Rule 62

"Taking yourself too seriously is mental vanity."

Have you heard that yet, in AA? Rule 62, Don't take yourself so seriously. I think a lot of people in the program have this problem. To spend all your time focusing on digging out the inner you by looking at your faults and then trying to remove them... it always seemed to me like an effort in self. Sure, it's about trying to be a better person in the world, which benefits everyone, but it's a great tool for looking inward and focusing your attention on yourself. And even the Big Book says that alcoholics are by definition selfish. So it makes sense that this becomes a self-involved program.

But there is this "rule" that I love. Don't take yourself so damn seriously. Adam has it written somewhere, and I always have to remind him. He takes himself very seriously sometimes. I probably don't take myself seriously enough. I think about myself a lot and my needs, but I sure as hell don't act on them. I have a tendency to act according to other people's needs. I don't look out for myself enough; say what I need and not take no for an answer. I worry too much about others.

And I think that's a codependent behavior, right? Again, it comes down to the underlying emotional problem, not the alcoholism. I really believe that I can't drink like normal folks, but it's because I have emotional problems and baggage. Will I be able to drink once I get rid of those? Well, that's a trick question: you never truly get rid of your emotional baggage. It's always there. Sure, you can strive to be perfect, but then you're taking everything too seriously, again.

Life is fun! Or at least, it should be. Misery is optional.

Grow up, kid

Every now and again we talk about emotional sobriety here. It's an old topic. Even Bill talked about it in 1958.

"Emotional sobriety encompasses our ability to live with balance and maturity." I like that definition best. But what is maturity? It can be defined as "how a person responds to the circumstances or environment in an appropriate and adaptive manner." So emotional sobriety is your brain catching up with your body, essentially. You no longer act like an ass when out in public because you're drunk, and it's time to stop opening your mouth and letting every thought out, or never opening your mouth and talking about your needs. It's time to grow up.

I think this is where my problem lies. I do oftentimes open my mouth a little too much and let people know what I need, but if it's important I tend to keep it under wraps after a while. I usually speak up once, and let it go at that. I am ridiculously honest, which can be a fault and a benefit.

So how do you be mature? There's something great from WikiHow about how to be mature. Learn manners (check), use proper grammar (check), be slow to anger (sometimes check), be an active listener (check), don't swear except to make a big point (ummm... damn.). It's a great list of do's and dont's for how to be mature. And it proves there really is a WikiHow for everything.

A good place to go

"AA is a helpful framework for creation because there is an entire fellowship of people and a bunch of meetings established for you to go to. An active life in AA can be an answer to the question: “What am I going to do with myself now that I’m not drinking?” Being actively involved in AA can replace the absence of drinking with something meaningful, but it is not the only solution available to you. It is merely a convenient one."

It's true: AA is a place to go to replace the bar. It's a great place to meet people who will give you support in your sobriety. And at times like the holidays, it's a great place to go when you feel you can't go to any other party. A lot of people say spend as much time going to meetings as you did drinking. Use that same time to do something good for yourself instead. As of most of AA's suggestions, it's a good one.

It is awfully convenient considering there are tons of AA meetings all over the place. I mean, there are 5 clubs just in a 10 mile radius of me. They're great places to hang out in and meet with people who have sobriety in mind.

Emotional Sobriety

We've talked a little about emotional sobriety, and I found something that I thought was interesting to share.

"Emotional intelligence consists of four core abilities:

Self-awareness – The ability to recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior, know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.

Self-management – The ability to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Social awareness – The ability to understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.

Relationship management – The ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict."

So I've got social awareness down, and I'm pretty sure I'm good in the relationship management part, but the italicized stuff is tough for me, and I'm sure for a lot of you.

Oh, to know my strengths and weaknesses. To finish my fourth step. Yeah, I know, I'm still behind in that manner. I've been working on thinking about doing it. I'm still waiting to look at it and think, "Oh yeah, that's why I do that." And a lot of reasons why I "do that" is the other thing, self-management. I'm impulsive. I know it. I say what's on my mind, sometimes to the determent of the conversation. I pick up and move in a week because I think it's the right thing to do (and it was. I'm just saying, I'm often right.)

Perhaps some of this will end up on my fourth step, but I don't know how you do things about emotional sobriety. I need to recognize these character defects and be able to, well, to at least recognize them. I suppose once I know what they are I'll be better able to handle them.

My sponsor yelled at me

She said she can only help me as much as I want to be helped, and I'm not making the program a priority; that I should go back to step one. Interesting. I haven't been to meetings lately because a) I was in a small town up north for a week, b) last night Emily was in town with her baby and I stayed for dinner, missing the 8:30 meeting. Suddenly I don't care about AA?

But she kind of has a point. In my life, my friends and family are more important than me making a meeting. Does that "lead me straight to a drink"? I think God and I are doing just fine going to 3 or 4 meetings a week. I think that's enough to keep me involved in the program. And I have no interest in drinking. I was a little embarrassed around Emily's parents, but I got over it and let them know what was going on. All the people in my life know I'm sober, and I'm happy to be.

So have I stepped away? I think I'm just having trouble with the program as my sponsor sees it. She has me calling every day. I don't even talk to my mom every day. I don't want to talk to her every day. I just call and say "hi, everything's still the same as it was yesterday." How useful is that? I don't know if it is. It's not useful to me. Once a week and seeing her at 3 meetings a week would be just fine, but calling her every day AND seeing her at 3 meetings?

Maybe I'm still hesitant to put both feet into this program. Why? Well, I hate being told what to do, #1, but I think I'm also weary of drinking the "Kool-Aid." I saw how it affected Adam in the beginning, and he was annoying as hell. He also spent all his time and energy on AA, and now only has friends in AA. I don't want to limit myself so much. I want to keep the people I love and not alienate them.

How do I make it right with my sponsor? I need to talk to her about all this. I know she's going to call me a dry drunk and tell me I'm never going to be or stay sober unless I do it whole hog, and maybe I'll just have to tell her I'm not ready yet.

Purging

My therapist and I started talking about purging lately. Sometimes I get this incredible urge to projectile vomit on people while they're talking, and my therapist was saying how this is a purging urge, and asked what it is that I need to get out.

Feelings, I suppose. Purging is also defined as "To rid of sin, guilt, or defilement." It's all that old stuff that sits inside of you, the pain and fear from long ago, all the crappy stuff, and for me, the obsessive tendencies. I need to rid myself of all the "bad" emotions or "character defects." Luckily, I have lots of time to work on them.

So I'm going to detox. I think this advice for detoxing from cigarettes is applicable all around, so I'm going to try it. Water in, sweat out. There are also some things available on emotional cleanses, which I'm going to read a bit more into before I try anything.

Girl, interrupted

"Old behavior brings old feelings -- new behavior brings new feelings. So if you want to feel differently, behave differently."

New behavior. I need to start getting back up at 8:30am and not sleeping till 2, like I have been for the past week. I need to not be up at 3am writing posts and not letting my dog sleep, either. I need to run more. All these behaviors will make me feel better, no doubt. And will I do them? Yeah, I'll get back on schedule. I will. I'm strong, and determined.

But tonight. Tonight I'm going to feel sorry for myself. I really don't do it enough. I tend to take the happy sunshine approach to everything. I really do need to just let myself wallow every now and again. I need to feel these feelings of loss and sadness instead of stuffing them down with peace and fake happiness. "Fake it til you make it" they say, but tonight I'm going to stay up and keep writing depressing posts.

Perhaps this is my emotional bottom. I've talked about it a little before, but boy am I feeling it now. I'm feeling like shit. God I miss my life. I miss having my own things, my own place, my car, my friends, my independence. I miss my life. I don't have a life here. I am living, true, but it's not a life. I don't want this. I moved west to get away from all this. I moved to feel better, and I did. Things were just getting good. I was in the middle of my best year yet. I was getting sober and making it even better. And then it all got interrupted by this shit.

Who said this could happen? Last time I was unemployed it was 4 months of misery. I was off my meds and crazier than a rat in shit. I lost my freaking mind. And this time? I'm on meds, but I'm feeling more because I'm not drinking. I drank my way through unemployment last time, and only felt better when I got a job. It's been 2 months, and now it's all catching up to me.

Lonely sucks

I am so lonely. Moving back was a good decision, especially since I've been getting unemployment and it's pennies, but I'm so lonely. I suppose I was lonely before, just hanging out in my house with my dog, but I had drinking. And I had my Thursday night girls night and weekends with Michael. I had work and the people there. I went out to cookies and coffee all the time and chatted with folks.

I'm so lonely here. I have my dad, and Adam, and Andrea, but it's just not enough, almost. I keep calling my friends from where I moved and talking to them about everything going on. I miss them so much. They are the people I want in my someday wedding. I feel closer to them than anyone else. I love them, and they love me, and I'm lonely.

H.A.L.T. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I don't feel like drinking, but I do feel like I need something. Some human contact that doesn't have strings attached. I need to just lie down with someone, even if it's just on the phone, and discuss how I'm feeling without getting the AA version. "It's just the committee; you're going through and emotional bottom; blah, blah, blah." I just need a little sympathy. Life is really kind of tough right now, and I don't need the platitudes. I don't need the fake solutions to everything. I don't need advice, I need comfort.

Who are you?

Something I love about AA is that you often don't know what you're thinking until you open your mouth to share.

I hated myself as a kid. That's why I started doing drugs. I wanted to fill that hole inside of me. I don't know where it came from, but it was always there. It was just that something I lived with. Deep down inside of me there was an emptiness. Did drugs fill that hole? Kinda. I felt even worse. I seriously hated myself. All the time. I thought I was fat, ugly, stupid, you name it. Everything. And drugs didn't make it any better. But they made me forget for a minute. They made me outgoing, and outgoing made people like me.

So I developed an outgoing personality. I became an anthropologist. I studied the culture of the people around me and tried to be just like them, but I never really succeeded. I was always a little weird, a little on the outside. But people liked me. I have tons of friends! People were always drawn to me. Inside, I was miserable and couldn't stand to have people around, and sometimes I would hide from them, but people liked when I was there. So I kept doing drugs, and kept trying to be someone people would like.

Once I overdosed, I turned to alcohol to fill that need, that hole. I became bell of the bar. I danced, I sang, I flirted. I hung out with everyone and made my house the center of the party. I became the cool girl, the drunken good time girl. I was again someone people would like. I fit in. And I was miserable. This time, instead of overdosing, I tried to slit my wrists.

I was on the up trajectory with my friends across the country. I was the cool girl, the one who threw the big parties, the one who got everyone home safe at night, the one who bought the good booze or made sure everyone's glass was full. I was fun to hang out with and everyone's friend. Until I started to drink alone and go to the bar after drinking with my friends at their houses. They weren't the kind of girls to go all night; they were the have a few bottles of wine at someone's house kind of group. Which I loved, but I never had enough alcohol. So I drank at home.

And I hated myself. Here's that cursor blinking again. I hated myself.

And now, I'm in AA, I'm talking, I have a sponsor, I'm reading step books and calling people. And I'm acting like everyone thinks I should be. I'm doing the right thing so people will like me and I'll appear like one of the crowd. I'm pretending again. I'm pretending to be someone I'm not.

So who the fuck am I besides miserable?

Like the Lord

Sister Bonnie said, "Don't crucify yourself between two thieves: the regrets of yesterday, and the fear of tomorrow."

I never realized I had so many regrets until I started doing my fourth step. There are so many things that hold me back, because they take up so much of my brain and my time to think about. I think about them before I make moves, which is good, because sometimes it keeps me out of trouble, but sometimes it makes me fearful of moving forward. Life is change; life is forward movement. You have to keep moving, always. So don't regret the past, but don't wish to shut the door on it, either.

Ah, the fear of tomorrow. I've been having a lot of that lately. What is going to happen to me? Will I remain unemployed for a long time? Will I get this part time job? What if I do? What will happen then? Will I find a place of my own anytime soon? There is so much "unknown" out there right now, and I'm afraid of it. But I know about moving forward, and I can't be complacent.

So don't crucify yourself between your fears and your regrets. There is no place in sobriety or emotional sobriety for paralysis because of these things. You have to grow and move on in order to experience life, but don't throw away these things either. Learn from them.

What is sobriety?

So, I haven't had a drink in 64 days, which means I'm sober from alcohol and drugs, but what is sobriety?

Being sober means to be not addicted to intoxicating substances, which we're all alcoholics here, so we can't say we're not addicted, but we can be cured of the obsession if God (HP) wills it. But what about the other sobriety talked about in the rooms? The emotional sobriety?

"Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance -- urges quite appropriate to age seventeen -- prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven....How shall our unconscious -- from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream -- be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want!" Bill W.

What do I actually believe, know, and want? Well, I can honestly say I have no idea. What do I believe, know, and want for myself and for those around me? Safety, security, love. What can I give? Well, I can give of myself and try to make the world around me a kinder, gentler place for those in it, but does that lead me to emotional sobriety? I think this is going to have to be brought up in a meeting soon. It'll be my topic when I have to speak soon.

At our meetings they encourage people on their fourth step to talk at a meeting. The other day, a man in my home group asked me if I'd speak at a meeting he's chairing in the future. He didn't say when, but my sponsor told me you never say no to a request in AA. So we'll see what happens.