Hi folks,
We had a little discussion for our meeting Sunday evening, mostly being centered around acceptance. There are many types of acceptance needed to do a solid recovery deal.
"We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed." -Big Book, pg.30
This is the first acceptance, but only the first ... several other types were discussed. To paraphrase a famous writer, recovery is a commitment to reality, no matter what the cost.
Unless i can somewhat accurately see and accept who and what i am, i have no hope of changing anything. That path is sometimes difficult ... it was very difficult for me. i not only suffered from addiction, i also suffered from some medical and mental conditions that required i take medications, some of which were not approved of by those in the meetings i attended.
Well, first off, why i talked to those wonderfully opinionated folks about my meds, i'll never know. It's like asking a doctor for an opinion on what's wrong with and how to fix my scooter ... most of 'em just didn't know what they were talking about, but then, that didn't stop them from talking ... ever ... at least until that Fellowship published the booklet In Times Of Illness. That publication shut up some few of the folks ... the ones who were willing to and knew how to read, anyway.
That share was meant for a sponsor's ears, not for the meetings, but as a newcomer, i didn't have a clue. My bad.
Then there's the acceptance that my friends -really just my customers and using buddies, but again, i was clueless- were not all that excited about having their "connection" trying to get clean. Oops.
Then there was the acceptance that the folks i met in meetings were just like me, mostly clueless and self-centered in the extreme. Ouch!
Then came the acceptance that my self-directed efforts at recovery weren't working so well. That one really hurt. i thought i could learn some of the jargon and how to do the "hip, slick and cool" thing at the meetings, quote a line or two from the literature, and that would be enough to stay clean. Oops again!
Then there was the discovery that some of the folks i was talking with on a regular basis were playing the same kind of self-deception games i was ... when that first friend committed suicide, i was off to the races for a while ... i stayed loaded for a long time over that one. When i made it back, i remember this one lady with 9 months [that was a long darn time to me back then] being all ticked off and telling me and the other newcomer [a really cute female] in the room to "go out and get done," and we indeed went back out ... and once again i made it back; but she didn't. Don't know whatever happened to the miserable cow that sent us out, but i've never seen her again, and i'm okay with that. Acceptance that some folks were not going to be happy i made it back after a relapse was a challenge, but it had to be done.
Then i picked up this book on PTSD in veterans. The introduction had a listing of a couple dozen symptoms. As i read it, i realized i'd experienced all but 3 on that list, and magically that d**ned book went flying accross the room to be ignored for the next month. i got the overdue notice from the library, and dug out the book. Just for the heck of it, i read the rest of the intro. Ironically, it said that i may have just been "triggered," and that if that were the case, to set the book aside and come back to it. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Why is that Muppet-named freak writing on and on about all these goofy things? To illustrate the idea that there are many, many challenges to our acceptance that we get to face if we're going to do this recovery thing.
Even the 3 "indispensable" principles of honesty, opened-mindedness and willingness often have to be learned inside the rooms ... i forgot them in my disease, and i'm throughly convinced i'm not alone it that!
Be as patient with yourselves as you can this week.
e-hug