florida

i have now gone to two meetings in Florida by saying this to myself: "If LA was here, she'd go in."

What popped in to my head en route to the meeting tonite: Let me seek to understand than to be understood.

I think i've been pretty great with the kids on this trip but I realize that I haven't really tried to see it from their point of view. I've been making decisions based on old experiences but this is a new experience for all of us. More listening tomorrow. Less shoulders up around my ears.

crimes and misdemeanors

When the third cat went missing, I didn't care and didn't look. Previous experience, his habits, told me he'd been hit by a car and was dead somewhere. But I didn't even think about my daughter and how it would affect her. I didn't think about how cold I must have seemed. Was. Because his death/disappearance was a convenience... I didn't want three cats anymore. And now I didn't.

Songs about a cat named Virtue, sung by the Weakerthans, wrench my heart and bring me to tears, but poor B... he got nothing from me, while my girl wrote notes to an invisible fairy and asked he be given a second chance.

returning

went out over the holidays. ten short days, and drinking wasn't the real issue. it was the glorious white powder. and i'm grateful i did it, because i REALLY came face-to-face with my powerlessness this time, as i blasted through 3 grams in less than 24 hours - possibly a personal record - and then i finished the shit off, went to a party, had some tequila, drove the girlie and i home and stopped to pick up the pizza i'd ordered...

and saw my bank in the distance and thought, i could call my dealer now and then hit the bank for some cash and get home in time to get some more and do some more and stay up again for no reason but just to have it again...

with my kid in the back seat.

so if you ask me if i'm done, yeah, i'm done. i'm back at AA with no conditions. I had a lot of conditions when i went back in September, but i can't afford them now. The group can be my higher power. i'm phoning people. and i'm writing this again.

so that's that. i got in touch with my old sponsor, and made an amend to her when i've been thinking for years that she owes me one. so that felt good.

and oh yeah. I had a facelift and an eyejob, which was a decision i made shortly after the anti-depressants kicked in months ago, and i can tell you, i have no regrets. there's still some soreness in the neck/throat area, but it's healed really well, and i look less and less like Mickey Rourke every day. (seriously. the first day was Not Good in that respect). It'll still be swollen for a couple months, apparently, but i think i can see how it'll be, and i gotta say, the outside matches the inside better.

OK. I'll post tomorrow about my weekend of crying non-stop about jobs i'm not getting.

triggers

when i get news i don't like. To wit, the third cancellation on my dinner party on Saturday night. Suddenly pretty perfect situation of nine people has now been whittled down to six. For me, whole tenor of evening changes. NO WAY can it be as good. I hang up the phone and want a drink. I pray that E will arrive with cocaine. Anything that will... wipe out the feeling.

And oh yeah, en route to a meeting that morning, anticipating cooking, seeing myself with a glass of wine. Fa la la la la - look at me, i'm sophisticated. I sip wine while i cook for nine. well, more fool I as it turned out to be only six, so thanks god i didn't drink, right?

there was one more that day... can't recall what now. So how did i stay off the sauce? Partly just noticing how much I wanted it, especially after cancellation #3.

Fave saying from saturday morning meeting, re: hanging out with your family: "They know how to press my buttons; hell, they installed them."

no protection

shrink-lady today.

i used to make this joke about George W and his "I'm the decider" schtick, that I was going to write a self-help book about using that phrase to improve your life. Or more accurately, it was a diet - that's it. Am I gonna eat that ice cream? I'M the decider! No way! I'm the DECIDEr. Although I think in my routine i extrapolated to dating, jobs, etc.

What's sort of horrible is that W might have been on to something. I can only trust that we're using the same word in different ways. Because somehow i found the exact right phrasing today... I made the decision that I don't need to protect myself anymore. Shrink-lady said, You choose to trust. And I said yes, but for me to really understand it right now, i have to phrase it in terms of protecting myself. I am ALWAYS on the defensive. I am continually engaged in the struggle that I anticipate. I don't even need it to show up - i'm struggling anyhow. i anticipate the need to protect myself. I'm struggling before anything happens.

I can feel the tension go out of my body - my shoulders actually drop down from that position up near my ears. I have made the decision not to struggle anymore. Life is gonna come through for me. Abundance.

Wow, that sounds really sappy. But it's where I've been trying to get for a long time.

power/less

24 hours later... couldn't sleep last night, so surfed for sites on a-ism and atheism. tell you what, the folks who are writing those "AA is a cult" sites are speaking my language, insofar as zeroing in on AA's insistence that you have to believe in a higher power, and that you are powerless, etc. Funny, I can easily accept that I am not in control (the one that really nailed it for me, my shrink saying, "I don't know what's going to come out of my mouth in 30 seconds."); but powerlessness FEEL different.

Oh bugger it all. I'm going to go to a meeting tonight and my poor temporary sponsor who really does have faith will get another night of struggling to reconcile with my happy atheism. But hoping to hit an SOS meeting (only one night a week, alas) some day, to see what the difference is.

In other news, I'm drawing out the death of this relationship i've been in by simply not seeing him, i keep eating chocolate, and i'm slowly, slowly working on my project. No great speed, definitely tortoise progress, but I'll take it.

insomnia

I'm too tired to fight. I give up. Not "surrender," notice, but I give up. I realize that I'm always in a defensive mode, I am always prepared for a fight, I frame what's happening in my life as a "me versus just-about-anyone" scenario. And today, just feeling sooooooo tired, and walking two happy girls down the street before I hit the gym, I decided to give up. "Made a decision." I thought about it and went, OK, I'm making the decision. I'm tired of fighting. I'll believe all this shit instead of rummaging around in my box of problems and challenges.

So here it is: I can tick off the "Uh-hunh" box for Powerless over alcohol. Life unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than me, which includes the TTC, pickle jars, wind, and my cat, could restore me to sanity. (I will note here that the power i'm holding out hope for is a practising and practical faith in buddhism, which has no deity, yo). AND made a decision, to turn my will and life over to... Hey Siddharta, you there? Didn't think so. But that still works.