“Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.” — Clint Eastwood

08/12/2024

I found myself disconnected tonight from the meeting that was going on around me. Like I was there present but for some reason I felt like if I wasn’t it wouldn’t have mattered.  I’ve grateful for any meeting I’m able to walk into comfortably. Since the year mark I feel as if I’ve gotten a little too comfortable skipping this meeting or that meeting. I give this excuse or that reason. However tonight’s meeting was none of that. It just felt… I felt actually, lost inside of it. Disconnected. Feels like the right word use entirely. I can’t relate to people when they start reciting the big book. Big book is never high in my list of things I need to do in my sobriety. Step work either since we’re on the topic. So I felt myself zoning out. I try to visualize things. The problem with that is I always find myself allowing the bad in with the good. Like with this blog. Lately I feel as if I write it for you the reader. I never intended it to turn out this way. I visualized it as an escape or outlet for thoughts that seemed to be trapped. All along realizing they are trapped because I allow them to be. If my sobriety has taught me anything it’s that I have a voice and just because my thoughts or feelings are different then yours doesn’t make them any less valid. I stand by what I say because at that present moment it’s exactly how I felt. Sometimes it’s easier to type than to speak. 

What I’m about to say may go against the group consensus of AA and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I’ve always had a different opinion than others around me so here it goes.. I don’t not believe that reading the big book will make it less likely for me to pick up. I also don’t believe that my higher power alone will stop me from picking up another drink. I heard someone say in a meeting before that they’ve never had a drink jump off the table and down their throat on its own. It all starts and ends with me. How bad do I want to remain sober? I, along with my higher power, this program, the amazing people in these rooms that I will stay sober. No big book will give me the willingness unless I put forth the effort. If living by the big book helps keep you sober then by all means keep doing it. But that’s just not how it is for me. I don’t have the willingness to open a book that hasn’t left the glovebox of my car in over 4 months. I hear people in rooms quoting this line or that page from the big book. I’m amazed because they’ve read it so many times they know the page number and line of the words they live by. Me, over a year of sobriety and I haven’t gotten through it. Not once. If it wasn’t for the weekly big book rotation at the home group or the casual big book meeting I happen to attend I’d never read anything from it. That’s nobody fault but my own. I’m still stuck in this period where I believe I can do all of this. I can handle it this staying sober daily I’m trying to accomplish. I pray in the morning to get me through and I say a thank you at night for getting me through sober. But I got the rest between. Actually I feel like that is a life I’m telling themselves. Because if that was true I wouldn’t be reciting the serenity prayer before I enter into work. Asking for guidance through any adversity in my face. Or randomly throughout the day because saying it makes me feel better. Maybe I still don’t know what role or how big of a role my higher plays in my life. I’m not obvious. It played a part in lifting the obsession I had in the beginning of this. Back when all I thought of was a drink. All I wanted to do was quit and pick up that next drink. My higher played a part in helping me stop drinking. I’d call myself a fool to think otherwise. Maybe I’m just selfish and still want to take all the credit. Look at me yes I’m that damn good. I pick and choose when I need my higher power and when it can stand aside because I got this. With all that said I know if I could have on my own every time I said I was done I would’ve been. There wouldn’t have been a next time. There wouldn’t be a “Hi, my name is Mel and I’m an alcoholic.” Inside a room of strangers who seemed a lot less strange the more I came around. No sponsor or group of friends. Friends that’ll tell you when you’re fucking up and pull you back when you’re walking a little too close to that edge. There would be no love. The people in these rooms know the love I’m referring to. The kind you can’t find outside of them. So I guess what I’m saying is I’m grateful that I couldn’t do it on my own because whether I care to admit it or not my higher power brought me to AA and the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. The whole “Let go and let God.” I’m still standing on the side of I need some sort of control. To feel as if my life is mine still. I get the belief in something bigger than myself but to then turn around and give it all away? That’s where you’re going to lose me every time. Like my thoughts or options might not be my own anymore… I afraid to admit that still. The whole higher power thing. God as I sometimes refer to it as. As if believing in one will label me as a weirdo. It feels strange sometimes to have one. Praying feels weird some days. However I do it because it’s proven to work. I believe it does for me on certain days and in certain situations. Does that label me as also a hypocrite? Picking and choosing when I want to believe? As if I only believe when I know it’s beneficial for me. Maybe you’re right. In the beginning they told me I needed a higher power. A God of my understanding is how it’s put I believe. So this is mine and yes it’s evolved like any normal relationship does. I do hope to become more spiritual rather than religious. One I’ll get there. I hope the calmness of these last few days continues. Peace is something I’ve struggled with ever since I got sober. So used to thriving in chaos, whether it be physically or mentally, that anything resembling peace frightens me. I guess I have to be honest no matter for weak I feel having to admit things terrify me. Like I have to be strong. But what is a person to do when being strong is all I’ve ever known. It’s hard to take the advice from people who surround me. To focus on doing everything and anything on my own. I know I have some work to do. I still have questions about myself that I don’t know the answers too. But I’m pretty sure I’ll find those answers in these rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.