Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 28

NETWORKS

Testing my sponsor when I’m hurt is like probing for gas with a lit cigar in my mouth. If I can’t find a way to douse the cheroot before posing my questions it’s guaranteed I will get an explosive response. I need a network; they follow me with sand, snatch from me my burning pacifier and save me from sticking my smoldering end where it doesn’t belong. We all need a little excitement in our lives but I don’t have to become an incendiary device to fill that need. I forget that boring isn’t the same as death; it just feels that way. Some days, distance prevents disaster; a good support system carries me away to face it on another day.


Don’t be afraid to turn the kaleidoscope.

*
RAID !!!


So, you stepped into a hornets nest
and now how am I to respond?
Blame you, no, I don’t think so,

I mean you are the exterminator
and some stings are to be expected,
but this is far beyond even your honed ability
to anticipate wasps.

Cry, running from this ambush?
Again, I decline
I still want you after the war is over,
even if I can not fight by your side.

Protest, I try to refrain,
I never want to make your job harder
but I don’t want to leave the impression
I have no concern, so I walk the fine line.

Standing on the sidelines is harder than you think,
I am helpless and lonely,
not as exciting as your work
and no comfort from this distance.

I must hold my breath
while you provoke the bees.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 29

POWER


When power arrives, it comes complete with blindfold, mask and lullaby. I am blinded to what effect I have. Others cannot see me, only the unchanging masquerade covering my face. All my fears and apprehensions are soothed by the melody singing in my ear. I am possessed. The hard thump of the bottom reaching up to get me is my sole hope of release. I can’t reason my way back from a trip with power; the isolation is too far-reaching, my senses numbed, my thinking biased. Salvation as a cold smack is the jolt required. Fire takes fire; power takes the same.


Draw your own lines then color out of them.

*
Black & Dedication

The brand of equipment endorsed by my Higher Power
is built so that my hand is clasped inside
lest I feel alone or unaided.

A closed mouth and an open mind work very well
when I can manage either of them
and Step 10 works when I can’t.

I am usually the problem in my life
but I am always the solution.
Others may change and contribute;
I am the one and only one, responsible for my happiness.

Dropping blame from my vocabulary and adding responsibility,
learning to differentiate between what is mine and what is yours;
these tools are keys and they open worlds of possibility to me.

Also they shut out the demons of wrong thinking,
wrong acting and desperation, which used to plague me.
There are still greater tools I yearn for
but like everything I must be patient
and build my muscles to handle the heavier machinery.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 30

FROZEN STRAWBERRIES


“I have them in the freezer,” I tell my sponsor.
“I’m sure you do. When are you going to take them out and reenact spring?” her retort.
“I don’t want to take them out before I’m ready. I don’t want them to go to waste.”
“Oh, the Excuse Maker, the Staller. Are you going to drag all the old chestnuts out of the closet? I thought you were going to defrost strawberries.”
“Fear, you’re saying fear of strawberries is not a sign of stability?" I ask her.
“Eat the strawberries or not, but it seems to me you didn’t get sober to avoid the sweeter things in life, keeping all your goodness locked up in the deep freeze destined for frost bite.”


Let sunshine climb in your eyes and fall upon your heart.


*
I’m not Brian


I thought life was based on a system of
‘I will suffer and that will exempt you’.
Then I would be horrified when you suffered,
after I had already done so ahead of you.

In an attempt to ease my dismay I would look to see
who had broken the pact, you or me.
Had I not endured sufficiently to protect you?
Had you left the safety of the umbrella of sanctuary?

Panic gives birth to blame
and blame of course births nasty biting things
that run loose and bury in all the tender spots.

Now the goals I tend are to end the breeding
of those sharp and painful beasties,
stop laying my neck upon the alter
and start telling better jokes.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 31

SPACE


I stand behind the podium and talk about the event horizon, which brought me into these rooms. My audience: other unwitting astronauts whose lives, like mine, were deconstructed by the Black Hole of addiction. Though the time and place may be different, the physics of compulsion and allergy are precise and repetitive. Nodding heads affirm my calculations to be accurate with the vectors and trajectories of their own experience. I conclude, with the gratitude of a reassembled life, and pray, with gravity, for my feet to stay on the ground.


Toast your bread with satisfaction.
*





The Attention Tax


Paying attention is the price exacted for living in this society.
A taxation which is like a leach;
it takes the life force, diverts my brain waves,
claims the water rights to my river of thought.

What is left I use to wash off what I can,
never quite managing to feel clean or clear.
I sit in the mud puddle
still unsure if I understand what just happened;
harboring a dark fear of the wave to come.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 1

SEASONAL EXPECTATIONS

If I am out of sync with the way the world turns, I can be nothing but disappointed. I arrive with ice skates on the hottest summer day and grieve the loss of spring. I shiver in my sandals and ponder the need for a windshield scraper, the autumn leaves so long past. I must orchestrate my moods and movements with the evolution and revolution about me. I will learn to sing with the doves in the morning and the coyotes, come the moon. I can spin with the stars. I can grow with the grass. I don’t need to counter- balance life. If I learn to bend with the tides, it all comes around again.


If moles can make hills you can move mountains

*
Soul Chiggers


If you can seed apprehension deeply in a generation,
you can reap disillusionment for a hundred years.
Bent foresight twists hindsight.

Admiring ignorance, signs death’s warrant.
Evil splintered to a thousand slivers
burrows under the skin without killing their host.

Death delayed spreads destruction along with melancholy;
a septic contagion if ever there was one.
How do we fight this systemic blight?

It is embedded in the water,
the air, the mind, and try what I might;
I can’t seem to live without any of these.

Chiggers of the soul feed and breed
no matter how I scratch and chew.
I am raw, but still infested.

How do I kill what is in me
without killing the me?

[Girl Friday]

Well I've done it. I've had a drink. Actually. I've had several. So here I am with nothing but excuses for what I've done. There really isn't any reason to offer an explanation. What good would it be?

About a month ago I drank after several years sober. The pain of it, I told myself, is intolerable. I have to laugh at that moment right now. This pain seems so much worse than that pain. What a ridiculous excuse for a human being.

It's funny, even as I struggle to put my fingers to the right keys I'm telling myself "You can quit again right now. Just make the choice." But I don't want to. I want to be special in my pain. Poor me. I want to feel sorry for myself so that I have an excuse to drink again tomorrow. Poor me. Poor Friday. Everything she's feeling is so bad, so horrific, so much worse than anyone could possible care about. I make myself sick. I literally cannot stand myself right now.

A few years ago someone called me "a sick and twisted bitch" and I was so hurt by that. I understood why they felt that way. I was even sorry because I did play a part in their pain. But I never thought they were right. I just understood why they felt the way they did and I was comfortable being accountable for my part in it. Now I think they were right. I am sick and twisted. I feel twisted. At the root. At the very root. How convenient of me. I'm so wounded so I have an excuse to drink and put my well-being in danger. Boo hoo.

Boo fucking hoo.

[femmsational]

Originally Posted by Girl Friday

Well I've done it. I've had a drink. Actually. I've had several. So here I am with nothing but excuses for what I've done. There really isn't any reason to offer an explanation. What good would it be?

About a month ago I drank after several years sober. The pain of it, I told myself, is intolerable. I have to laugh at that moment right now. This pain seems so much worse than that pain. What a ridiculous excuse for a human being.

It's funny, even as I struggle to put my fingers to the right keys I'm telling myself "You can quit again right now. Just make the choice." But I don't want to. I want to be special in my pain. Poor me. I want to feel sorry for myself so that I have an excuse to drink again tomorrow. Poor me. Poor Friday. Everything she's feeling is so bad, so horrific, so much worse than anyone could possible care about. I make myself sick. I literally cannot stand myself right now.

A few years ago someone called me "a sick and twisted bitch" and I was so hurt by that. I understood why they felt that way. I was even sorry because I did play a part in their pain. But I never thought they were right. I just understood why they felt the way they did and I was comfortable being accountable for my part in it. Now I think they were right. I am sick and twisted. I feel twisted. At the root. At the very root. How convenient of me. I'm so wounded so I have an excuse to drink and put my well-being in danger. Boo hoo.

Boo fucking hoo.

Well, you're throwing yourself quite the pity party. LOL!!! I totally understand. When my disease is speaking for me, I sound just like you.


First, my name is Julie and I AM an alcoholic and addict.


Second, right now is not the time to try and make sense of what's going on in your brain so I'm not going to go into a long drawn out spew. Nothing right now will help you with what you are feeling. Other than feelings are not facts as I'm sure you've been told over and over and over.


Third, taking away all the judgemental language you are hurling at yourself leads to one small fact. You have a disease. I have the same one. My pleasure neurons don't connect like *normal* people. So I medicate. Why am I saying this? Because you took a drink because it's what people like you and I do. Doesn't make you a bad person or a twisted bitch. You have found an excuse that for the moment helped you fall backwards into your sick, as in injured, thinking.



Do you do meetings? Have a sponser? Might be a good idea???


If you need anything or just feel the need to talk to someone who "gets it" pm me. I will warn you, I'm pretty blunt when it comes to sobriety. For ME it's a life or death thing. I will help you through what I can but I will always be brutally honest.


Please take care,
julie