Friends of Bill W.

[DMW]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Many many folks new to recovery and some not so new do not know about secular programs....many folks who work in the business don't even know about them. There are secular approaches that each of us could offer to folks struggling with their own sobriety and are having trouble with AA. After all, the point is sobriety.

The more tools in the toolbox, the better off we all are.

Damn... My Bad...I know that my quick post and then a cut and run didn't help here... example...just posting that i agreed with the others without expanding on my agreement with them and why. I was just agreeing with being a little
uncomfortable with the approach of the post ...not what was said.
Toughy, I also agree with what you had to say and offer too.
I definately didn't mean for you to feel attacked for sharing. For that, i apologize. I am glad i came back to check this. I can see why you would have felt that way.


And for everyone else, i apologize for the drop and run. And i have to go again.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 20

JUST A TASTE OF SUNSHINE


The sunrise is so beautiful I want to taste it. Like a child who needs to put everything in her mouth to really know it, I feel the need for a bite. I want to participate in every way. I want to blend with the color of the sky, join the horizon and dip beyond. Look at me, who in the past sounded every retreat, now I leap toward life. I stretch my arms to take it all in, merging with the continuum on this greatest of adventures. The sun raises the charge and I lick my lips in anticipation.


Find the stop signs in your life.

*

Mercy

The rearview holds the vision,
the sad figure on the corner as I drive away,
all that is left to me are memories of God,
the rest I ejected and sped from as fast as I could.

I cannot face what is left
when I make God homeless and unloved.
Though living together was tough sometimes,
living alone is unbearable.

Nothing cooks right, cleans right, tastes right or smells right,
even the moon won’t rise right when I am strictly on my own.
And God wasn’t built for the streets,
that corner is not someplace my Higher Power fits in.

We are meant to be together
and apart the world spins off its measure.
Pitiful is what I am, so I swing around the block,
fling open the door and take pity on God and go home.

[Toughy]

by Daktari
<snip>
Hey there, yanno I'd really like to hear about your experience in a non religious, non spiritual programme or method of achieving and maintaining sobriety. I'm about to undertake some peer mentor training so that I can work as a volunteer in the local recovery services. Hearing a first hand experience would a great piece of information for me in preparation for this training.

Daktari ........I tried to send you a PM and you have no storage left. I don't want you to think I am ignoring this post. I am happy to talk to you about it.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 21

SELF-SEEKING IS A DEBIT



Trying to get credit for everything I do has run me into debt in my anonymity account, which draws directly from my humility bank. I cannot expend my resources seeking acknowledgement and expect to retain much dignity or class. How can I build within while constantly grasping for nods and smiles from scenery and landscaping? I want approval so much that I have lost my center. In an attempt to top the charts I forgot my song. My ego writes checks that my soul can’t cover. I run my potential into the red looking to get my name in black and white. If I keep my name out of lights I have a chance of building up my dignity.


Own your own blocks.

*

No Jinn

I molested the touch control lamp.
I had no trouble turning it on,
but could never figure how to turn it off;
therefore I let the light shine in the daytime.

I called looking for guidance,
“lick your fingers then try again,” was the glib suggestion.
I offered that I was not interested
in becoming that intimate with said lamp.

Sometimes connections are made easily,
other times they cannot be made at all,
still there are times the renewal of a connection
is determined by my willingness to up the ante.

Am I willing to put a little spit into the effort
or will I leave the light to burn?

Originally Posted by Toughy

Daktari ........I tried to send you a PM and you have no storage left. I don't want you to think I am ignoring this post. I am happy to talk to you about it.

Awesome!

Thanks for coming back to post this Toughy. I really am interested in your personal experiences of recovery and will send you my personal email in a rep message if you would agree to enter into a dialogue about your own experiences



Me-me-me-me alert... this next bit is coming entirely from a 'me' place and not intended as an attack, judgement or being preachy. It is just my thoughts and feelings, nothing else. I hope that what I'm about to say is taken in that spirit.


I hope you also read what me and others have said regarding your previous posts too. There's no point in doing a bit of an "I'm outta here" flounce when you're not heard in the way you intended to be heard. Clarification and dialogue are good.

It would be fab to have a dialogue of some sort about recovery and the different ways folks achieve that. However we all are coming from a 'me place' (no shit Sherlock! ...an addict coming from a 'me' place...there's a novelty ) and speak of our direct experiences, it just so happens that for us here and only those of us here who have expressed such, those experiences are with the 'spiritual but non religious' programmes of the anonymous fellowships.

I have no idea about the others here but I sure tried another method away from the fellowships. That was to get the basic tools, with no reference to a higher power, from the AA fellowship and long term counselling, then buggered off to go live what was then my very young life...I was 23yrs old when I first got sober (16th Dec 1986)

Whaddaya know, determination and a limited tool bag lasted a good 17yrs of sobriety. Then that damn lil voice crept up again and lulled me into a very false sense of security. Cue an almost decade long 'relapse'.

I would love to discuss further my own 'issues' with the fellowships - and for all I know some of the other structured methods of maintaining sobriety - but fear that what I say may be taken as an indictment of the anonymous fellowships when that is not what I intend.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 22

MEGAPHONE


The point of surviving, or maybe the goal after survival, is enabling the voices of victims to be heard, starting with my own. I allow the surging waves of thought and feeling to rush the gates and exit. I try to bleed the bad with and without the use of leaches. So much is stumbled upon rather than sought after. Some things hound me; I run down the street with memory at my heels. I must let the screams out or become them. Today I talk, tomorrow is for others. When I pour forth, I open the way for the rest. I have become the megaphone rather than the cheerleader. It is good to be of use.


Pollinate ideas.

*

Peace Time

I have been to the wars and through the wars
and now sit on the stoop and wonder;
will I learn to live here in the world of everyday
after having had to spend so much time running for cover.

Each time I return to what I believe is my home
I sit and rock trying to pour my soul back inside
from my hipflask where it was held for safekeeping.

I try not to spill a drop
for it is worse than shed blood and harder to rebuild.
My soul has grown pale from confinement and lack of sun,
but it still exists and for that I pat my back
and suck on my Lifesaver;

I could have done worse, was unable to do better.
I console myself with the knowledge
I never started the conflict just learned to survive it.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 23

WILD


When I run wild through the rain my hair streaming behind me, water fleeing my face, I see with my heart the thousand other rains pouring from my past. How I peel from me the soaking luggage covering my naked pain. Nothing drives me to the cozy retreat of my bed like the humid chill of an early fall drizzle. I slip my trembling skin between the comfort and the comforter, flex my toes, towel my hair, wipe scenes of lost love from my pale, pale soul. Leaves rush my gutters, clog my mind. I see the change in me as I turn heel to heel, trees spinning bare in a blank wet world. I know this ever relived fluid, this recycled life.


Interest yourself.

*

What is Dear?


I am angry that I was taught I must hold on for dear life
instead of being taught that life is dear,
but they couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know
and couldn’t know what they had not discovered for themselves.

I wish I had learned earlier
to love the life I was taught to cling to,
but I am grateful I have been bound to life
long enough to find the joy in it.

I have found that knowing joy
causes me to cling all the more,
cling in sweetness to what was once such a bitter task.

I am angry for what I wasn’t taught,
but sadder still for what they didn’t know
and all that is lost in their lives to ignorance and tradition.

I wanted better for them
and they wanted better for me
and this is the circle which closes
around the dear that I hold onto.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 24

WORKS



I cry the waterworks so necessary to the healing of my heart. I explode with the fireworks required for anger to set living boundaries. I sleep the sleep of angels, as I link to dreamworks allowing mental maintenance to occur. Slipping into my political face I make time for public works. I return to my abode, call the pie maker and order ‘the works.’ Have it delivered so I can face the mountain of homework waiting for me and bearing my name.


Suggest solutions in your diary.
*

No Dialing Tonight.

When it is late at night and I can’t sleep
I wander and putter and plan my dreams.
I hold out hopes and wash their faces;
pray for rain and clean all traces.

Thunderstorms rumble and lightning strikes;
I tune up the plumbing and wipe down the pipes.
All the paint and promises in the world won’t change me;
I’m still lost in the dark without you.

Tear stains are friendly till I wash them away
leaving blotchy eyes that can’t be explained;
an aching heart that keeps on ticking
and wishes that can’t come true.

Sunday morning is here, too soon
and life rolls on whether you think it should.
Tiny thoughts come out to play
and sad, sad fears keep them at bay.

But the dog is curled up under the covers without a care;
I long to disturb her but do not dare.
She is the queen here and I’m but the naïve;
I’ll tend to my writing and try to be brave.

For the dawn will follow this endless nocturne;
the whole world will be safe once more.
I will cry but it’s all too late;
though you are merely a phone call away.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 25

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS


“Like my new frames?” I ask my sponsor.
“Who wrote your prescription?”
“Oh, the lenses aren’t new, just the frames,” I reply.
“You want to be seen differently but you want to see things the same old way. My question still stands. Who wrote you the script for those funhouse glasses you have used all your life? Did it ever occur to you the distortion is ground into the glass? Remember, some people need you to see things as other than what they are. Unhappy families look great if you can’t see them too clearly. It’s hard to know what to say to keep the peace, said Grandma. She never took off her specs to see there was no peace to keep. So, I will ask you again. The view of the world you base your choices on, who chose the color you see it through?”


Breathe to improve your mind and mood.
*

Green Wood

When a nail is hammered into a living tree,
the tree is forever changed.
Even if the barb is pulled out
he tree will never be the same.

If the spike remains and the tree lives;
over time the nail will be incorporated,
the tree will get on with the business of living
and carry the thing as just a part of what it took to get here.

What was trauma is trauma,
but life is big and the longer it gets
the larger the life, is the hope.

Piercing experience is engulfed by rings of fresh wood
and a will to grow beyond the moment of impact.
The tree branches out and even a hundred nails can’t stop that.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 26

SCREAMING LETHARGY



The screaming lethargy of being alive after many years of wanting something else, the exhaustion of pulsing, breathing, waves and waves of thinking. Yet as tired as I am, I am. Here without a doubt, I stand. No crawling for I have not fallen, no climbing for I have reached the plain. I wait for the rain to wash over me, the truth to run through me, time to pass by me. As if on a free trip to an unwelcome destination I arrive with randomly packed bags and low expectations. I’m here now. The train doesn’t seem to be moving on. I might as well leave the station, nothing to do on the platform. There may be points of interest or flowers to be smelled. I step haltingly and fear making any connection to this unbidden place. My name is unknown; I befriend the lamppost, the birds, the street. I am tired of travel, fearful of arrival. Fury courses through my veins but the weather is pleasant, I might take off my coat and stay.


Plan a trip with no destination.
*

One Street off Amory



Apology holds change at arms length.
Apology is the thing I was taught to wait for
as a sign that things will improve,
but apology is not a harbinger of change.

It is quite the opposite
it is the guarantor of business as usual;
no amendment need occur,
apology has been made and life goes on with no alteration.

Without variation we all stay sick
and apologizing for that won’t get us better.
Restitution, amends, revelation, revolution
these are the things which make the world bright,

Apology is just a scrap with which to wipe your ass.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 27

PIROUETTES



I turn and spin; the world flashes as I go. I am erect, proud of my self-possession. I can stand the forces of vector rotation, public opinion and gravity. Sobriety has made a dancer out of me. I sprint the stage and take my place. I know the moves and trust, as best I can, the choreographer and the choreography. I feel the wind move on my body as I revolve, the blur of existence spreads out before me. I can let it all pass. To spot myself and keep my upright posture, the only place that requires my clear and unobstructed view is the line of sight from my sponsor’s eyes to mine.


Let your work speak.

*


A Verse to the Wise

Encoding truth into poetry
makes reality survivable by giving readers
the opportunity to dig truth up like diamonds.

Throwing certainty in people’s faces like cold water
gives them a wakeup call but nothing to embrace.
The beauty of semaphore is the dance
that need not be understood by everyone who sees it.

Communication through device
leaves headroom and breathing space
while acceptance might be reached.

The current of a conversation
often leads me to face the facts,
but a tsunami of candor could drown me.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 28

LINEAGE



People stand in the queue and I stare, lost in contemplation and compliance. I weigh the conflicts and complications. Is this the method to clear identification? I think I am better known for the lines I’ve crossed, the times I press between warm souls and force myself to the area beyond. How can I wait my turn for generational stew when the fruit trees bear life for those who break free from ruts and rumbles to bite deeply the flesh of the future? I can’t stand here though I love so many in this line, I cannot love the line itself. I must step through, breathe, stretch my legs and mind, take leave of grids and locks, to live a lonelier but healthier life, all caused by a change in direction.


Enjoy change like flowers before the fruit.

*

Kicks


New balance is more than a brand of sneakers.
New balance is a joyful revelation
made possible through constant vigilance.

I am tap dancing into a vision,
no more soft shoed wishfulness.
I can lift my feet knowing I can keep my up right posture;
my musculature robust from climbing
the steps and accepting direction.

This bright tempo delights me;
I feel stretched, subtle, able-bodied.
Life off the balance beam offers me the world
in which to embrace my equilibrium.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 29

DEATH PRACTICE


“Why do you practice death like it were a skill? Do you fear you lack ability? Or, because it’s your goal, have you made it your hobby?”
Beleaguered by the questions of my sponsor I search quickly for some believable response. “I confused calm with death and thought I was practicing the former…..Death came for a holiday, how could I refuse it?…..It’s a test drive, if I like it I can keep it.” My sponsor doesn’t think I’m funny.
“Check your motives, wants and desires. Make sure death is what you really want, that it’s not just your fallback position because you fear life. Don’t get me wrong, I hope death is a good thing, but why try to chew tomorrow’s food when your plate is full of today?


Ride change.
*

Moniker


The Hurt carry on the tradition,
would never think to give it up,
don’t even know there is that option,
strap on their weapons without a second thought.

How can there be a second thought
when there never was a first.
Hurt is a reflex
and it moves its way through the world
like dominoes tumbling;

Everything’s knocked down
before you ever saw it standing.
So, what’s the use anyway?
So, I fall down and in that action push you forward
and we are all together in the mud.

But it is so hard to recognize anyone in the mud,
including myself and especially you.
If I hurt you that makes it hard for me to see
anything about you except my wish for your departure,

Which I subconsciously hope will take away the guilt
I can’t afford to feel.
If I make it out of the mud I can’t afford anything,
but if I don’t pay up I’ll be in new mud soon,

So I must break tradition
and the first step toward that is seeing it
and the second is calling it by its name.

[LeftWriteFemme]

September 30

WEE HOURS



In the wee hours I hear the high pitched wail, the tiny pest whining in my ear, the onset of my thin stretched nerves reaching their end. A few more hours are required of me tonight. I rally my spirit and lift the edges of my willing resolve. Long slow nights carry me to the far corners of my mind. I am more average than I had imagined or hoped for. The commonness of four AM brings the base to disclosure, the charmed exposure of predawn wakefulness. The fuzzy vibrations in my brain make me feel deep and real, vulnerable to all the normal limitations of nature and caprice. The sun will rise, ending this night. My sentry over, I will fall to earth, and rest, and bed.


Change everything, change yourself.
*


No Substitute for Fire
I wanted alcohol to do better for me than burning did.
I was constantly disappointed, yet I kept trying.
I was not to find pleasure in that bottle
though I had no problem finding addiction there.

This is how I came to believe
that there is not an upside to everything.
Booze took me to surprising destinations,
but never the ones I desired.

I sought release,
the release I got from a wildfire spreading across my skin
and this might have been mine
had I poured the liquor on rather than in.

But in me it did no good,
it never let me exhale
the way that the “right” kind of pain did.
What I got from alcohol drove me though;

Fear rode me roughshod and I found my way home,
it was a bumpy road,
but once there we doused the flames
and I live the upside I had come to doubt,
because fire is no substitute for life.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 1

OLD BOOKKEEPING, NEW PAINTING


What will become of the fine lines I use to divide good news from bad? How will I handle a life with no screen to keep the silt from shifting across my personal landscape? A delicate crosshatch had kept little checks in little boxes; now the checks are bouncing randomly, no pattern or restraint. My old bookkeeping has come to an abrupt end, leaving many questions and much uncertainty. I lift the green visor from my brow, looking for answers from the periphery. Taking the long view I put down my pencil and pick up my paints, sling the easel over my shoulder and walk away from meticulous survival. The fine lines I have now are in my brush strokes and even bad news is somehow good.


Donate some time.


*


Saltbox House

Refusing to make reasonable demands
is quite as dysfunctional as making unreasonable demands.
The opposite of an extreme is often twice as crazy
and harder to explain.

I open my mouth and dry toast is the reply.
Nothing should be said when nothing can be done
and to do nothing is harder than one might think.

I fold my hands but my lap rejects them;
I quiet my mind but my soul objects.
I must let my heart sing
and trust you enough to ask for help.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 2

A LITTLE EXTRA HOPE


“What will you do with a little extra hope?” asked my quizzical sponsor.
“What good is a little hope?” my retort.
“A little hope got you sober. What can you do with a little more? Could you take out your dreams and fly them on a breeze? Could you throw yourself into a wave of intention and see if you can ride it out? Breathe easier, smile broader? Take my hand tighter and walk the road awhile longer before you run for refuge? Now let me ask you a better question. What couldn’t you do with a little more hope?”
“Fail.”


Wash as a meditation.
*

Sackcloth

Tragedy is a tale unfinished.
Life is far longer than calamity can endure.
I will not give up, not even when hope is lost.

For life carries forward;
more is filled with optimism.
Threads break, but the fabric is woven still,
flowing off the living loom waiting to be used.

I will cut my swath and fashion a garment to wear
and if sometimes it is filled with ashes
I will sit and grieve
all the while knowing that this is never the stories end.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 3

SEAM ALLOWANCE


The space given and taken, the space used to bind us and sew us fast.
The permission for humanness and the need for seams to make us whole. The narrow margin, a shoulder on which I lean, the slender strip a place of refuge.

Darts are snipped to hug the curves; I bend to fit to life.
Our nearness; being my own part and part of more.
Planning, and a pattern cut to order with allowances made for fraying and fragility, allow me to feel woven into a web of what is and still hope for more. The unfinished garment is taking shape, easing and stretching.

And before my eyes, pins held between the teeth of God.


Keep strong words on a high shelf you have access to.

*
Have Faith
Strange and wonderful tragedy
takes you away from me
and I don’t know how it is that you return,
but you do and I thank God,

But I’m not sure it was God’s idea
that you went away or that you came back,
though, I am sure, He missed you every bit as much as I did.

I revolve the freshness of you in my mouth like candy;
I swirl, but don’t want to crack open.
Honeymoons are for people who live comprehendible lives;
we fly to each other and cling like raptors plummeting to the ground.

You leave your mark upon me I do the same for you;
we are none the worse for the wear.
I stand in the gush from the hydrant,
soaked in the pleasure, forgoing the safety.

The world may burn down again tomorrow,
I remember that it has before, but I am wiser for the singeing
and weathered with soot in my eyes and charcoal piled roundabout my legs,
yet I’m still standing and you are back from the dead
and I think of you as Lazarus.

And now we will live the comedy
for life is what lay ahead,
we took the hit of death before its time
and so must be off the hook for the rest.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 4

BELLS



The bells are ringing but no one sings. There are no peals of laughter and that’s just fine, for pleasure is not the only response to sound. Shock and distain are other options, too. I have what I want in relationship to the buzz in my ear, equal opportunity attitude, pro and con. Some songs bring joy when they end. I have to lower my expectation of pleasure and value my distaste for tinkling sounds or any other preordained sweetness.


See through your problems.
*

Jeopardy
Today I tore down the isolation booth.
I didn’t live in there exactly;
sometimes I stuffed God in there
and went out for a ride.
I left that shack stand for far, too long;
a testimony to ill conceived,
ham-handed, control freaks everywhere.

I said all I wanted was some peace,
but a vacuum is not tranquility
and escape won’t substitute either.

Since the live studio audience has gone home
and the house lights are dimmed,
I feel pretty foolish for playing
round after round on my own.

This game was never any fun
and the sponsors were death merchants and scavengers
whose interest lay in destruction and nothing else.

I must not cast aspersions, I didn’t care
that the contest was merely an upright pit
with a lethal pendulum, I used it as a hideout and a lair,

A place whose walls
I could keep between me and my Higher Power
and an activity I could depend on
to keep me free from living a life.

It all came to the ground today;
I walk over the splinters and shards,
I know there has to be a better game
and I’m ready to play.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 5

WHAT IS PAST


The past cannot hold me in a loving embrace. I run too often looking for affection and recognition in things long dead and purportedly buried. I return to the ghoulish obsession of digging up old hates and sorrows, longing for support and finding only the cause of the ulcers in my soul. I wallpaper the crumbling facade not wanting to cover it up but to hold it together, trying to unify something, which is totally shattered. When I view it with a sober eye, the past is nothing but a slideshow under a strobe light. The pulse triggers the impulsive belief that it was all real when, in truth, it was the lie I survived. No life existed in the past and only now is there air to breathe. The past is all vacuum and I don’t need to be sucked away.


Take an enemy’s inventory and don’t give it back.


*
MCBuddLake


Barefoot smokers sit downstairs
chatting on cell phones as I wait.
Wait for the Doctor to come and tell me what?

Tell me that I am ill or hail
based on a hammer hit on the knee
and a deep look into my eyes.

I will leave this place hours late
for a life I barely understand
but am grateful to be living.

Like one of the dancing flowers from Fantasia
I am swept downstream,
but an amazing journey even while I wait
in this six by eight room.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 6

REMEMBERING


Remembering is the oxygen my brain pumps to my soul. Remembering gives me mobility and traction. Everything in my life that is positive depends on my remembering. It keeps apathy at bay and complacency locked in some far off cupboard. Remembering gives today the misty sweetness I have grown to love. I can live to my potential and enjoy the process, watch misery move away. I can dream the future every night because I remember who I am and what I am capable of. Never can I be haunted, memory keeps me from reactionary visitation. Though some fear the past, I know holding it in a close embrace allows me to dance to the rhythm of truth.


Think of names for your sneakers.
*

What Oliver Could not Know


One of the complications of being an orphan
is not learning about the failings and foibles
which visit themselves on all parents.

Living estranged from God has this same blind spot.
When you live with someone day in and day out
you understand their dimensions;

Depravation causes celebrity
and the casting of very large shadows
in some very odd places.

The intimate knowledge of a guardian
allows for relaxation and experimentation.
Isolation creates an overload of anticipation;

Fear of risk and the yearning for attention
swing a pendulum to the point of weaponry.
Familiarity is a breeding ground,
which means many things grow.

Life in a vacuum is devoid of life
and nothing grows up.