Cast Offs

We cast off the burdens of the past and the anxieties of the future, as we begin to live in the present, one day at a time. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, page 559

They call it a present,
this time in which we live.
And not only because
we did nothing to earn it,
couldn't buy it if our lives
depended on it, not now,
not ever for if you cling to it,
it disappears, vanishes, evaporates.
No, it's the present because it comes
unadorned, unburdened, free.
It's pliable, malleable, ours
to work with, to use, to enjoy,
to share. And accepting it, but not
its older and younger siblings,
yesterday and tomorrow,
we receive it without ribbons
of regret or concern, the castoffs
invested with fears.

I Claim My Seat

I claim my seat. ~ Sally

The only requirement
for membership
in Overeaters Anonymous
is a desire to stop eating
compulsively. That's me,
and I hereby claim my seat.
Maybe I've been coming back
these seven years and maybe
you can't see results by dress size,
by pounds surrendered.
Maybe my life remains chaotic,
but I want the promises,
I cling to the hope. I intend
to keep coming back
until the miracle happens
and until then, I claim my seat.

How Hard Can It Be?

She says I'm to stand at the mirror,
look myself in the eyes and say it.
"I love you." I don't have to do it
with anybody around, just say it.
Out loud. Ouch!
How hard can it be? I can say it
to a near stranger in an email.
I can say it easily to my family,
my close friends. I know it's true,
that I love everyone...at least biblically,
that I accept them, honor their rights
to life, to meet their needs, to thrive
though I can be angry at those
who occupy the headlines, 
who show no awareness, 
much less respect or love,
for their fellow humans.
I love everyone. Why can it be
that it's so hard to stare at myself
and say I love the one there?

West Southwest

We each find our own direction,
our location, our journey, our ideal.
Some of us are born there,
some drift there, others migrate
while still more feel misplaced

through life. What's my place?
A mixture of Old South, Wild West
and Go west, young man.

 

Asked what color I was
I once claimed grey,

toyed with black and white
until an epiphany revealed
my puce. I chose gray 

because I want to be gray
and I'm afraid I'm really fuchsia.
Or chartreuse.
I've tried to find a spelling
for puese which Bobbie says
is green, not pink, but I haven't.
I FOUND IT!  It's puce and I'm right,
it's a pink/purple instead of a green!

And since then I've known my nature
to be true puce.

 

Who are you? What is your nature?
When will you stop pretending,
cease forcing what others want
and identify your own nature?
When you let go, find your peace,
you will find yourself.

Sourpuss?

You're really not hungry,
just deprived of the comfort
you believed you could get

from the food. Oh, yes,
once you really got comfort
but in recent years it's been guilt,
shame, misery, low self-esteem,
and indigestion (not to mention
some other physical attestations).
You're not starving, you're feeling.
Feeling feelings, and they're frightening,
strange, unwelcome, offensive.
You don't want to admit
you are who you are,
the you others have always seen
but you've masked from yourself
by the food, by isolation, by lies.
You're in a sour mood. Recognize it.
Acknowledge it. Understand
that when you get to know this you

you'll wonder how you ever
wanted to keep the really sour you.

An Afflicted Poem

Prosperity. That's the word
the screen suggested
as my next word when I wrote
"An Afflicted Poem."
A Droid in recovery?
Well, maybe one who mimics,
who has become aware of my choices,
of my thought waves. Scary.
But as long as they're not really mine,
as long as they reflect recovery,
the thought pattern inherent in
"Not my will, but Thine be done!"
it will work just fine. That's the way
to deal with feeling afflicted.
Afflicted means  to distressso severely as to cause 
persistent suffering or anguish.
Afflicted means tormented like that,
and not just briefly...for a long time.
Like life is unmanageable and
we're powerless over everything.
And there's an answer for that.
It's set out in Twelve Steps
and taking those steps relieves us
from our affliction,
granting us the gift, prosperity.

Follow

What do you do with a food plan?
Follow it. What does that mean?
To travel behind go after come after.
Does that mean you first set the plan?
That you have a specific list, a way to test,
a plan? Yes, in that way you follow a plan.
Be later in time, to postdate?
Yes, a food plan is not like the diets
we start, make it through a day...
or part of a day...then allow it
to fall by the wayside, to land in the archives?
Yes, in that way you follow a good plan.
Follow as to come as a logical consequence?
Kind of. And the desired result
is certainly achieved by truly following the plan.
To travel along a certain course?
Yes, emphasis on course meaning continuing.
To behave in conformance or agreement with?
Yes, that's the idea. To persevere.
To create a habit, a practice, a normality
of eating as we choose to eat
in our best intentions.

At My Right Time

Sometimes I hate
I was about sixty
when I found OA,
that I missed the years
when my family was young,
that I failed to raise my sons
in a household that knew serenity.
Sometimes I chide myself

for knowing of OA decades earlier
and failing to come,
refusing to come a second time
those long years ago.

Sometimes I envy those teens
who walk through the door,
a life of serenity ahead.
But I know I came when I came
and for me I was right on time.

Ragged Edges

I can hold it together,
put my best face forward,
make it in this world
until I can't.
I can convince people
I know what I'm doing,
hold the lead, be a star
until I can't.
I can fit into society,
manage life, exercise power,
hold on to sanity
until I can't.
But it's okay when I can't
which actually is more often
than the times I can...
I know that when I'm honest
with me, with you.
And I can be honest with you,
my family of choice,
because you get me, you understand,
you've been there and admit it.
You've seen all my ragged edges
and you love me for them.

The Holy Vacuum

(Phrase used by Roni B, Region 3 Chair in conversation with Kay S, Region 3 Recording Secretary)

If I don't do it how can it get done?
I know my time is filled, that I really can't
continue doing it, can't give any more
than I am right now without lapsing,
without dropping balls I'm juggling,
without falling on my face, without collapse.
What will people think if I just quit?
How can the world function If I lapse,
if I don't hold the whole thing up,
Atlas and all? I know I'm indispensable.
I've asked my Power to find someone,
to relieve me of this burden, to help.
And no, it's still mine. And I can't let go.

But until I do, my Power's won't act,
won't have a vacuum needing filling.
I'm in the way while I'm essential.
But if I step out of the way, if I trust,
if I surrender then God can fill
the hole, abundantly replenish
the holy vacuum.

The Same Twelve Steps

Eight years ago I reached the rooms,
quickly launched into the Steps,
became an expert in my own mind,
told others how to do it, satisfied.
I've worked the steps other times,
especially the 5th, am sponsored,
sponsor, do service about as well
as I do anything else. But know
it -- meaning my service, my sponsoring,
my abstinence, my meditation...
my recovery leave much to be desired.
It's time to work the steps again.
They have not changed, and need not.
But this time is different. I'm ready.
I've seen in many people
the magic of recovery, and I'm ready.
Ready to have the magic,

ready to have recovery,
ready to work the same steps
and to learn what I wasn't ready to
before.

Imperative

My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition (Kindle Locations 483-485)

It was...is...imperative
that I work with others
having my addiction
as others had worked with me.
What did others do for me
those first weeks after I told God,
This is stupid!?

Before I got to a meeting
I found an online group...
a food sponsor five states over...
a step sponsor in Israel...
people I could email
when I went to London
about good choices,
fear, physical pain...
a woman locally, one I knew,
who allowed her name
be listed as OA in my hometown...
the people in the room
at my first physical meeting
when I got a thirty-day chip...
people at intergroup
who trusted me,
in program a matter of weeks,
to represent them
at the next Assembly...

I'm sure it felt minimal
to all those saints,
but it mattered to ME.
And those simple kindnesses,
when I pass them on, can help
the newcomer...and me.

From OAStepper's SLENDER STEPS TO SANITY describing how she got to the rooms of Overeaters Anonymous

As the Gift, So the Giver

It was only when I became aware of all the gifts I had received that I asked who the giver was. What a shocking realization: because the gifts were surely divine, then equally as surely, the giver must also have been divine. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 926-928).

After a few years
the gifts don't surprise you,
at least not much,
for they bear the image
(not literally unless that, too,
is who the person is)
of the giver, reflect that person,
embody and symbolize
making them that much more dear.

We walk through the doors
of the rooms of recovery,
begin to wish for what people have,
to act as if when we cannot believe,
to accept direction and follow,
to surrender and find a benevolent master.
Some of us have the obsession removed,
completely and permanently,
as we could never have managed
but for the miracle of the rooms.
Some take longer, but it works
and even if the presenting problem lingers
the other maddening elements slip into sanity.

We walk through the doors thinking, maybe,
there could just possibly be some kind of power
that can give us what we see,
and eventually what we see is not just recovering people
but the miracle of recovery itself. And we see the Power.

Explain Electricity

Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt. Why this ready acceptance? Simply because it is impossible to explain what we see, feel, direct, and use, without a reasonable assumption as a starting point. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous (Kindle Locations 758-759)

For some folks it would be easy to explain electricity.
It wouldn't be for me. I walked through a museum today
with a three-year-old twin (sometimes one, others, the other)
and they stopped to watch paper cups blow into the air,
to dig for fossils, to watch trains run or practice checking groceries.
They studied with awe a demonstration of the stars, the galaxies,
the constellations then wandered through displays of drilling for oil.
And they accepted it all, natural, in the course of their days.
They have questions a plenty, but they believe in miracles
and don't have to ponder just how they happen.

Recovery comes hard for people who have put childish things aside,
who wish to argue, to explain, to justify, to deconstruct.
But those who have come to the point of insanity in that way
and have recovered...these have discovered the mysteries abound,
have learned to act as if and find that that's the truth,
to trust because it happened to someone else it can happen to me
no matter what logical thinking demands to set up as a starting point,
the explanation necessary to commence to believe. 

Don't Tell Me Not to Love!

You call me "people pleaser," filled with scorn
as though I shouldn't strive to do his will,

to meet his needs. But I'm his wife and sworn
to serve him, love him, do for him until

 

our lives shall end. You understand the vows
of marriage, binding still, old-fashioned, yes,
but sensible, and wise beyond the hows,
the oughts, the ancient rules. The truth attests.

 

Perhaps I don't know how to love. My shame,
my lack of confidence, my guilt takes hold
and I concede my worth, accept the blame,
your pleasure all my goal, afraid you'll scold.

 

Don't tell me not to love. I wish to learn
respect and that my worth cannot be earned.

Holy Hideaway

Pleasing people all day long,
seeing to your needs, ignoring mine.
Cooking, cleaning, errand running,
taxi driver, arbiter, beautician,
laundress, seamstress, teacher,
Jill-of-all-trades. I'm at your service,
here to please. The source of comfort, 
shoulder to cry on, cheerleader,
companion, pal and friend...
I give all I can, happily, readily.
Yet the need to refuel, to renew,
to refresh I so often postpone,
ignore, fail to find time to do.
So I fail to serve you, to help you,
to support you until I internalize
what I would say to you...
Find the time, set aside a place
and visit your holy haven so often
you might actually please the people
you feel the need to people please.

Severe Storm Warning

Sometimes trouble comes out of the blue
but not usually, not in life, not in the sky,
not in recovery. We know what to do
when the weather broadcast tells of storms,
of cancel-it-now events to be affected.
We understand palliative care, bucket lists,
diagnoses with no option we'd choose.
We know when fears, resentments, emotions
loom before us because of the place,
the people, the expectations.
Why do we fail to prepare for the storm warnings
in recovery as we would were they delivered
on the newscast? Why do we fail to gather our resources
and prepare to weather the storm?

The Safe Deposit Box

Today I am worth enough to give myself the best —the best thought, the best care. I guard my abstinence and my program as though they were my dearest possessions — and they are. ~ For Today (Kindle Locations 656-657).

Are your valuables protected?
What's most important to you?
Is your program there, your sobriety,
your sanity? Is it REALLY?Do you find yourself giving lip service
to the importance of the program
but being willing to lay it aside "just once"
when you want to do something,
when you're feeling left out,
when you're afraid of what others will say?
Is this valuable possession something
you take with you when it's convenient
but easily leave behind?
But really, a safe deposit box?
How can that fit with abstract things,
with ideas, behaviors, my life?
Have you ever heard of a God box?
Can that be your safety deposit box,
where you write it down on paper,
turn it over to God, and know it...
and you...are protected?

More than Enough

8-9...“There’s a youngster here with five barley loaves and a couple of fish! But what good is that with all this mob?”

10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus ordered. And all of them—the approximate count of the men only was five thousand—sat down on the grassy slopes. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks to God and passed them out to the people. Afterwards he did the same with the fish. And everyone ate until full! ~ John 6, The Message

Scarcity. Hunger. Not enough to go around
of love, of necessities, of respect, of money, of life.
Short supply, the survival of the fittest,
I'll get mine, yours is up to you. 
My wants must be met, and I'll make sure.
We've been there. Probably all people
but certainly us, we of the rooms of recovery.
Sure, we came to believe a Power greater than we
could restore us to sanity, could do 'most anything.
But still, there's need, there's lack, there's shortage
and from the paltry supply I must surely contend
for mine, for me and mine. It's the responsible act.

Scarcity. Insufficiency. Doubt, fear, insecurities.
They're not outside forces, not inevitabilities.
They're our own hang-ups, our own lack of faith.
If we but start by giving thanks, by releasing,
by saying not my will but Yours...
If I set aside the doubt, fear, insecurity
and just trust suddenly, unbelievably,
there's more than enough.

 

Posted to Facebook by Latimer Bowen

A Hurt, A Habit, A Hang-Up

Have you admitted to having a hurt, habit or hang up? Are you waiting for it to all change randomly on its own? ~ Celebrate Recovery Calvary Bellflower

A hurt, a habit, a hang-up...
a reason your life feels unmanageable,
an issue you have no power to change.
Funny thing. Not hilarious, but odd, unexpected...
that a bunch of drunks eighty years ago 
pulled together bits and pieces.
An observation by a famous psychiatrist
that hopeless alcoholics had been helped
from time immemorial by a psychic shift, 
vital spiritual experiences, a phenomena.
Then a doctor, ruined in the depression,
working at a hospital for rich drunks,
disagreed with his boss, believed he saw
a disease, not just a mental deficiency
but physical as well. And the Oxford Group.
A bunch who believed the root of problems 
were fear and selfishness, the answer, 
surrender lives over to God.
And the bunch of drunks recovered.
And overcame, and survived.
And thrived.
And spread the message of twelve simple steps
and the solution they bring 
to a hurt, a habit, a hang-up
no matter how diverse those may be.

1400 Is a Number

May 4, 2011.
That day and the rest that year
and every day since then
except one in June, 2011
and another last April
and evidently a few more
I haven't found...
We've posted fourteen hundred
times but that many days
and nine have passed. 
We're perfectly imperfect
and need this blog
whether it helps anybody else
or not. Writing is a tool
and there's nothing like writing
(publicly, daring others 
to catch a lapse) day by day
to drive home the point
we recover today
one day at a time
no matter what the number is
nothing matters but the fact
today is one.

Isolation

You're interrupting my boredom and you might make me happy. ~ Jo Helen Cox (describing someone else)

If you will leave me alone
I'll be happy. Well, if not happy,
I'll be content. Well, if not content,
I'll be comfortable. Well, if not comfortable,
I'll be free to eat as I please
or to engage in stupid computer games
or to drink or drug or be addicted to gambling
of crossword puzzles or genealogy or clutter
sufficient to fence me in but more than that
to fence you out. I hate myself
and I'm sure you hate me, too,
or pity me or make fun of me or dismiss me
and I can't abide that so leave me alone
and I'll be happy. Or, if not happy, at least alone
and not confronted with what I could be,
with what I could do, with who might actually believe
I could serve some purpose in life.
Leave me alone so I won't have to know
I'm alone.

A Stack of Yesterdays

...all the yesterdays that are stacking up... ~ Joan B

Days pile up like leaves in autumn
or like stones at the base
of an avalanche. Mounds of days
can be debris blowing in the wind,
plastic bags stuck in branches,
blocking the view to real, to needed,
to communication. Heaps of days
can be a foundation, strong footholds,
building blocks.

Days pile up like leaves in autumn
wasted, left to decay, to rot, forgotten.
But forgotten vegetation nourishes,
fertilizes, breaks up sod for new,
for better, for life. And old rotten days
when life comes anew can be fodder,
example, exemplar of lives we lived,
of ways we put away, of a past
on which we built.

Days pile up like stones
at the base on an avalanche
sometimes embedded with gems,
with metal, with value.
Days of recovery piled one on one
form an entity, a structure, a bedrock.
Days of recovery act as a barrier,
holding back temptation, fear,
relapse.

Rejoice for piles of days.

 

The Other Side of the Bridge

I can resist going to the other side. I remember how men treated me when I was thin... When I stay stuck I don’t ever have to feel those feelings. ~ Jhe T

Our addictions begin as comfort,
as solace, as relief from the world,
as a marvelous discovery of the way,
seemingly the only way to relieve pain.
They grow into a tool, tried-and-true,
a habitual way of seeking that comfort
we once found. They they morph again
into a retreat, a hideaway, a denial,
an escape from life as we know it.
Finally they're a prison we would leave
if we could, or so we tell ourselves.
Then along comes someone, some busybody,
someone in recovery and point to a bridge.
A way out. An escape. It's what we've wanted,
what we desired above all else. But we look.
We see there's no substance or action
that brings us comfort, that's a tool
or a retreat, a prison. Life as we know it
isn't there. It's here. And we fear the bridge,
the way out, even more than we fear
living here in the prison we built.

About My Moral Compass

...demagnified my moral compass... ~ Brian Childers

I suppose when I was born
my moral compass functioned,
flawlessly. We're all born normies,
I guess. Surely babies aren't addicts...
except to whose parents
(just mothers?) are.
A proclivity, I guess, and then
there's the question, nature,
nurture. Maybe I passed it on,
the proclivity toward obesity.
But I didn't have that when born.
Then the fears grew, insecurity weeds,
self-medication with food,
with stupid computer games,
with anything I could do obsessively.
The pull of mania, of insanity
pulled like a massive magnetic force
against my higher sell, my best me.
And demagnified my moral compass.
But there's a power greater still
than the force whirling earth around sun,
the milky way to loop some far-flung point
and that Power has the pull
to rectify my moral compass,
to realign me with sanity's course,
to wrench me from my errant way,
to move me back to him. 

There Is No Other Land

Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land. ~ Henry David Thoreau

They call it a geographic
but some of them are mental,
only a change of place
in emphasis, in occupation,
in habitation or cohabitants.
Something greener over there,
way beyond or just a meander.
Happiness doesn't happen
from location, vocation, migration.
Pleasure doesn't occur
from switching obsessions,
from trading one mate for another.
We carry our island of opportunity
within and nothing outside our inside
can bring us what we lack,
can create the calm we need.

But For

I would except that...
There's always a reason,
an explanation, an excuse.
There's the right thing...
but what do you do with the others?
I'm going to make the right choices...
but you made this cake for me,
how can I turn it down?
I don't have time to prepare
so I'll have to settle, but just once...
I know I shouldn't but I deserve it!
I'm heartbroken. I can't be expected
to get through this without my solace,
my crutch, my traditional response
to pain, to discomfort, to anger!
I will do the next right thing
every day in every situation
but for...

Unsupervised Thinking

Michael B. started the wheels rolling for this post. Thanks, Michael.

Structured days
come easier.
Follow the schedule,
check off the list,
the next thing to do
you know, you do.

Structured programs
take the thinking away
tell you what to do
what to eat, what's banned.
It's effortless so long 
as you follow the structure
don's ask questions
fall in line.

But that's the way of childhood
and when I became an adult
I'm supposed to have set aside
the childish things. 
It takes an adult to work the Steps,
to surrender, to say not my will
but yours be done. 
Only a mature person can realize
when asking for willingness 
kind of feels like cheating.

Twelve Suggestions

They're not requirements, merely suggestions.
The only requirement for membership
is a desire to stop the behavior.

But then again, Rarely have we seen
a person fail who has thoroughly followed
our path. Still, they're not mandatory.
The first draft of the Big Book
would have made them so:
you ought to re-read the book  to this point
or else throw it away! They admitted
an intention to make it a hard sell.
But they didn't. They're not obligatory.
Totally optional. You have the option
of ignoring the steps completely.
Or you may choose to recover.

Open Minded When It Matters

Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous (Kindle Location 753)

It's easy to insist you're right, to block other paths,
when it doesn't matter, you won't be hurt,
the issue is simply a debate, a fun confrontation.
But sometimes it's not. Do you stop someone
from doing CPR the way you don't think will work
when you have no training, that's just not what you've seen...
on television. 
Danger comes in many guises, wears a multitude of masks,
and sometimes it's an innocuous as a bottle of beer,
a joint, a pornographic video, the well-meant birthday cake.
Perils differs with our own weaknesses, our history, our fears.
But when the expert offers and it cuts at the quick
sometimes we're more open to hear
what those who have walked the path we walk
suggest.

Wordy Books, Windy Arguments

We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous (Kindle Location 766).

Who likes to argue? Not quarrels,
arguments as in debates.
Deliberations, cogitation,
an exchange of ideas.
Some people do - relish the process,
take an opposing side just because,
arguing for argument's sake.
I love logic, the analytical process,
but sometimes how many angels
can rhumba on a pinhead
loses it's charm when the debate
replaces desire for the greater good,
for the angels...forget the pins.
For the divine that gave us logic
and not for the pastime.

Leaning too Heavily

We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far. But somehow, we couldn’t quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 54

Walking to the mailbox
icy sidewalk baby steps
tentative hesitant faltering
shaky but steady progress
step by step. Standing on curb
leaning over, metal box
iced shut, hold to bricks
pry it open, grab the mail
return, uphill, up a step
then there's only one
but melting ice from eaves
left glassy ice, thick
moist enough excise traction.
Another step. Courage drained.
Standing there, stranded.
But not stranded.
He's standing there
hand outstretched.
I'm not alone.
I just have to stop
refusing to accept
the offered help.

(Photo: popofatticus, Flickr)