I don't want to see this thread die out....so I hope people find this thread and the ones that have posted before come back and start posting again.
we have to stick together...

recovery is important to me. I had 23 year sobriety when I fell apart for one day...jumped back into recovery and now have 9 years. I cant believe its been 9 years! It seems like just yesterday! LOL. That just goes to show you how quick times flies in recovery! Well, when we arent white knuckling it!

I dont know what I would do without recovery. Even in recovery I have made some stupid choices and faced the consequences, but the difference is, that I was sober facing them and I didnt add to them! Even when I relapsed, it was a good thing. I was broken and didnt realize it until I snapped. Once snapped, I started working a good program again and faced my own inventory. I am still working on myself to this day, and will be until the day I pass from this earth. Its a progress, not a finish line.

I have such a wonderful relationship with my daughter and my two grand daughters. I had so much to resolve with my kid from my addiction. We were in so much pain together and individually from it. I know if I had not worked so hard on it, we would not be speaking today, let alone, be the happy family that we are.

I am also in a wonderful relationship, that for the first time ever in my life, I am not struggling within it. I use to join up with people based on my perception of them and my perception of myself. Sadly, I wasnt seeing very clearly and it negatively affected all those relationships. Once I relapsed, i did a very thorough inventory of myself, and refused to engage in any relationship. I was scared, alone, and tired of being in pain. I just wanted all that to stop. I worked hard on myself and as I did, some wonderful people came into my life, including the person I am now married to. I was able to clearly see him as well as myself, which started us out on the right foot. I was also able to evolve further into myself in this relationship, as I explored all those preconceived notions we are handed about relationships. Its been wonderful to grow instead of be swallowed up! LOL

I am glad this thread is still around...

January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.
When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.
“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.
“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”
“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out
*

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators
is replete with metaphor and theme.
Expectation blithers loudly
but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers
but we do not touch,
we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear
and know that I am alive.
The flush of neighboring cheeks
attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony
but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.
We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal
but that’s all that we need.

January 5


THE BAG

I saw a bag at the top of a tall tree. Full of air, the wind pushing it; it rocked back and forth, held by the stub of a branch. It is so beautiful, so lucky, so blessed.
My sponsor frowns. “Beautiful, yes,” she says. “Lucky and blessed? Convince me.”
“The bag is lucky; it could be on my doorknob, holding garbage. Blessed? It’s free, not a care in the world, supported aloft by the strength of the tree.
“Inside your house, it’s warm. Holding garbage is useful. Lucky to be out in the cold, no purpose, no one needing your help? Blessed? Caught on a tree, trapped, sharp twigs everywhere ready to shred you, beaten by the wind?”
“You're playing devil's advocate.”
“ I do it well. What are you playing? You want to be free. What is free? You want to know for sure you’re on the right path. You think the bag knows?”
“If I were the bag, I might be mad. I might condemn the forces filling me so full I can only feel the force itself. I might be exhilarated, overtaken, free from responsibility. I might feel isolated, unstable 40 feet in the air. I might feel punished, abandoned, dismissed. I could feel a thousand different things.”
“And on the days the wind doesn’t blow?”
“Oh.”


Imitate all the animal calls you know
*


Time’s Temperament


Bubbling tides of white water,
time roils past me and my protests go unheard.
Physic feedback loops revisits raw moments
to me with inopportune exactitude.

The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down
then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline
to fan out before me.

The alternating fury and jubilation
of passing intervals leaves a challenge,
first a question of bend or break,
second a call to forecast.

Can I flex or will I live in pieces?
Shall I look at patterns
and strive for harmonious waltz
or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice?

Bully or benefactor time rolls.
I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.

s w
 

Welcome back LeftWriteFemme...I have missed your sober clarity, and writing.

Greco

January 6


MARIAN

Even if the whole world was created in a cipher and whirls off into nothingness, this is still not a commentary on the existence of God. We have today. For this moment of sobriety there is a power greater than my despair, my apprehension and it builds with me a home from the bricks of my optimism. Partnership is no prevention of inhospitable endings but is a temporary relief from desperate loneliness. The tired struggle of guaranteeing niceness spills my energy, scraping from each 24 the marrow so necessary. My open palm saves me from grasping, my open mind from grappling; I rid myself of tiny gods in tiny heavens where I do not reside. Let the blades of grass probe between my toes; there is beauty for me to see, love to hold, hope to float. Where this train originated and whatever its destination, it’s in my station now and I am grateful to be on board.


Leave your outgrown shell for the sea to take
*


Hand Me Down Pain


You have sent a cold thing into my heart
it causes my feet to move me away from you.
It need not be spoken of this is a thing of ice and lead.

Words are no help here
action is the only cure.
Eternity can be spent
with a soul bisected by slivers.

Stepping the willing way to joy and freedom
seems so unlikely from this frosty local.
Make my mind up I must.

Close my eyes and move forward.
I will leave your pain behind me
I hope not to have to leave you.

Just nipping in to say - you write beautifully, LeftWriteFemme! Thank you for sharing!
(hugs)

Greco, thank you so very much! I appreciate being part of this community sharing our experience, strength and hope!

Sherrie

Thank you, LeftWriteFemme. It is difficult for those who have lost their faith to use the concepts of a 12 step program, to move past Step 2 and onto Step 3. Who exactly will they turn their will over to? The group can work for awhile but human beings are fallible and will disappoint you. One must develop a faith in the mean time - a God of your own understanding.

January 7

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES


I cannot get my mind wrapped around the places I find help. I struggle with believing I have been helped; I struggle with disbelief at my own resistance. I am helped daily by many tiny things seen and unseen. I realize now, I was injured by the same tiny things when I was misaligned with my Higher Power.
The sun rising, the tiny star I circle in this great nothingness, it makes my whole day. The air hanging around just in case I need it, which I often do. The people who live with me (a mean feat), work with me, those who exist here with me, keep my ship on course. How very sweet of them to do mostly right every day of their lives. What a help that is. The whole ecosystem and all the weather: what would I do without it? But this is on a good day.
On a bad day, the sun is in my eyes, scorching my skin. The air is too still or well, the wind is always a problem. And People, people are an endless plight. People do things to hurt, annoy and irritate me. Full intent, targeted to me, my life, my wants destroyed. Bugs seek me and I am followed by the darkest cloud, every day, all day lurking.
I am so thankful for a sponsor and a tenth step.


Name your tears; honor them for who they are

*
Dion


Everything in the world happened before I was born
and the cinders sift through my fingers.
Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes
is a goal I have not yet achieved.

Cremains precious but meager
are a difficult building material,
shifting due to emotions and wind,

I find they stick too well to my lungs
and not well enough to anything else.
Tears help, but I will not cry forever.

I must draw from a fresh water source
and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited
and form the world anew.

January 8


OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new. They were tiny little guys, ten-cent feeders. I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly in our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase. The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed, space to fit my hand to feed them, no space for baby boy to climb in. I loved my goldfish. There is never a no with gold fish; feed them as often as you want; let the water get cold. Put them in a big space, a small space, plants, no plants. No was so hard. I hate and fear no. I am hard, fish are easy.
Tears and mesmerizing aquarium. Meetings and steps. I could not keep myself alive. I don’t know how I kept the fish fed. The program kept me going, kept hope flowing, and the fish swam. In this century, when we finally are outliving wild goldfish, we are sober together by the grace of our Higher Power. It’s been a wonderful time. I am grateful to be here with the goldfish. I am grateful the goldfish are here for me, expecting so little. Maybe I could return the favor.
“I’m grateful you appreciate the fish,” says my sponsor.


Find a bell to ring
*

Lathe

Turning into a spin,
the edge cuts into my misconceptions,
the point sharp and accurate to a fault
digs into the excess I carry around,
keeping me from my useful purpose.

A good eye and steady hand
are needed lest breakthrough ruin me.
Not that all is ever lost
for a spoon with a hole
in the bowl will stir a soup smooth.

Relinquishing my burdens and trusting the carver’s tools and methods
takes great commitment.
I am carved commitment or no,
but things turn out better when I don’t flinch.




.

January 9


IN A BACKWATER


There is a place so removed, uninspired, ignorance flourishes. I hate to go there. I avoid it when I can. Today I could not avoid it. Today I saw the gable end of a small barn, half hidden in the scrub trees. On the face of the gable end are two plywood cutouts, large, taking up the major portion of the space. The first cutout is a budgie, a bright blue parakeet, 7 or 8 feet tall. Tilted to its side, it looks dyslexic, but intriguing. Above it is a cutout of a black guitar, similar length, hanging long ways across the top, almost from eave to eave. I don’t know what it means, why they are there, who could have put them there.
A story’s tongue is sticking out at me; I can hardly bear it. I think of God, and laugh. If my God has nothing better to do than tease me, I need a better God. I think of my Higher Power and wonder if the power is curious, too. Am I overlapping a layer of consciousness I have no part in? Is this a subliminal preview of my future? Or am I far too nosy for my own good? My sponsor says the latter. I just don’t know. It could be something all together different. I have only time. Time will tell in the end; it always does. I hate to wait.




Compare and contrast eggplant and green beans.
*





Crestfallen


“Whoa is me,
I have crested the rise only
to slide down the other side.

Hard work and determination culminated in victory
but alas it was short lived.
Success is barely meaningful if it isn’t permanent.

Poor, poor dear,
I will have to strive once more
at the face of a new challenge or even worse
might have to make another run at this one.
How shall I ever bear it?” I lament, my sponsor smiles.

“Are you learning to be amused at yourself
or hoping to bring back melodrama to the everyman?”
She queries.

“A little of both I think,
whining is a consolation to me,
” I reply.

“It’s nice that you’re not doing it at me,
but even nicer that you have let your achievements
teach you to laugh at your mishaps,”
said my sponsor with a kiss to my forehead.


.

January 10

BREAKING MY OWN GLASS

The police of a small town caught a serial glass breaker today. The man who owned a plate glass repair shop was breaking store front windows. I break my own. I go through my life; I slash my own tires and break my own glass. I fear continuity, stability, success. I love damage control, making arts and crafts from my slivers and shards.
“Think what you could do with undamaged goods,” says my sponsor.
I don’t know how to do anything with undamaged goods, except damage them or give them to others.
“Saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she counters.
“Stick around,” I tease.
I can make a quilt from discarded clothes, mosaics from shattered dishes, collage from junk mail. I can hold your hand and cheer you on. See the potential in every person in a crowded hall. Rescue every stray on the block.
“What have you done for you lately?” my sponsor taunts.
She is making my point. What can I do for me? Search and destroy? Live outside myself? I have to be sober to be me. I can’t go around making messes so I have something familiar to wallow in. What if I can’t do anything fresh?
“Learn to market the retreads,” she says.


Watch an old thing in a new way.
*


Hoarfrost


On balmy evenings dew forms in my life
and moistens my extremities.
This friendly act requires the maintenance of temperature.

If I become suddenly cool the landscape changes
and the once welcoming vapor
is now a show of crystalline rigidity.

Cold to the morning light I am brittle
and snap at even a tentative touch.
For want of passion I have replaced it
with definition and structure I can not absorb.

I am outlined clearly but no longer myself.
I am frozen, formally changed within and without.
Warmth is necessary, but how to start my own fire?
Learn I must and quickly, lest frostbite set in.


.

January 11

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH

There are days loneliness eats my lunch and I can’t fight back. How can I stand it? How can it still be this bad? I pull out the old chestnuts: If I’m not happy with what I have, how could I be happier with more? And, Even tickets on the fifty yard line don’t interest me; I came to play! I roll them around. I think of the other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs. Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down and I sit with my plate empty. Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort. Actually, it’s a jeer. I stare at my empty plate. I turn it and twist it. I stick out my tongue at it.
“You're good company,” says my sponsor.
Then why am I alone? If I’m so good, if my company is worthwhile, why do I sit here hungry and desperate?
“Are you sure you are?”
It sure feels that way.
“Well it might be true.”
And it might not. I get it. I am unhooked from myself; I’m ignoring the multitude at my elbow, looking for someone in my lap. I’m holding out for old terms from a new contract. I am loved by people who aren’t trying to consume me and I am letting my expectations dine for free.



Imagine who the wind visited before you and who it is on its way to visit now.
*



Pepo


My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon
by cutting a triangle in the top
and pouring a bottle of vodka into it.

I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way.
Emulating bad ideas in new ways
was a onetime pastime of mine.

Giving it up was harder than I had expected.
Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape
I have trouble distinguishing it.

Condemning the action and not the man
is not usually my preferred method.
I would rather condemn the man.

But this leaves me with the actions in place
and him long gone and though I prefer him gone
I will recreate him within myself
if I don’t flush his actions as well.

I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders
but it is my job to keep it intact.




.

January 12

LIFE IS TOO GOOD

I know it sounds crazy. Is crazy. But I hate having the fear, the gnawing gut of “what if I can’t maintain this”? The sober life I live, what if I get struck unable to connect to my Higher Power? I had a spiritual awakening; what if I get spiritual narcolepsy? My spiritual cord was cut when I was young, not by my choosing. What if it’s cut again?
“What if this line of thinking cuts it?” asks my sponsor
I hate when she’s right. What if this is the test? Be like them or not. Follow the path of the twelve steps when there is no weight of need pushing me. I have to keep my eye on the ball for myself when everything is going in my direction. I’m still not God. This is the lesson the abusers never learned. The one I have to.
“This has been a prelude to a decision,” says she.
What decision?
“What went wrong was not bad people making bad choices in bad circumstances. It was disconnected people making decisions without help.”
I have to stay in your pocket. Never be a free bird. I have to remember what true freedom is. It’s not being cut loose. I had that and it never felt free.
“Keep your eye on the ball; hold onto my hand.”


Read a children’s book to yourself.
*
Live Bait



Is being a taunt to others really a life?
Dangling as the cover for a hook,
luring intended and unintended to their deaths,
is that living?

Or if I draw you with my attack
rather than my appeal
is that a worthwhile existence?

If I carry myself filled with poison
praying for a strike is that anything
other than a march to an unhappy grave
for two, or more?

Hidden under an avalanche of harassment
strips me of my vital quality
and my soul loses its true nature.

I am allowed to transcend
the setup of competition and social strife.
It’s alright to be tempting with no agenda.

I could be an appetizer
if only I removed the barbs
or better yet I could be dessert.



.

January 13

CATCH



How can my sensibility catch my intellect? Or find a map with enough information to get my heart to the current location of my mind? What are the common markers recognized by soul and brain? I know the pulse of my wrist is counter-pointing the firing of my synapses. My life signs run their course and I struggle to find the intersections. I long for more than signposts and curbing. I would like parallels, paradigms and conclusions. There must be a place of common home and hearth. I am looking for the depot of my life. I hope I hit it before I hit the coast.


Warm your heart with your thoughts.

*
Offset


I often feel out of round
and unmatched to my counterparts.
Awkwardly I sit unable to strike a plausible pose.

I want my asymmetry to seem chic.
I feel a victim of universal ugliness
and gracelessly plod through my days.

Luckily offset thinking,
the partner of my offset soul, saves me.
I see that I am uniquely useful,

Like a screwdriver set at right angles
for use where a straight one could not reach.
I am counterbalance and compensation.

I may be lateral but I am also collateral.
I am an embellisher, beneficial in unexpected ways
and shouldn’t seek to be inline with the multitude.

I am the new growth,
the spur to the future.



.

January 14


GRAVITY WORKS ALL THE TIME

Limits and boundaries are a drag. I hate feeling tied to the ground. I know I could fly if not for unseen forces. I sense myself lightening, smoothing, I drop my burdens; I pick up speed. Fourth dimension! Hell! I’m proverbial vapor trails. At this time I should explain. When I get moving this fast, I inevitably wind myself into a position where my head is up my in my nether regions, a place it does not belong.
I have slowly grown to love my limits; no restraint holds me back. In reality, I am supported, rooted as it were. I am not a hydroponic. I can live in the real world. I am me. Encouraged by the wind and the rain, I am not the hot house flower. I am truly free. I can walk where I was born to walk. I forget life has not been found outside my little world, and when it is, I’m still better off being me.


Introduce yourself to a new vegetable.

*
Specks


Spectacles are for specks;
tiny things that must be watched.
Commotion is nothing but a congregation
of minutia with an audience.

How many small things
do I strain my eyes to see;
then seek help to pursue further?

Some of these are put on display fishing for voyeurs.
Others are secreted away
only to be ferreted out through magnification.

Whether curiosity or contempt drives me
to these pinpoints I must search my motives
before I scan the plain.

For truly if I am not careful
I, myself will end up either speck or spectacle.


.

January 15

NO MAPS


Maps have existed longer than I have. By the time of my birth, aerial photography had made pinpoint accuracy the norm. I can be tracked by satellite on my daily commute. I can get a Trip Tik and travel to the far reaches of this continent.
"So what’s your problem?” asks my sponsor.
There is no map for where we’ve been going. There are the twelve steps but after that, it is all uncharted territory, except, of course for my family’s warnings about dragons.
“Those critters stay to home mostly. You have bigger things to worry about.”
So, where’s the map? I need to know where to go.
“No map. We go through this together. The pitfalls are similar: sex and money. There are a few others. What each of us finds on this journey is unchartable, plus if you spend your time looking down, you will miss the view. We prop each other up as we step off into the unknown, and reel each other back if we start falling off the beam.”
How do I know if I’m doing it right?
“Are you still sober?”
Yes, but I’m unsure. Lots of people are sober right up until the time they’re drunk.
“So true. It’s all about motive, and it’s difficult to chart your heart. Do you have willingness?”
Yes, you know I do.
“I have found that is the vehicle to everywhere, Honey. Learn to enjoy the ride.”




Write silly verse.
*


Comparison Shopping



Cost analysis of the yeas and nays
requires a savvy consumer.
Every word has a variable price
dependent on whom it is spoken to
and when it is said.

Some words charge compound interest
and others pay dividends.
Timing and delivery is of the utmost importance.
Knowledge of the markets requires constant assessment.

The risk to benefit ratio varies widely
and the short term verses the long term price
can flip the market from profit to loss.

Hold my tongue, speak my mind,
these must be weighed;
the clock consulted and inventories taken.

What I say and when
can be less a matter of bull or bear
than whether or not I can afford to be a sheep.


.

January 16


FEEDING SQUIRRELS ON A ONE LANE BRIDGE

Cattle corn spread on the single Lane Bridge---the trap. Food or safety? There are plenty of other choices; my disease sees none of them. Gluttony and danger the perfect combination. How can I resist? Why would I resist? I have to have more. I cannot depend on my nature, the ability God gave me to survive in my environs. Help must come from outside, and must be wild and dramatic. Inward help is boring, subtle, tiresome. Where’s my image? My excitement?
How am I going to prove my God worthy without too much, without perilous risk and rescue? I can’t. I can’t prove my God, and my God doesn’t need to prove anything to me. I can find my way, off the beaten path, away from the prying eyes of rubberneckers. No cheers from the crowd are necessary. I have the equipment. It came standard. If I look at the controls and follow the twelve step tutorial, I should be able to manage just fine. No Mack truck in my face, as I stuff myself with ill-gotten grain.


Look deeply into a glass of water searching for mermaids.
*


Bon


Comfort or motivation
these are the two major reasons for building a fire.
Sometimes I set it before me
other times under me.

The warmth can be soothing
and the light dazzling,
but licking flames move me
off the spot like nothing else.

Fuel and surrounds contribute to the effect.
Mental state and personal company
provide dampening or air.

How high the flames rise or how long they burn
varies widely inspiring my passions,
my thoughts, my fears

The conflagration is an apt tool
as long as I don’t go up in smoke.



.

January 17


IN THE COMFORT OF MY ROOM

I sit and panic concerning the future. I have come through hell, built a safe and satisfying life, but it will all end soon. I can feel it. The tide rises in my soul, the blood red tide of self-doubt and degradation. I fail to see my strength, or intelligence. Hell, I can’t even remember the sheer willingness, which has carried me this far. All I see are shreds, tattered little bits of my hopes and dreams, scattered by the breeze of fate.
What is the point of me being in this sweet space if I’m going to intellectually turn it to a dungeon? Why set out fluffy pillows only to frighten myself daily with thoughts of their removal? How can I pray for safety and practice personal terrorism? With an open mind? No! My mind is closed to the double side of life. I know the destruction but forget the glory. I have washed ashore in the land of love and support. I need not drag my mind and spirit to the nether world of hopelessness. I’ve been to the dark places. My task is to warm in the sunlit today.


Make an anagram of your name, which empowers you.
*

Hades


There is strangeness to the dark.
A velvety comfort
when my paranoia is not alive
with ice crystals and contempt.

Cocoons of light create hives of life
in an otherwise isolating phenomena.
Pressing to my skin I can wear the night out
as a jewel, a talisman for the hope I dare not share.

Pixies and faeries inhabit dawn’s wee hours
but the black blank stretch of space
is home to things quite different.

Unspeakable in their face I allow them to pass.
Should I be carried off my return is eminent
for half the seeds remain.

Not wholly ransomed I live only part time in the sun.
When the shadows fall there is the oddness of home
I can neither embrace nor deny.




.

January 18


THERE IS A TREE

There is a tree in the woods. I’ve seen it. It is cut off from any visible source of strength or sustenance. Carried aloft by the surrounding trees, the splintered trunk dangles in the air. It makes no connection to the forest floor. I know the feeling. I have been cut off too. Violently separated from my God, as it were. I probe the fractured stump at the bottom of my soul. I explore the crevices seeking tendrils of hope. My anxiety bonds to my frustration, but faith eludes me. I look down to the broken place, the view unrealized by me. I have a vista of unimagined beauty provided to me by the growth of others. I am eye to eye with my peers, held in their loving embrace. I bloom and flower with them. I endure the winters the same as they, and come spring am the stronger for it. I don’t know why I was damaged. I don’t know why I was saved. I am grateful it is done.
My sponsor says it’s for our sobriety and the pleasure of your company.



Think of three honorable people.
*


Between Two Chains


The curving movement half seen sweeps forward
and catches me squarely on the chin.
Realization glimmers that next time
it will strike me in the mouth
and I take a step back.

I estimate the returning arc, raise my arms,
push the board back from whence it came.
As it hurtles toward me once more, I reposition.

Force returns force;
fury comes vigorously my way
and I thrust with strength and enthusiasm.

And this is fine for what it is.
I have learned how not to get hit.
I can push when I get shoved.
How much better will it be
when I can get on and swing?




.

January 19


ROCK BOTTOM PRICES


Marble topped dressers, dry sinks and wardrobes, standing in the auctioneer’s warehouse, show loving use and obvious value. The hungry consumers peruse the merchandise looking for the perfect piece to fit their need. Old men eating ice cream sandwiches pick their way through the rows of tidbits laid out on the lawn, bargains to fill in odd spaces and little desires. So like our meeting places, where people try to refurnish their lives. The cost to arrive may have been high, but once in the market is more than fair. We reclaim relics and we use them as road signs and warnings. There is always someone around to carry large truths home and no one has to go away empty handed. We bid on our own survival by buying someone else a break. Time passes easily, as the one at the podium recounts the rock bottom prices.


Curl up inside the nautilus of your mind and take a nap.
*



Tea or Sympathy


Tears pouring into the teacup
growing cold on the table
create a sea of emotions uncharted.

If I cannot offer sympathy to the contents,
the soulless heel that I am,
how then do I expect to have a future?

If I will tender only meager tolerance
toward the spindled thing
valiantly trying to beat within me
why do I even show my face to the mirror?

If shoulders are cold and turned inward
then I will collapse into the inexpressive,
dismal thing that has been misshapen
through misuse.

I might as well drink the chilly tea
for that is all the comfort I will get.
I must do better by myself
in order to brew a better world.



.

Just checking in. Been watching the Government Shutdown. Think I need to turn it off, and turn on some Jazz or Blues to get mind off politics.

January 20

BECAUSE



Because I am my father’s child, I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular. Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror, I see so many bitter days. I’ve run from the implications and sheltered in the steps. The humility that saved my life is the understanding I am no different from my family. And, since this is a progressive disease we all have, I will just get there faster. Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over and keeps me grasping my Higher Power’s belt loop. All I am turns in every direction and can pull or push, lift or fall. I know my assets and I know their power and their limitations. All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources. I follow the only lead which has never promised more than it can deliver.


Be your own loving parent.
*



What Is A Sheep To Do?



Things are bad out there.
I see the trouble as I circle within the flock.
Many of us whisper to each other as we pass.
How can I create lasting change?

Is there something helpful
that will not separate me from my precious life,
something that will not make me prey
to the vultures before I even realize that I’m dead?

How can I live and strive
while the wolves hold the hilltops?
Is the choice merely, one death or the other?

Is there an as yet unseen path?
Can I find it
while maintaining my place in this congregation?
What is a sheep to do?




.

January 21


THE FROG

Stretched in the water, still, the frog hangs. The pond is barely a teacup, sufficient for the communion of God and frog. I watch the frog, unblinking , savoring respiration. In a pond in Maine, I bore this posture, center stage. A quarter mile of water all around, I hold my head above the surface and feel I am in the eye of God’s creation, face to face with benevolence. Peace spars with uneasy smallness. I am a tiny speck, floating in the soup; I am one organism in a sea teaming with life; I am a part of, not privileged but equal to the rest. Can I bear this reality, the struggle of living on a web? Can I live a humble life, knowing I am favored no more than the rest? Can I set aside my need for preferential treatment, a God-given Band-Aid for my multitude of hurt?
“If you can’t, you will drink," says my sponsor.
“If I have to live this way, I will cry,” I respond.
“That is your God-given right.”


Take someone else’s Higher Power out for a test drive.
*


Saurian or Dalliance


I love to be mystical
but the only dragon in my life
is when I drag on and on.

Procrastination is the winged beast in my world.
I armor plate the thing, shiny and gleaming,
my loitering delay is mightily impressive.

You might think it would take flight
from the way it postures
but departure has been adjourned
in favor of misgiving and postponement.

I wander through the forest
attempting to appear brave and feeling it occasionally
while my tale grows longer.

I need the fierce face and sharp claws
I can beat the mythology
if I will just continue to take action.



.

January 24


COMPOST

Looking at the bins, the stages of decomposition remind me of my disease, the stinking garbage I came in with. I have learned to work my program the same way I learned to tend my pile: personal experience, advice, watching and smelling the mistakes of others and myself. I learned that covering thoroughly with meetings and steps works like leaves and hay to eliminate the immediate stench. Circulation is important to prevent me from becoming stale. In the end, the secret is turning it over. If I don’t turn it over, I become putrid; I rot and ferment instead of decomposing, breaking down in a way which restores me to usefulness. When I work the process, my Higher Power turns me into a medium of growth, a renewed source of life and depth. I become rich in all the things that matter and sought after by all the people involved in planting seeds of hope.
My sponsor says it’s a sign of humility that I aspire to be like dirt, encouraging sprouts from the remnants of my past.
She might be right.


Speak from your heart, listen with your mind.
*


Frankie


“Why do I expect new leaves to grow on dead sticks?”
I pleaded to my sponsor.
“Is that a ‘why do fools fall in love’, question?” she retorted.

“Oh, I suppose it is. I was doing so well having a ‘listen only’
relationship with someone then she asked why I don’t tell her
my opinion and I like a ‘fool’ I told her.
The ensuing pile of rationalizing and justifying
she gave stank up my whole day.”

“I bet your steady stream of self-reproach didn’t help either,”
my sponsor added.
“But, I know better!” I cried. “I mean this is why I stopped
my speaking role with this girl.
I know she is a reactor NOT a listener.
How could I fall apart at her first recognition that I am wordless
in the face of her diatribes?”

“You were hopeful, is that such a crime?
You think better of people than they really are.
I think that helps you stay willing to help them,” she soothed.

“Yes, but this snapped my willingness to work with her in half.
How do I put it back together?”
“Maybe you needed to learn that it’s okay to leave the dead sticks behind.”






.

January 25


LIFE AS AN ELM

I stand tall, my bark sloughing elongated rectangles. Great bunions of protruding wood, giant bubbles of tight grain grown in reactionary curls, these tumors born of abuse and endured in maturation are harvested in recovery. The burden of them is severed from me by the sharp teeth of truth. Sectioning these masses for purposes of inventory allows the twisted and deformed wood to become dry and constructive. I inlay the contorted sheets of history into the panels of the doors AA built for me, the doors built to exit hell, which gave me access to the world beyond.
I stand in the woods, reaching the sky, sinking deeply to the underlying springs, surrounded by the joys of reality, things unseen in my pain- consumed, blister-covered life of addiction. Life was a forest of one; the wind hit only me; the snow fell only on me; the drought affected only me. Today, lightened by the loss of my inappropriate growth, I grow together with my sponsor, my group, and the we. I can accept shade and shelter; also offer it. The bugs and parasites meet with the resistance of communal health, and my disease has no harbor, not in my bark, not in my heart. Today, my program strips me of my disabilities and makes me strong in camaraderie.

Cry just to water your face.
*


The Max Factor


I apply foundation and rouge
to make up the difference between reality and expectation.
My composition is unexamined by onlookers
Appearance is the subliminal standard bearer.

My brave face is plaster cast
as an estimation and a singularity.
Powder gives and takes power;
builds a glass ceiling then a glass floor.

What I owe my mind
is more than what I allow its representation to be.
I am made up to a spot on the wall
from which I cannot move,
all because I wanted to put my best face forward.



.

January 27


DEEP IN THE SEA

Under the mirror, there is a life. Under what I reflect to the world, I am a world apart. I smile sweetly, political in my response to confrontation and conflict. Deep, deep in the sea, is a current of sadness I can’t always shake. Pain is the past, but it’s there like a moray, lurking to strike aimlessly, pointlessly, at the passers-by. The ripping teeth and cold stare, my terror. No way to escape it, I focus on the topside, the reflective part of me. I keep the surface as clean and free as can be. I stick to my business, list goals and make plans. The water runs cold and then hot beneath. I carry the steps to this under-water grave, trying to inflate the rubber skin of god, but no. There is no life in the god of my understanding, or maybe there is no life for the character the drowned balloon represents. The sea is bigger than me, the life stronger and more abundant. The sky it reflects as vast as the liquid I swim. There is a Power and it doesn’t need that comic book face. Safety is not the requirement that can be granted. Lack of safety does not end my life. It does not end God.


Tear open your thoughts like a letter you read mostly between the lines.
*

A Living Love




What I love about the program
is that it is a living thing, like me.
It is not perfect, it is growing and changing,
adapting and correcting for each experience and need.

AA is a life into life process
and saves me because life begets life,
no matter what I was told.

The answer to life is living
and I get to see that being done
by everyone from newcomer to old-timer
each at his or her personal ability.

I am allowed to dangle my feet,
wade, tread-water and swim,
all under the watchful eye of
loving support and critical pretender.

Difficulty is not removed nor is the way made smooth,
but I am no longer without a thread to hold.
I love the web I help weave myself into
and feel protected from the spider of my addiction
because together we are living proof.



.

January 28


AMENDS


Amends is about truth and change. The relationships of my past were places of little truth and even less change. I tried to be nice not honest; I tried to keep things going even when they needed to die. Making amends has ended most of my relationships from the past. A quick strong 10th step keeps me from starting too many new ones. Good healthy relationships require time and attention, so this necessitates a short list. Sometimes I wish for more quantity, but I realize in sobriety I cannot accept less quality.



Tie your shoes with humor.
*

Simplicity Itself

My life runs at a Gilbert and Sullivan pace,
with about as much sense and comic relief.
You say 'keep it simple'
and my disease says 'why ruin a good play?’

The truth is this is not play at all
but a work that consumes my life from me
and doesn't thank me for my time.

Simplicity for me requires respect,
a gift I selectively give myself
a gift that I often use only as a shield during battle.

My past method of increased self-respect
is life in a war zone, this is no solution.
Release of grief, this is the onerous path I avoid taking.

Purging the wrong thinking and action of others
from my blood, my eyes, my skin,
allows me to lift my chin and square my soul.

To plumb and level living,
don self-respect as a birth right
and set a calendar fit for plausible life, a simple life.




.

January 29

MY MOTHER’S FACE


The way that age pours down my mother's face when she is sad reminds me that grief runs through my blood. Generation after generation has been transfused with anxious woe. Heartbreak vexes minds full of fear. There is no easy way to round the bend on sharp pointed issues; the route is circuitous. I battle the chaotic thinking to fight my way back to a place where my mother’s eyes sparkle as they squint closed with her smile. The war of peace is not easily won by contemporaries. We must close ranks between the ages to keep the joy from sheeting off our skin and keep the sadness in proportion. Restore us to our possible bliss; we can overtake ecstasy from there.


Build ladders for the boxes that confine you.
*

Sponsorship


Right now, as I think of sponsorship,
I think of all the things I have done wrong.
Times when I was not understanding enough
and times when I was too understanding and enabling.

Sponsors I chose for ulterior motives
and the ones I didn't challenge when they wandered away.
I search my mind for the ingredients
that were in the mix when things went well
and the dominant component was willingness, mine and theirs.

Whether I was sponsor or sponsee,
willingness overrode ability, determination and love.
We had to come to the table willing,
this was never something we were able to cook up or construct.

Nor is it something I can always hold onto,
sometimes willingness evaporates
or slips away like sand in a clenched fist.

The permanence and impermanence
of sponsorship awes and frightens me.
Like a guidewire twisted from many strands
none of which reaches from end to end
I worry about the unraveling but depend on the strength.


.

January 30


NURSE

What if the word God is like the word nurse? What if the person is only the simple meaning? The actor doing the service, the plain act, uncontrollable from my end. What if my active part of God is the same as my active part of nurse? What I draw down; how I schedule myself to be ready when the milk arrives? How I pull and am satisfied, digest and draw again, like the sea laps at the shore, the moon tugging it all the while. What if God is about my hunger, satisfaction dependent on finding a suitable teat?
Maybe this is why, when it comes to God, much of what I do is cry. When faced with my need, I open my mouth, finding only two possible responses: suck or scream. My aching consumes me and I don’t know how to calm myself. I look for the caretaker, the person, the deed. I need succor, but never look for the breast. I am the child of God; I must learn to draw God in.


Paint a picture of life after expectation.
*

Inertia

n.

1. Physics. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration.
The tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest
or of a body in straight line motion to stay in
motion in a straight line unless acted on by an
outside force. Resistance or disinclination to
motion, action, or change.

This force is real; the laws that govern it act on me for well and ill.
When I’m on a roll it’s hard to guide me
and like the girl with the curl; when I’m stuck,
I’m very, very stuck and it’s awful.

I am bound by this reality and go or stay according to what is set
in motion or stopped, but what about ‘the outside force’?
Am I in charge of summoning ‘it’ or is ‘it’ summonable at all?

Will ‘it’ obey like the dog, or obey like the cat?
Or is ‘it’ more random than the rain?
Can ‘it’ be lured or tempted or does ‘it lure and tempt me?

And the biggest questions on my mind:
Is ‘the outside force’ also subject to inertia?
Are we in this together?

What is ‘its’ outside force?
Might it have something to do with me?




.

January 31


TRUST

My sponsor always says, “You can trust people to be who they are.” I am a different being in relationship to different people. To some, I am the center of their constellation, the sun burning bright; I’m all they can see. To others, I am the moon, orbiting them, silent and dedicated. With another group, I am a comet streaking through the sky, seldom seen but well remembered. For many, I am a distant star, one among the multitude, blending in the night with the other signs. Then, there are the folks who see me in a more down to earth way. I am the dirt beneath their feet. The farmers see me as a plant to be tended. The cowboys view me as a horse to be broken. To fishermen, I’m a catch. I am what people want to see, so what can I trust them to be? Wrapped in their own worlds? Yes, mostly, I guess. None of my business in the end. I watch them and learn what I want to do, who I want to be, in large part, by avoiding what I see them do. I do trust people to serve as bad examples often and good ones infrequently, and for each of them to see me through their own filter, if they see me at all. From me, they can expect the same.



Find a corner, then pitch a tent.
*




The Was and the Is

The Silent Scream that existed as a placeholder
for my G-d was incomprehensible to me.
I entered AA and was informed
that understanding my Higher Power was required
not just some far distant goal.
In true alcoholic form my first move was to shun G-d.
This made room for my rage
which was in much need of the space.
After a few fine years of dissipation
I lost interest in incendiary devices
no matter how large their detonation capacity.
Having cleared the room I brought in G-d as potted plant.
I talked to it occasionally, watered and fed it, mostly ignored it.
Growing in spite of lacking ministrations
G-d was an unobtrusive force living in the corner
changing gas into air and demanding nothing.
As I quelled my apprehension and lived with the Presence
I looked, listened, probed and questioned
the subtle Force sharing the room.
“Add it up,” chanted the children in my ear,
“run the numbers, settle the accounts.”
I calculated proofs and discarded the faulty and inaccurate.
What was left, the whole, not the remainder was mine to keep,
But it was not everything. I haven’t an everything G-d,
because I am not a nothing person.
I am something and G-d is something too.

We are complimentary,
like pairs of angles who come full circle.



.

February 1


WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I’m sure it will come soon, a time I can be a carefree, innocent. Worn and weary, I slog through the painful over-awareness of what was considered my childhood. What can I do but hope things will get simpler as I age? My sobriety takes years from my face; lines slip from me and I feel the weight lift from my shoulders. My tender branches, twisted with the constant force of wind, bud and flower in the shelter of recovery, holding themselves in their own embrace. Colors seep to the windows of my mind, form pictures and carry me to a new world. Through limpid pools I dive as I look to the mirror. Serenity, a rebounding of life fills me, and I am the gentle girl I missed so long. Longing for my loveliness, I cry at the sight of my baby one. I have not yet taken my place on the swing but I have been down to the edge of the playground and run barefoot in the sand. I will be who I was to be; it’s late but it’s better. I know well enough to enjoy it as it comes, treasure it for every sweetness. I will come into my youth.



Listen for a bridge that calls your name.
*



Principles before Personalities............and Gratitude!


As with everything I have to be careful
of how I infer meaning.
You say ‘Principles before Personalities’ and I hear,
Their principles and Their personalities,
immediately I’m on a tear.

How different if I think of ‘my’ principles and ‘my’ personality.
When I face it this way it is reflexive;
I embrace my principles and my personality falls into step.
I am safe and sane therefore gratitude follows
just as the topic suggests.

Good orderly direction is elegant when I don’t reverse direction.
There is an obvious way to pet the cat when I accept that
we get along fine, when I don’t………well, need I say more?




.

February 2



THE DIFFERENCE


Falling and flying are the same, save the landing. No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly, in the end, if you don’t land it, it’s a fall and if you do, a flight. How we begin seems of ultimate importance but is seen as a farce in the face of ruin. The most promising of starts can be sucked groundward, compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through a lack of humility. Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat. Willingness is my aileron. It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain, smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face, and willingness brings the ground up to meet me. All I have to do is be willing and stick out my feet.



Use all your words.

*

Know Enough to Clap




If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands,
but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then?
Will my face display telltale signs
without whispering a word of it to my mind?

Will I whistle a happy tune
therefore revealing my inner state?
If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist?

Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion
condemn me to remedial society?
Is there any other society?

If I become well enough to reflexively feel
and exhibit my mood will I graduate
to the advanced class or be forever alone

No longer having a place
amid the emotional head bangers,
hair twirlers and cobweb pickers?

Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation
or confusion with a crowd?
Could I know? Should I know? Would I know?
Who knows?



.

February 3



AND THIS IS FOR WHAT?


I smiled down on God and said, “This is pretty and what is it for?”
“Oh, that’s your life. It is a surprisingly useful thing to have.” My Higher Power, like my sponsor, thinks she is funny but she is not.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Who do you think I am, your mother, your Grandpa Joe, your guidance counselor? I put all the possibilities in you then I let the wind blow. What would be the fun of coming here if I gave it to you all mapped out? Did it occur to you the reason people say ‘you are right where you are supposed to be’ is because you did the things that brought you here, not Me, and if you don’t like it here you are the one who needs the motivation to change it.”
“Take my life............Please.”
“You are such a comedian!”
“No, that’s your department, and could you stop tending your garden for five minutes and give me your attention?”
“I don’t need to give you that kind of attention. You bloom on your own.”


Age with curiosity.

*
The Inside Half


I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me.
I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through,
but I am into it a goodly bit.

I would be happy to have another 19 years;
nineteen more hours would be a gift, too.
That glass might be half empty
but I am at least half full and I am amazed!

I am regularly stunned by the prodigies
this half trek has born to term;
equally dazzled by how quickly the generations
compound in this painstaking construction.

Development both internal and assembled
surpasses my wildest imaginings.
Amazement is my most constant companion,
more than gratitude

and as of late even outstripping willingness
my most trusted ally.
Shock has been replaced by wonder,
bewilderment with surprise,

I am fortified with these feeling realities
and look happily to finishing the rest
of what is in that glass.


.

February 4


HOW LIKE THE MOON

I show the shining, bright face to the world but can not enumerate the dark. I change and turn for all to see, glowing sliver to full fledged smile. I inventory all phases, can tell you from wax to wane, but the darkness, the anchor to my lonely life, I can only guess. I feel my way across the unknown topography, searching with fingertips and faith to find the secrets of this magic nightmare. And what? What is the thing to break it? Hope? Reverence? A detailed map? Or is the darkness just a fact? Part of the big equation, the equalizer of the light? If this is so, how best to live with it? Continue the search or post barriers? Go ever forward, looking for an answer? Endear myself to the void?
The choices are always mine. The way, seldom clear.


Breathe with power.

*

Today’s Math


Today is 12/06/06 this is an equation to me,
12 = 6 + 6, simple.
Not everything is, but math always works for me.
My Higher Power is math based
and one of my major decision making tools
is to run the equation of the presenting situation.

There are many constants in my life
and those numbers are easier to calculate
the variables often prove more difficult.
Scalable problems allow for my Geometry.
Proofs are a comfort when I can get them.
Set Theory is what I settle for when I can’t.

I try to show all my work
and have others check my calculations.
I can’t tell you how often a simple error
in addition or subtraction has fouled my whole equation
not to mention my equilibrium.

In conclusion I would like to say it is now 12= 9 + 6
and somehow I’ve lost three days, or did I gain them?
See how tricky the signs are.


.

February 5



THE FORGOTTEN


"I am not Cleopatra; I am not in denial. I forgot."
“Sure,” says my sponsor, “I’ve seen the headdress.”
"That’s not fair! I’ve heard women say they forget the pain of childbirth."
“They’re kidding. You can’t just forget pain. It’s there waiting in the wings, looking for its fifteen minutes of fame.”
"And what if I don’t give pain its fifteen minutes?"
“You will be the worse for it,” she says with her smug way.
"What if I can’t drag it forward?"
“Honey, Baby, Sweetie, you need to let those things come up before they drag you back to a drink or whatever your new addiction of choice is. Just open your mind. You might be surprised what is waiting to see the light of day.”
"What if it kills me?"
“Darling you’re not that lucky. You don’t get to escape through death, either. Lean into this and you will get through it faster. Hold on to the program and you will get through it easier. Fight it and it will tear you up.”
Always the optimist, my sponsor.




Dispel assumptions, inhale willingness.
*



What is “offender” number 2?

I’m not looking for trouble, really I’m not,
it’s just that thanks to this program
I’m no longer plagued by resentment,
but I doubt that is the only stumbling block there is.

Possibly the remaining list is as divergent
as the alcoholics who make the lists.
Though I am guessing we have more in common
than that one thing.

I stare at the various and sundry bric-a-brac
measuring potential harm and formidability,
so many candidates with razor edges.

I take my combat pose as I lift the pen,
wondering if giving things status also gives them power.
I take comfort that acknowledgement is empowering for me.

Tell me the weights you lift
to strengthen your “Spiritual Muscle”
the things that crowd behind resentment
vying for their turn as perpetrator of downfall and misery.



.

February 6


THE THRONG

The more people I meet, the more vehemently I do not believe in God. The tidal wave of human ignorance hits me and the sheer and repetitive force of it is more than my single souled craft can bear. Cyclical, coincidental tragedy coupled with purposeful meanness, barbed with arrogance and misaligned fear hold my child's faith under a scalding bath of realism. What to do? I do not know.
The fragility and perniciousness of life war with each other, though loss wins out. What can I use to keep myself from withdrawal into despondent hibernation? Looking for glimmers of goodness in the sea of overwhelming depravity is not cutting it with me. Mystery as an explanation is not working either. I am not a retarded five-year-old; I am a despairing thirty-eight-year-old and I am tired of game-playing and coyness. I want a God to arrive, not with explanations, but solutions. I am not looking for a punishing parent to send errant persons to bed without supper. I am looking for the equation of repair, the dance steps to healing. I am yearning for a global twelfth step, a universal attunement and galactic spiritual awakening. And by the way, I want it now.

If you can’t write, sing.

*

More Than Less



There is a difference between
doing G-d’s will and winning,
though sometimes they look the same.

Skin deep appearance or monetary prowess
share no border with the will of G-d,
but these can stack as transparencies
seeming invisible to the uninitiated practitioner.

The organs exist and blood flows in the living thing
and the shell is hard, lifeless; though it glints.
Success can be the mantel of right compliance
or the shroud of something deadly.

I mustn’t be pushed or pulled by the desire
of accolades or acceptance,
nor shall I flee into a trap for fear of ridicule or rejection.

The lacerations of emotional infliction,
unloving judgments and imprudent fallout
cause me to flinch in the face of changing focus
and relinquishing hope of control.

I am powerless over everything and responsible to everything.
Anything else is incidental
and with loving help will work out if I do not panic.

Ah, to love myself as G-d loves me.



.

February 7

THE SEAMLESS DOOR


Tongue and groove fit tight; the pickled boards belie the passage. Hinges buried deep, secreted inside the place with no words, the door remains shut, hidden. The air, candy sweet, the space, filled with the unbroken stream of surreal childhood. What can I tell you of this living snapshot? Nothing but the haltings, stops and shudders of a life encapsulated. Proudly, I walk from this train wreck only to find the tether stitched to my heart, my soul, my mind. Flashing through the room, I weary and wonder. I have often found myself outside this confusing destination, but never have I seen the door. Always, I believe, this time I am free of it. When I find myself again within this realm, I know it is something I cannot be parted from.
Then what of the door? The undetected portal was spied by me one day while it swung in the breeze. I saw the simple barn and the open loft door; I never thought my incubus to be housed in so plain a construction. There the turmoil of my forward motion stored in the attic of the pony shed. So many tragic contrivances are stored in such candid spots. Accessibility is the beginning of approach; I take the stairs.

Remember willingness doesn’t need to float; it swims

*


Two Powers



The river and the bridge;
one force swift and roiling
the other stolid and stoic,

The first carries me away
and the other carries me over.
For the love of liquid, current and life
I have slipped in to the water
and washed; my life abandoned.

For love of upright contact,
terra bound movement and love
I cross the bridge.

Will I be deposited in the Ocean
or wend to the City and back?
Where is the greater power
in Surrender or Choice?



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