Speaking to the crowd

So guess who was a speaker at a meeting today? That's right, me. I had to get up there and share what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. I got a couple of laughs, but I think my story is so boring. "Drank, blacked out, drank, drugged, blacked out, stopped." But apparently I chose a topic everyone needed to talk about: honesty.

I always thought I was an honest person. I omitted a lot of stuff, yeah, but not everyone needs to know everything. I still think I'm pretty honest, if sometimes to a fault. I tend not to sugarcoat things, and just blurt them out instead. When I do lie, it's just little things like when people ask how are you, or I'll embellish a story a tad just to make it more interesting. But they're not big lies.

I've been looking for them, too. I talked to my sponsor and told her about the lies I tell, and she laughed at me. "Those aren't really lies," she said. I suppose I just have a harsh view of myself and am a little too much of a perfectionist.

So my first experience up in the front of the room went well. Ben said someone else is going to ask me soon, so apparently I'm going to get a lot of practice!

Speaking makes me nervous

Ben asked me today if I would speak on Tuesday. My sponsor always says you don't say no to a request like that, so I said yes. What in the hell am I going to talk about?

What it was like. I self-medicated. I used booze to make me feel less depressed, to bring down my mania, to feel more like the crowd. I drank everyday, sometimes two bottles a day after work. I showed up to work drunk. I drank and drove. I slept with people I shouldn't have. I made a mess of myself.

What happened. I realized one day I had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I realized that I couldn't keep on going like this; that alcohol and drugs really weren't curing anything, they were just making it all worse.

What it's like now. I feel better. My meds are working. My head is clear. Despite what it looks like by how often I post, I'm more productive at work. But I've upped my smoking addiction, which I know I'm powerless over. I've upped my diet Coke intake. But I'm working on it. And the cool thing is? I don't have to drink.

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.