Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 9

Pick up Your Hammer and Saw

The task infers the tool. I know this, yet I resist clearly mapping my insanity. I look into the well of my despair then quickly I look away, I fear informing G-d what I need lest the need be filled. I need to believe that a power will heal me, but if I am provided with the force of life, I shrink from the prospect. This too, must be added to the list of my emotional woes and mental shortages. This too, will be healed. I look at my problems and then realize, that like the moon, who pulls the water from dry shore to dry shore, solutions are installed in heaven and earth if I know what the problem is.



Experiment, start living a dream


*
COMFORT AND WILLINGNESS

Closer than comfort is willingness.
Comfort is at the skin
But willingness is under it.

I can live without comfort
But not without willingness
Both are unseen but felt deeply.

Willingness drives to the destination
And comfort settles me in once there.
Comfort is a gift like warmth,
Willingness is a gift like breath.

I have been tempted to let go of willingness
To hold onto comfort.
True willingness brings true comfort
Never the other way around.

No matter where I have to go
Willingness will take me there,
I hope comfort will follow.

You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 10


Michal Rovner

I have numbered all the blocks in my ancestral walls. This has enabled me to recreate them stone by stone everywhere I go. It all fits to create the tomb I now have to learn to leave. I must change the equation and reorder the numbers allowing these rocks to be recycled and find a wonderful useful life as a stairway out of this pit of despair. What was once an edifice to lives unlived is now able to facilitate elevation, a restoration of a level playing field. It was not wrong for me to catalog the stones and there was no way for me to leave them behind, but nothing matches the satisfaction of using them to build a life, except for the ability to live in it.



Take a look at yourself from a distance


*
THE SEDUCTION OF SOBRIETY

I was seduced away from my duties
As an alcoholic by the promise of sobriety,
Allegiance to my disease was sidelined.

Alluring stability and beguiling integrity
Curried favor with my desperate heart,
Pulling me from the arranged marriage of addiction.

How could I cling to the corpse of dependence
When sanity shimmered just out of reach,
Then not out of reach but within my grasp.

I couldn’t resist the golden flicker of life.
I had been bound to death
Unable to see an alternative.

My loyalty to loss and grief slipped from me
And I limped into the daylight,
Like the widow of the night.

I have been lured to my senses
By a love like no other,
The love of life.



You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 11

T before S

When happiness is hard work I have to learn to look for the lie. There must be a lie for happiness flows unrestrained when not dammed. What was built too far up river for me to see, dries out my once liquid existence; leaving me to flounder in the shallows. I can’t allow myself to flop in the muck of waters muddied with deceit. I will permit myself to look for clear bright prospects from melting glaciers and accustom myself to the invigoration of a life lived under a loving watchful eye.


Keep water near by

*

KILLER SQUIRRELS
AND OTHER SOBER DRAMA

I can tell you stories to make your hair curl.
Death defying fifth steps,
Speaking commitments with microphoned podiums,
Sponsees with killer squirrels trapped in the house.

The courage and sheer determination
Needed to face plague, after crisis, after pestilence
And yet sober mind and willing heart these travails
Are surmounted and we live on.

Tears turn to laughter with rescue and remedy
How strong we feel as the cape is passed
When one time panic prone sponsees
Become the model of calm and stable sponsors.

Hoards of relatives at holidays,
Interaction with bankers, police officers
And all manner of people in shiny shoes
Are handled with grace and boundaries.

Porch loving skunks, children becoming teenagers,
Are faced with humor and wit.
Things which in years gone by would have sent us screaming
To the phone are now casual asides during after meeting discussion.

Life does keep spinning on
But we learn how to stand still.
You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 12

Seen on the Street

Sometimes graffiti improves a place, other times it degrades it. I now wonder; is this defined by the breaking or breaching of public norms? Or is it built from the intent of the artist/perpetrator? Possibly the pedestrian traffic or the light of day determine the difference between art and recalcitrance. What if all these factors flashing like a neon kaleidoscope facilitated what this all really means? What if it all signifies nothing other than yet another way for me to entertain my brain while avoiding work? I guess I better get back to the spray cans I have a wall to cover.


(this was sent to me this morning and I think it goes nicely with this reading)
.com/embed/23bA_5yadxs

Open your mind to unusual collaboration
*


THE TEAM

The dream sobriety I envision,
The fantasy recovery I mentally construct,
Blows out to sea as so much mist
In the face of actual life.

Setting out sports teams, which don’t exist
Is playful and entertaining.
Trying to rebuild the principals of the program
Is a delusion I can drink over.

Finessing my network and pretending I can put together a team
On a basis of specialized talents instead of ground level willingness
Is like designing a plane without regard to physics
Playing only to esthetics.

Anytime I am redesigning
I must realize I am no longer participating
If I keep my head in the game
I can stay away from statistics and stop planning outcomes.


You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[tomboystud]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY SHERRIE!!!!!


Thank you for being such an amazing part of my recovery. To know you is to be blessed.

Oh my! 26yrs. What a totally amazing achievement.

Thank you so much for being a friend and for being a voice of sober reason when called upon.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 13


Phillips Head


What’s stuck in makes the thing. What sticks out is all that’s seen. I can tell so much from what is left out, yet there is much I will never know, can never tell. The twist, the give, the opening to variation is known, but never acknowledged. Somehow indecent if spoken or thought of too loudly, insinuation is ignored and society allows us to focus on what is held after or due to this act. We have built the whole world on what we can screw together, but we will merely hallow this, never embrace the fact until it falls apart. Then we exclaim over the rawness of how it caused us to be turned around, the risk and wrongness, ignoring just how much good can come from just a simple screw.


Acknowledge rain clouds as puddles on lay-away

*

MEETING INVENTORY

The manicurist at the meeting sits and does her nails.
The discussion goes on around her as she files away.
Cell phones go off for people
Who can’t put their lives on hold for their sobriety.

The knitter knits.
And the dissenters dissent.
The chatting chickens and grumbling grouse
All these populate the meeting.

It has taken the first half of the hour
To take everyone else’s inventory.
I have the remaining thirty to take my own.

You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[tomboystud]

August 13
Difficult people
“By giving unconditional love... we become more loving, and by sharing spiritual growth we become more spiritual.”
Basic Text, p.103
––––=––––
Most of us have one or two exceptionally difficult people in our lives. How do we deal with such a person in our recovery?
First, we take our own inventory. Have we wronged this person? Has some action or attitude of ours served as an invitation for the kind of treatment they have given us? If so, we will want to clear the air, admit we have been wrong, and ask our Higher Power to remove whatever defects may prevent us from being helpful and constructive.
Next, as people seeking to live spiritually oriented lives, we approach the problem from the other person’s point of view. They may be faced with any number of challenges we either fail to consider or know nothing about, challenges that cause them to be unpleasant. As it’s said, we seek in recovery “to forgive rather than be forgiven; to understand rather than be understood.”
Finally, if it is within our power, we seek ways to help others overcome their challenges without injuring their dignity. We pray for their well-being and spiritual growth and for the ability to offer them the unconditional love that has meant so much to us in our recovery.
We cannot change the difficult people in our lives, nor can we please everyone. But by applying the spiritual principles we’ve learned in NA, we can learn to love them.
––––=––––
Just for today: Higher Power, help me serve other people, not demand that they serve me.

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