Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 1

SEASONAL EXPECTATIONS

If I am out of sync with the way the world turns, I can be nothing but disappointed. I arrive with ice skates on the hottest summer day and grieve the loss of spring. I shiver in my sandals and ponder the need for a windshield scraper, the autumn leaves so long past. I must orchestrate my moods and movements with the evolution and revolution about me. I will learn to sing with the doves in the morning and the coyotes, come the moon. I can spin with the stars. I can grow with the grass. I don’t need to counter- balance life. If I learn to bend with the tides, it all comes around again.


If moles can make hills you can move mountains

*
Soul Chiggers


If you can seed apprehension deeply in a generation,
you can reap disillusionment for a hundred years.
Bent foresight twists hindsight.

Admiring ignorance, signs death’s warrant.
Evil splintered to a thousand slivers
burrows under the skin without killing their host.

Death delayed spreads destruction along with melancholy;
a septic contagion if ever there was one.
How do we fight this systemic blight?

It is embedded in the water,
the air, the mind, and try what I might;
I can’t seem to live without any of these.

Chiggers of the soul feed and breed
no matter how I scratch and chew.
I am raw, but still infested.

How do I kill what is in me
without killing the me?

[Girl Friday]

Well I've done it. I've had a drink. Actually. I've had several. So here I am with nothing but excuses for what I've done. There really isn't any reason to offer an explanation. What good would it be?

About a month ago I drank after several years sober. The pain of it, I told myself, is intolerable. I have to laugh at that moment right now. This pain seems so much worse than that pain. What a ridiculous excuse for a human being.

It's funny, even as I struggle to put my fingers to the right keys I'm telling myself "You can quit again right now. Just make the choice." But I don't want to. I want to be special in my pain. Poor me. I want to feel sorry for myself so that I have an excuse to drink again tomorrow. Poor me. Poor Friday. Everything she's feeling is so bad, so horrific, so much worse than anyone could possible care about. I make myself sick. I literally cannot stand myself right now.

A few years ago someone called me "a sick and twisted bitch" and I was so hurt by that. I understood why they felt that way. I was even sorry because I did play a part in their pain. But I never thought they were right. I just understood why they felt the way they did and I was comfortable being accountable for my part in it. Now I think they were right. I am sick and twisted. I feel twisted. At the root. At the very root. How convenient of me. I'm so wounded so I have an excuse to drink and put my well-being in danger. Boo hoo.

Boo fucking hoo.

[femmsational]

Originally Posted by Girl Friday

Well I've done it. I've had a drink. Actually. I've had several. So here I am with nothing but excuses for what I've done. There really isn't any reason to offer an explanation. What good would it be?

About a month ago I drank after several years sober. The pain of it, I told myself, is intolerable. I have to laugh at that moment right now. This pain seems so much worse than that pain. What a ridiculous excuse for a human being.

It's funny, even as I struggle to put my fingers to the right keys I'm telling myself "You can quit again right now. Just make the choice." But I don't want to. I want to be special in my pain. Poor me. I want to feel sorry for myself so that I have an excuse to drink again tomorrow. Poor me. Poor Friday. Everything she's feeling is so bad, so horrific, so much worse than anyone could possible care about. I make myself sick. I literally cannot stand myself right now.

A few years ago someone called me "a sick and twisted bitch" and I was so hurt by that. I understood why they felt that way. I was even sorry because I did play a part in their pain. But I never thought they were right. I just understood why they felt the way they did and I was comfortable being accountable for my part in it. Now I think they were right. I am sick and twisted. I feel twisted. At the root. At the very root. How convenient of me. I'm so wounded so I have an excuse to drink and put my well-being in danger. Boo hoo.

Boo fucking hoo.

Well, you're throwing yourself quite the pity party. LOL!!! I totally understand. When my disease is speaking for me, I sound just like you.


First, my name is Julie and I AM an alcoholic and addict.


Second, right now is not the time to try and make sense of what's going on in your brain so I'm not going to go into a long drawn out spew. Nothing right now will help you with what you are feeling. Other than feelings are not facts as I'm sure you've been told over and over and over.


Third, taking away all the judgemental language you are hurling at yourself leads to one small fact. You have a disease. I have the same one. My pleasure neurons don't connect like *normal* people. So I medicate. Why am I saying this? Because you took a drink because it's what people like you and I do. Doesn't make you a bad person or a twisted bitch. You have found an excuse that for the moment helped you fall backwards into your sick, as in injured, thinking.



Do you do meetings? Have a sponser? Might be a good idea???


If you need anything or just feel the need to talk to someone who "gets it" pm me. I will warn you, I'm pretty blunt when it comes to sobriety. For ME it's a life or death thing. I will help you through what I can but I will always be brutally honest.


Please take care,
julie

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 2

MYTHIC ADULT


My mythic adult is seen by the crowds around me; never is the charade exposed. Close inspection has been suspended so we can keep each other’s secrets. Circulating through the crowd, these children are impoverished from carrying this load of pretense. Dropping this burden is a risk far too great. Exposure invites attack. Stand tall; act brave. Unreasonable expectations are the water that moves the wheel, the power that generates this ongoing play. Hamlet is dead, yet I reprise the part daily. Daily I watch my fellows do the same. I mimic a ghost I never knew in life. Did it ever live? Or is it only a mythic adult?


Plant some things for their flower and others for their fruit.
*

Head Wringing

I have my say, though my fear is
that I constantly repeat myself;
very much the way a crow calls the same thing endlessly,
but it all has different meanings to the crow.

I would offer code keys to my readers
if I could lay my hands on one.
My mind whispers that the soothing
people get from my work is like the calm
induced by chanting monks.

Possibly it is more the actor’s trick of reading repetitive lines
each time putting the emphasis on a different word;
a way of squeezing all the juice from nonsense.

I jot ideas swearing these lines are to be found somewhere
in my previous work, perhaps whole pages are redundant.
Finally I stop this fight reminding myself I have but one voice
and what I accuse myself of as similarity might merely be my style.

[Girl Friday]

Originally Posted by femmsational

Well, you're throwing yourself quite the pity party. LOL!!! I totally understand. When my disease is speaking for me, I sound just like you.


First, my name is Julie and I AM an alcoholic and addict.


Second, right now is not the time to try and make sense of what's going on in your brain so I'm not going to go into a long drawn out spew. Nothing right now will help you with what you are feeling. Other than feelings are not facts as I'm sure you've been told over and over and over.


Third, taking away all the judgemental language you are hurling at yourself leads to one small fact. You have a disease. I have the same one. My pleasure neurons don't connect like *normal* people. So I medicate. Why am I saying this? Because you took a drink because it's what people like you and I do. Doesn't make you a bad person or a twisted bitch. You have found an excuse that for the moment helped you fall backwards into your sick, as in injured, thinking.



Do you do meetings? Have a sponser? Might be a good idea???


If you need anything or just feel the need to talk to someone who "gets it" pm me. I will warn you, I'm pretty blunt when it comes to sobriety. For ME it's a life or death thing. I will help you through what I can but I will always be brutally honest.


Please take care,
julie

Thank you.
Yes, the pity party was extensive.
The morning is a pretty "interesting" sight.
I'm off to a meeting.
Day one.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 3

NO GOLD STARS



I look at my chart, then my chest; there are no gold stars. I long for the affirmation of my great and seemingly endless struggle. I watch the movements of those with shiny shoes and hope to be awarded with the gummed insignia. When I hang by a thread, I desire the corroboration of foil cutouts to assure me I have done the right; I have stayed alive. Punishment I fear less than lack of consolation. But, no one truly knows my bravery and if I want these paper emblems, I can just go and buy my own.


Count unhatched chickens but don’t place them on the menu.


*
The Hope Diamond

My guess is
the same god that wants me stupid
also wants me to suffer.
I ask myself what could be all powerful about that?

I wonder is God like a friend or a lover?
I carefully chose my friends
whereas my lover found me
against my greatest plans and well thought rules.

And if this is to be like marriage,
may I file for divorce if things go astray?
Or am I stuck with this match,
like I am stuck with my deformed ear
there underneath hat or fringe of hair?

I never thought of my relationship with God
like a necklace I could take on and off at will,
though the more I study it seems this beautiful thing
enhances my beauty if all is right
and will strangle me if it gets hung up.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Originally Posted by Girl Friday

Thank you.
Yes, the pity party was extensive.
The morning is a pretty "interesting" sight.
I'm off to a meeting.
Day one.

Okay, so how did it go?????

Are you going to another meeting today?

Did you hear anyone who might be a good sponsor for you?

[Girl Friday]

Originally Posted by LeftWriteFemme

Okay, so how did it go?????

Are you going to another meeting today?

Did you hear anyone who might be a good sponsor for you?

I actually went to 2 meetings yesterday and 2 today. I didn't choose a sponsor. I go to these meetings off and on when I feel the need for support, but I've never met anyone I'd like as a sponsor. Most of the people who volunteer to be sponsors at my regular meeting seem to have something to prove. It's as though I'd almost rather have a sponsor who is more reluctant. The overly eager ones make me nervous. It's like I'm there for them rather than the other way around. I've never had a sponsor before but I don't want one that needs me more than I need them.

I'll go again tomorrow. Right now, I'm sitting in my house trying not to bite off all my fingernails. But if I do...what the hell. They're only fingernails.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Originally Posted by Girl Friday

I actually went to 2 meetings yesterday and 2 today. I didn't choose a sponsor. I go to these meetings off and on when I feel the need for support, but I've never met anyone I'd like as a sponsor. Most of the people who volunteer to be sponsors at my regular meeting seem to have something to prove. It's as though I'd almost rather have a sponsor who is more reluctant. The overly eager ones make me nervous. It's like I'm there for them rather than the other way around. I've never had a sponsor before but I don't want one that needs me more than I need them.

I'll go again tomorrow. Right now, I'm sitting in my house trying not to bite off all my fingernails. But if I do...what the hell. They're only fingernails.

Well I wish you the best, it's hard to get sober. Please take good care of you and maybe look someplace else for a sponsor. My sponsors don't live near me or go to my local meetings. For me I would have trouble staying sober without a sponsor, that's why I mention it.