another job, save X amount of money, etc. I have always felt like there is something that I am trying to get. In this process, I realized that everything I got was disappointing when I got it - because it didn't cure my inherent unhappiness. Neither did every new boyfriend, a new car, new furniture, a new town - none of the external things I ever tried, ever made me happy. Always thinking - if I just get X, then everything will be okay. I used to think - if I just make X amount of money, then I'll relax and be happy. I can tell you that I make significantly more than X, and I still lack the thing I've always wanted the most.

This thing that I am chasing - it is simply happiness, a little peace and some serenity. Something that all the money in the world, a law degree, a new car, nice clothes, a good job, a guy - can't buy you. My friend who got me sober used to say - happiness is not a destination - and every time he said this, I would think, but I just know I'll be happy when I get there. I still want to look at my life as a series of goals and destinations even though the point is to find happiness right now, in the present moment, and in the little things. I want there to be an end point. I want there to be a finale - I want there to be a moment when I finally get every last little thing I've ever wanted or ever thought I needed and I finally say, okay, NOW, I am happy. That moment, it's never going to come is it?

I still suffer from the feeling that something, some external thing can fix it. I still feel that - but I know it isn't true. I don't live under that illusion anymore. And maybe that is why I can't motivate myself. Because I know it isn't going to work. The problem is not anything outside of me - the problem is me. I distinctly remember the moment that I realized that - I was on the phone with my friend who got me sober and he was reading something to me out of the Big Book - when I finally got it - I finally got that alcohol is a symptom of the problem, and the problem is me. This was both disappointing and relieving and the same time. I got in that moment that nothing I was trying to achieve was going to fix it - that was disappointing, but changing myself would fix it, and that was a relief.

Because I understand that, I know now that as I set goals and achieve them, the happiness I really desire will continue to lurk just out of my reach, if I can't grab onto it right here, right now. I do have some definite goals for myself, pay off a 40k student loan on October first, save a very large down payment by February, 28, 2009, bill 2100 hours by April 30, 2008, make partner eventually, meet a guy, have a family. I am not sure what other goals to set for myself, when the truth is, I have everything I need, and a lot of what I wanted, materially that is. Not surprisingly, the goals that I can really make progress towards are all financial and the other ones, meeting a guy and having a family - those, I am afraid, will continue to elude me. Why is so much tied up in my job? Because it is the one thing that I am really good at. It is the one area of my life in which I am really successful, while the rest feels like a disappointment. In the scheme of things, these things are not that important though, and they certainly aren't going to cure my unhappiness.

How am I supposed to work towards this thing that I want then - this intangible and undefined thing that is supposed to be a life that is more amazing than anything I ever could have imagined for myself? One thing I know about life, that I have learned through AA, is that it changes the most when you accept what you have at the moment. So how do I work towards this thing? By realizing that it isn't a goal - it isn't something to get, it isn't something to achieve, or a place that I will arrive at. It starts with gratitude I think - gratitude that I am alive, that I don't have cancer, that I don't have to drink and destroy my life and end up like my mother, that I don't have to live the way I used to or feel the way I used to, that the sun is shining today...the list goes on. It's starts with gratitude and realizing that the thing that I want is all around me, happiness, the serenity, the life more amazing than anything I ever could have imagined for myself - I am sitting in the middle of it.

If what I want is over there, then why am I sitting over here?

I always appreciate the reminder - which usually comes at an AA meeting, that nothing changes if nothing changes. AA after all, is premised on change - and if I don't change, my life doesn't change. Doesn't that just sum everything up? Nothing changes if nothing changes. I have to actually do something different to get a different result. Duh. I am stagnating I think. I suppose it is normal to go through periods of growth and stagnation, but it is frustrating, to say the least, to sit here and contemplate changing, to want to change even, but to be unable to get myself to take action. Not only is it frustrating, it is baffling really.

It's like someone saying - I have this thing that you really want. You really really really want it really badly - it's everything you've always wanted. Everything you've ever imagined and more. I have it, and I'm going to give it to you - but I'm going to sit it down way over there, and you just have to go get it. You can see it, you want it, it seems like a bit of a hike, but you want it more than anything. There are a lot of obstacles between you and it, so the person even gives you directions. And while the path might not be that easy to walk, the destination is obvious, and you are positive that it will be worth it once you get over there, no matter how hard it is. You believe wholeheartedly that this person has given you the correct directions and you know that it is only a matter of time before you get over there and can have it. The directions are really pretty clear and easy to follow, and yeah, you have to do some things along the way that you don't want to do, but it's completely worth it in the end, because you get to have what you always wanted.

So what do you do? Sit over here and want it instead of going and getting it. I've posted about this before during periods of frustration. This is what working the AA program is like for me sometimes. Seeing what I want, knowing I can have it, yet I am unable to go get it. I believe completely that this program works and that into my life will flow great and amazing things, more amazing than anything I could ever imagine. IF I TAKE ACTION. If all I do is sit here, my life is going to stay the same. Granted it's changed a lot (and when I say it's changed I mean that my attitude and perspective have changed), but it stops changing when you stop taking action. I just feel like I'm sitting on this giant plateau. I always hear people say that if you aren't climbing up the mountain, you are sliding back down it- that you are moving forward or moving backwards. I really do feel like I'm on a giant plateau.

The mountain is not really in sight - I'm definitely not on it - I'm not moving in either direction. The thing is - I feel willing - at least, I feel open to the idea that anything is possible. I feel in a state of surrender - I feel like my will is aligned with my higher power's will, I feel deepening levels of acceptance...but I cannot seem to muster what it takes to keep moving forward. I don't get it. I actually think that I might be depressed at the moment - maybe a by product of trying anti-anxiety/anti-depressants - and not finding one that works. Although, I was not depressed when I decided to try them for anxiety. Anyway, that aside - frankly, I think if I could look for an alternative way to walk around the mountain - like if I could find a detour - I would take it.

That's not a good thing. "We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not." "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." "How it Works" page 58.

Not everyone gets a "do over"

There are a lot of things that I think I know, that I think I've learned, by surviving breast cancer - and by being in AA while doing it (and the AA piece matters because if it weren't for this program, I would have killed myself instead). I have learned important things about life in this program. These things that I've learned are hard to quantify, hard to articulate. They are hard to put into practice - these ideas I have about the way I want to live my life and the standards that I want to hold myself to. It is one thing to say that I will live without regret, it is something else entirely to live that way. Maybe these things that I've learned are things that most people know, though I suspect that more often than not, a true appreciation of what these things are comes only when it is too late. Unfortunately, I think it takes a real life and death moment sometimes to make you appreciate the little things, to make you truly grasp what matters in life, to place you squarely in the present moment. In fact, I am not sure that it's even really possible to get it, and I mean really get it, if you don't have such a moment.

I thought when I came into AA that I learned what life was about - I thought I had changed so much and I thought I really got the point. I thought I had gained a real appreciation for life and for what matters in life. Yet there I was struggling just the same with the very things that I have always struggled with and the very same things continued to make me unhappy. It was almost as if my higher power knew I wasn't getting it, so it was yanked from beneath me, never to be the same or look the same again. That's the thing about these life lessons, I think that we repeat mistakes until we get it right and situations will keep happening to us until we get the point. Sometimes, for some of us, it takes great pain to get it. When I get something - when I finally get it - it is never in a moment of subtlety. If I had never been diagnosed with breast cancer, I wouldn't have learned what I've learned, at least not by this age.

When I was diagnosed, I experienced a sudden and dramatic shift in perspective that slowly over time shifted back. Over time I became stressed about my job and career again, obsessed with money, worried no man would ever date me again because I had breast cancer (among other reasons)...the list goes on and on. Where did all that wonderful perspective on life go? It seems I lost it when I realized I would live. The shifting of my perspective is something I have struggled with. I have been frustrated over and over again with the shift in one direction and the shift back. Why can't I seem to remember the point or why can't I implement it in my life? That I don't know. But I do know that something happened to me over the week and a half of before the follow-up appointment and mammogram that I had on Thursday. It might have gone unnoticed but I suddenly felt different. I felt certain fears melt away and I realized that it wasn't just that my feelings had changed, but that my thinking had changed also as I felt a new degree of openness born out of desperation. Maybe just maybe I could be open to the possibility of something I didn't imagine or foresee.

Those most powerful moments of surrender have always come out of such desperation. The more desperate I am, the more willing I become to surrender. For me, such moment are always tied to my life and my death. When I am faced squarely with my mortality I become willing to give up anything. There was a time when I didn't feel this way, when I negotiated with God for my fertility and I was willing to give up my hair, or my life even, or so I thought if I could just keep that one thing. It seems silly I know. I had such a really powerful moment of surrender the night before that appointment and in that moment I had a real appreciation of the fact that the degree to which anything is possible is directly related to the extent to which I am able to surrender. This journey has been a process of negotiation. Of hanging on and then letting go, of taking my will back and then surrendering it again. Until finally, in the most powerful moment of desperation that I have ever had, I let go of all of it. Everything I ever thought I wanted out of life, everything I ever thought would make me happy, I traded it in, in exchange for my life, and whatever it may turn out to be.

I suddenly felt the peace that comes with such surrender and being free from the expectations that have contributed to my unhappiness. I have given it all up, every last thing, which means that anything is possible. If I believe in AA and the things that I've learned there, then my faith tells me that what my higher power has in store for me is more amazing than anything that I could ever imagine for myself. The worst thing that I have ever felt in my entire life was the moment when I thought it might be over and I was only 29. The moment when I thought I might not live the rest of my life and that the life that I had lived might be it. What do I have to show for this life that I've lived but unhappiness and fear, bad relationships and anger, hatred, resentments and regret. The regret was unbelievable - I realized that I was going to regret most of my adult life and that moment when I realized that I might not get another chance to get this life right, was the moment that changed me and scared me the most.

The greatest gift of my life today is that I get to live it differently. Not everyone gets a "do over" and that's exactly what I've been given. For that I am blessed. Those days before that last appointment have planted me firmly in the place that I most want to be - in the moment, with a perspective that feels firmly rooted - I doubt this time that it will shift back in the other direction. I get it this time. You don't ever know, ever, whether you will have another chance. The moment, this one, right now, it matters. What are you going to do with it?