Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 20

THE SEDUCTION OF SOBRIETY



I was seduced away from my duties as an alcoholic by the promise of sobriety. Allegiance to my disease was sidelined. Alluring stability and beguiling integrity curried favor with my desperate heart, pulling me from the arranged marriage of addiction. How could I cling to the corpse of dependence when sanity shimmered just out of reach, then not out of reach but within my grasp? I couldn’t resist the golden flicker of life. I had been bound to death, unable to see an alternative. My loyalty to loss and grief slipped from me and I limped into the daylight like the widow of the night. I have been lured to my senses by a love like no other, the love of life.


Raise the ceiling on optimism.
*


Blind Man’s Bluff

Turning your head to see
doesn’t help when you have a blind eye.
All the rotation in the world won’t restore your sight.

Addressing life problems with a solution
involving spin is counter productive
and sometimes counter clockwise to boot.

If I find I just can’t see, then maybe
it’s time to listen better and compensate
for my shortcoming through some other action.

Turning away doesn’t help and walking away is worse.
When I am blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other
stepping up to the plate may not be an option,
but I still need to find a way to stay in the game.