Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.



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

It's today!!

A whole 2 years sober!!

Amazing stuffs.

This thread and it's lovely OP has played a huge part in my recovery, I will be forever grateful for your words Sherrie.
Thank-you from the bottom of my sober heart.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Congratulations my friend!!!

Thank you for doing all the work to walk this sober road!

[LeftWriteFemme]

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?


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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?



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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 replace 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.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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 can not 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?



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