Friends of Bill W.

[RockOn]

My sponsor passed her CompTIA Security+ Certification exam. I am so happy for her. She worked so hard for this certification. It is a very tough exam.

I am so happy for Cheryl!!!

[LeftWriteFemme]

Originally Posted by Brock

My sponsor passed her CompTIA Security+ Certification exam. I am so happy for her. She worked so hard for this certification. It is a very tough exam.

I am so happy for Cheryl!!!

That is so great Brock!!! Tell her congratulations for me!

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 26


Basket Ball



Idiots out number poets, this is a fact, though I do wonder why. It cannot be an easy lot spending your days in slow witted discharge; I would think they might at least try putting pen to paper. I think I would rather live in a world filled with bad poets rather than drifting on this ship of fools, but the troubadours rise with imbeciles as their cover and poems fall from favor. I wonder how I could make verse a contagion, how could I make it spread? You may laugh at me, but think what some guy did with a broken peach basket and a rubber ball.









Check your gait for swing




*



STRONG WORDS

Serious language, deep language, real language
Helps me by grounding me.
I don’t have to be nice for company
When I can just tell the truth.

I needn’t have guests with virgin ears
Or unrealistic expectations,
I no longer pander to such foolishness.
I know the layered meaning of my words.

I value the intensity of a large vocabulary.
I am not intimidated by prudish co-conspirators
Who stare down pointed noses
At powerful utterances.

Weak words make poor boundaries
And breed victims.
I will not be trapped by niceties
I will speak clearly out of necessity.

[RockOn]

Sherrie,

I will sure tell Cheryl for you. She has been studying like crazy. I knew she would get it. So thankful the pressure is off of her now. Blessings, blessings!


Brock

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 27


Circuit Speaker


It isn’t until I listen long to the Northside poet that I realize there is such a thing as a Chicago accent. I hear it as I never have before. I don’t hear it in my beloved Rodger, hear only the hope he brings to share. As I get ready to walk to the podium I wish that no one hears the Jersey in my voice only the experience I bring to share.







Dance through the mud then clean off your shoes


*

CLINGING

Large bugs cling to the soffits
Upside down as an alternative
To the rain-soaked landscape
I salute their efforts to find security
In a shrinking list of possible locations.

Awkward situations place my fingertips
And toenails holding positions
Trying to avoid life’s harsher choices.
Bitter, chilling options are cheerful alternatives
To no option at all

I can take the difficult positions as an advantage.
I have survived and this is the goal of the game.
I am here--come what may.
I make the best of the worst times so God can help me
Make the best of the best times.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 28


Picard

The little tin whistle I yearn to play squeaks in my head warning that I have no time to learn and a tin whistle though slender is not easy. I think if I had a magic wrinkler for time I might learn, I remember characters that have, but I rethink this and remember I don’t want to win the lottery again. I am too good at too many things and have no time to enjoy their full round pleasure. I have no need for additional longing or extended guilt.





Print your fingers



*


I DON’T SEE HOW

This is the smallest of the fragile excuses I use
To keep from doing things to make me happy.
Petty in a way I would never be with others
I rake my desires and tiny hopes over the coals.

Tired platitudes are plated up as first serves
By my short order short sightedness
Protecting crusted over nonsense
And living the life of a lockout
Not even a squatter on the fringes of my dreams.

I stumble in my efforts
To see hope, joy or my purpose,
Ignoring the fact that I must step from the box
Before I can see the horizon or more.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 29


To Your Health

Health is a pleasure; health restored is celebration girded with gratitude. The shock of illness quickly imbeds itself to an irrefutable unchangeable fact. When this veil is lifted the body responds with glee, the soul with relief touched with disbelief. The satisfaction of being hale is the bedrock and once this is shaken its return is nothing more than astonishing. I am never more aware of the miraculous nature of life than when I feel alive once more after having felt the doom of sickness.





Throw out ancestral trash

*

QUILTER

What more comfort can exist in the world
Than a conglomeration of turned edges and love?
Fancy stitches or not the assembled world of cloth
Stands testament to devotion and diligence.

Careful collections, meaningful to the collector
And mysterious to the possessor,
Fulfill the primal urge to shelter and be safe.
Time is testimony to endurance.

Thread against thread,
Solidarity is strength embracing flexibility.
The bed of life is made and remade daily
With the affection of kind quilters needles of love.

[RockOn]

Today, I am reminding myself to:

Keep the main thing the main thing!

Met with my sponsor at our local mall Food Court this past Friday night. Man, she has recently become "the Assignment Lady." I have a butt-load of stuff to do ... and work my regular daytime job too. What is up with that? Not only did I get several assignments but I had to email her Saturday morning with a list of all she told me to do. I was thinking she wanted to make sure I did not forget anything she suggested I do. When I talked to her this morning, she did say the email request was to deter me away from my built-in forgetter ... so I was right.

Sometimes I just want my life back, you know, like doing normal stuff instead of recovery stuff all the time ... but I already know when I am not extremely active in my program on a regular basis ... the old me will slip back in. And today, that is unacceptable.

In spite of what I have said here about wanting a "normal life," (whatever that is) I am sincerely thankful to be sober. Without that, the hole in my soul appears ... then gets bigger and bigger ... my ideas get grander and grander ... then I eventually hit the wall. I am told I must seek humility or my ego, selfishness and self-centeredness (and other things) will either make me and all those poor souls around me miserable ... or kill me.

Before I got into recovery, I did not have a choice. My intellect and my willpower are of absolutely no use to me over my addictions. For me, it is impossible for me to think and plan myself into living a sober life if I do not participate in my own recovery. An "alone Brock" will get Brock high/drunk. They told me in the beginning that is why the first word in the first step is "WE."

My recovery path has taught me I have choices ... as long I follow a few simple suggestions. I have been given a spiritual toobox. This toolbox contains everything necessary to keep me sober. All that is required of me is for me to pick up these tools, use them and be willing to listen, follow the suggestions of the sponsor lady and friends in the program who got there ahead of me. It works. This has been proven to me over and over.

Recovery is not for the overly-sensitive, faint-hearted, sissies and whiners. My sponsor told me Friday night that I am getting cocky. Can you believe she said that about me???

She said it to my face, even. AT THE MALL FOODCOURT!

damn ....

think I will remain teachable ....I do not have to like everything all of the time.

Here are some flowers for all you sober people who are reading this. I know you have understood ever single thing I have rambled about here in this post.

These flowers are also for the ones we are saving a chair for ...

I choose the list my sponsor gave me Friday night ...
I choose to continue to be directable.

Brock