Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 14


Circular Needles

I react badly when I find a loose thread because I never know what might be unraveling. I have knit my heart out; have dropped an occasional stitch to be sure. Unbeknown to me these little holes in my logic wait for the stress of overextension to run through the length of my life, untying earnest work. If I could catch these unsecured thoughts before it all goes too far, I might have a chance to hook back into the main fabric and prevent this unfurling of collateral. When the cord is cut and the line flaps freely real panic ensues. Even if capture of both ends is possible, knots are awkward, unseemly and gauche. I was planning a seamless life, smooth and beyond reproach. My fear of reprisal flares before the ever-burning coals of abject self-doubt have a chance to be felt. This banked inferno generates the things which bake and fry my nerves, burn my threads and disintegrate my mantle. I need to put out the fire before I re-knit my world.



Teach desire to breathe


*

TOO FAR, TOO FAST

Balloons filled with hydrogen
Race the atmosphere and fly away
The effect is stunning
So much lift for just pennies

The easy way has no line, no waiting
Fast dirty service is available
Risk assessment is counter-balanced
With dramatic outcome
Low initial cost and instant gratification.

How can I not want to rise above the crowd?
How can I not want it now?
Hydrogen is quick and plentiful,
Volatile, yes but why should this bother me?

I have a Higher Power to protect me
It’s not as if I were playing with fire,
I am only tempting it!

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 15


Down to the Watership


The immoderate champions immoderation; the glutton recommends consumption, more often than not a drunk will pour you a drink It is part of the social norm to conform to the addiction of the day. If we are all high we laugh at each other’s jokes and there is less finger pointing about the mess. When we are all in this together we sink or we swim, but we mustn’t look around. Like the rabbits who cannot ask, “Where?” We try to look at ease with dying and contented with our lot. More must be better for we can’t survive on less than what we’ve got.





Design trees for your secret garden


*


WATER BABIES

Timeless babies bobble in their underwater positions
Voiceless cherubs bounce and wink
The river of their wisdom to my feeble mind.

The noise of silence wrinkles and tinkles
As the waves crash soundlessly above.
My head fills

I must surface but beg not to lose my connection
When I break the tension of top-side sobriety
I turn these angels to screened-off faithfulls

I must owe all I have to these aquatic infants
Every hope, all my fear is held to test in the face of,
Swimming heroines and their embryonic grave.

[tomboystud]

June 15
Resistance to change
“Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing, or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for the unknown.”
Basic Text, p. 34
––––=––––
We have often heard it said that “when the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of changing, we will change.” Our fear can keep us from growing, afraid to end relationships, change careers, attend new meetings, begin new friendships, or attempt anything out of the ordinary. We stay in situations that are no longer working far longer than we have to simply because what is familiar feels safer than the unknown.
Any change involves overcoming fear. “What if I’m alone forever?” we might think if we consider leaving our lover. “What if I find out I’m incompetent?” we may wonder when we contemplate changing careers. We may balk at attending new meetings because we will have to reach out. Our minds manufacture a hundred excuses for remaining right where we are, afraid to try something new.
We find that most of our pain comes not from change but from resistance to change. In NA, we learn that change is how we move forward in our lives. New friends, new relationships, new interests and challenges will replace the old. With these new things in our lives, we find new joys and loves.
––––=––––
Just for today: I will release the old, embrace the new, and grow.

Copyright © 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 16


What I Heard Through the Snow

The commentator’s voice fades in and out as the reception is lost and found among the static of my drive home. In here is a pattern, a connect the dots matrix; I try to feel my way too as I weave past the slow and stubborn traffic. Like a call from the wilderness distorted through a storm, my frantic thoughts obscure, sometimes distort the content, the intent, the soul of a message I so desperately need. Broadcast warnings, safety suggestions, help and hope are torn to slivers and rewoven in my careworn brain. The distraction of the road allows the subliminal heart beat to tattoo in my ear then my chest, all the way to my toes, bodily acceptance overpowers my relentless mind and clarity is achieved, no matter the drifts.



Lay a hand on improbability


*


ALONE IN A NEW WAY

I am restored.
I have my sanity like a Spring coat
I am not sure I need it
But it’s nice to have nevertheless.

I prayed for this state of reason
Believing it would give me entree
To a world where I was a late arrival
To a party I am no longer sure
Will ever take place.

I stand in the entrance hall
And practice new dance steps.
I search the space for prospective partners
But rarely see anyone who is swaying
To the same beat.

I am grateful for my sanity
Even if I have to enjoy it alone.

[tomboystud]

June 16
Accepting life
“Some things we must accept, others we can change. The wisdom to know the difference comes with growth in our spiritual program.”
Basic Text, p. 95
––––=––––
It’s relatively easy to accept the things we like—it’s the things we don’t like that are hard to accept. But remaking the world and everyone in it to suit our tastes would solve nothing. After all, the idea that the world was to blame for all our problems was the attitude that kept us using—and that attitude nearly killed us.
In the course of working the steps, we begin to ask ourselves hard questions about the roles we ourselves have played in creating the unacceptable lives we’ve lived. In most cases, we’ve found that what needed changing was our own attitude and our own actions, not the people, places, and things around us.
In recovery, we pray for wisdom to know the difference between what can and can’t be changed. Then, once we see the truth of our situation, we pray for the willingness to change ourselves.
––––=––––
Just for today: Higher Power, grant me the wisdom to know the difference between what can be changed and what I must accept. Please help me gratefully accept the life I’ve been given.

Copyright © 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 17


Poe-etiquette


Cosmic questions cross the sky,
I wonder but don’t ask why
I pitch the tent, but don’t stay the night
I borrow money and don’t pay the rent
I sooth myself but can’t be content
I earn my keep though it is all been spent
The real true meanings are pushed away,
Has ready tragedy come to stay
Forever darkness, no more light of day
Cheerful greeting left to lay
All the poets bring their knives
For blood letting’s become their prize
Here I sit and tend the boat
Rocking dingy out to moor
I play the Raven, black and poor
I dare not speak it but in my mind sing “Never more”





Be wary of magical thinking



*

RECOGNIZABLE NONEXISTENCE

You will never take time to tell the truth
You will always take time to tell a joke,
As you run from your life
I see the familiar vapor trails of an unlived life.

When I flee my life through caretaking
I leave the same mist of unfulfilled desire behind me
I look at your potential
And the damage you do by not being here
I turn the magnifying glass on me
And search for the same trends.

I feel abandoned by you
The you, you never were
But always should have been
I pray for the key
Which will get me on the other side
Of the door you never opened.

I hope to live life
As it is
Rather than the comedy
It can never be.

[tomboystud]

June 17, 2013

Walls

"Reaching out is the beginning of the struggle that will set us free. It will break down the walls that imprison us."

Basic Text, p. 83

Many of us came to NA emotionally shattered. Years of using people and allowing them to use us had taken their toll on our ability to trust anyone, ourselves included. But the love and acceptance we found in Narcotics Anonymous encouraged us to reach out and get close to others.

The longer we stayed clean, the more we began to long for greater intimacy with our loved ones. We began reaching out in deeper, more meaningful ways, even though we might get hurt. Despite our fears of rejection, we decided to risk revealing ourselves, our beliefs, and our needs. We decided to let down our defensive walls.

The freedom we've found has been worth the risk involved. We know there is still work to do before we will be completely free of the barriers built by years of active addiction. But by reaching out to other addicts and allowing them to reach out to us, despite our human failings, we have come to know that we have a great capacity for love and intimacy. When set free of their restraining walls, our hearts hold great power.

Just for Today: I will let down my personal walls and reach out to others. I will allow my heart the freedom to love and be loved.

Copyright (c) 2013, NA World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 18


Limen


Do you leave when it is time to go or are you the type who exits early? Does departure time find you lingering trying to squeeze out one more minute rooted in this spot? Are you the kind of person who loves the street, but avoids the parade? Can you bear to go, bear to stay, bear to think that the world exists beyond this door? Do you move with the other sheep when all the crowd says, “Baa.” Are you fleet with a sky full of clouds obeying the breeze, flaunting the tides? Do you change with the seasons or are you passed from hand to hand, living your life in the snow of a globe? My life is my life, but the most vital evidence of how I live it is what I do on thresholds.






Shake the trunk of certainty and see what falls to the ground



*

RECLAMATION ARTIST

I stand over the refuse can and peer in.
I drive slowly past the piles of curbside discards
I have so much trouble accepting
There is no reclaiming most of this growing mass.

There must be an alternate plan but I can’t see it yet.
I surround myself with hopeful stacks and wishful trinkets
I want to make a new world from the old
Save past relationships and make them somehow fresh.

I don’t want to drown, I fear I can’t think fast enough
To keep the wave from breaking over us all
I will maintain an open mind
And be grateful my life was retrieved from the dust bin.

I’ll steal peeks at what has been put out for lost.
I was once lost too.

[tomboystud]

June 18
Indirect amends
“Indirect amends may be necessary where direct ones would be unsafe or endanger other people.”
Basic Text, p. 41
––––=––––
When we used, we allowed nothing to stand in the way of that next high. As a result, many of us didn’t always know precisely whom we had injured, either financially or emotionally. When it came time to make amends through our Ninth Step, we found that there were so many people we had victimized that we might never remember them all.
With the help of our sponsor and other recovering members of NA, we found a solution to this obstacle. We vowed to complete these nameless amends by making restitution to our communities. We focused our service efforts on helping the still-suffering addict. In this manner, we found a way to give back to society.
Today, with the love and guidance of members in NA, we are giving back to the world around us rather than taking. We are making our communities better places to live by carrying the message of recovery to those we encounter in our daily lives.
––––=––––
Just for today: I will make indirect amends by reaching out to an addict who may need help. I will strive in some small way to make my community a better place in which to live.

Copyright © 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 19


Tea Totaler


My alcoholism was anonymous even while I was active. My destruction was internal, outside evidence kept to a minimum. It is easy to understand why so many from my past as well as my present are shocked to see me a member in good standing for a club they never saw me pay the price to join. But cost doesn’t always advertise in the public square. I know the score, the numbers etched upon my soul. I need to be well even if you didn’t know I am sick. I take the medicine; offer a smile to those who think it prophylactic and keep upon my path. Just because you didn’t know the contents of my bottle doesn’t mean I didn’t earn the tag on my tea.



Attend the clues your body gives you

*

ONIONS

I heard people in meetings sharing about peeling onions
They say they peel layer after layer until it’s all gone!
What the hell is that all about?
I demand in the general direction of my sponsor.

Zealotry, it’s about zealotry
I peel my onions too,
I have many layers of dried-up, paper-thin rhetoric
Which I use to protect myself.

I have to slit this papery husk
And eject myself from the illusion
To get the living and vital usefulness underneath
Then what?

Then I try to let God decide where is the best place
To add flavor, stew is good but salad is a treat
I can go anywhere once the waste is stripped away.

What about the issues you haven’t worked out yet?
I bait my sponsor
Well those are other onions-
Is all she would say.