I feel like such a pathetic loser. My sobriety date is 12/24/02. I attend at least 6 meetings a week, I have worked the steps numerous times, I sponsor other alcoholics, perform service work through chairing meetings and bringing the message to the DuPage County jail. I have been freed from the obsession to drink and find joy in helping others in the A.A. program but feel miserable in my personal and professional life.

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My wife and I have been together for 27 years and we have seasons in our relationship that seem barren. There have been damages done. I can never un-do the past. I violated the trust my wife had for me in our relationship when I had been involved with another woman about 6 years ago. This woman told my wife of the relationship when I decided to go back to my wife. My wife was hurt as was the woman I had been seeing outside of my marriage. I hurt both of them due to my selfish need to feel loved by someone. I have slowly grown to understand that I can’t place my demands to be loved on other people. The turmoil and chaos of how miserable my life had become, drove me to seek out God. He is there for us even when we are not deserving of His grace. I prayed that I wanted God to take care of my wife. That she would be safe and secure. That she would find someone worthy of her trust and love. Even through our divorce, I only prayed that my wife and sons would be ok and that I could somehow make up for all the damage I had done. I lost my business and my home through this experience but poured myself into helping other people and studying the bible. I got a job from the people who bought the assets of the company I once owned and continued to make payments on the house my wife and boys lived in while I stayed with friends. I was homeless living on the charity of friends. Every day I prayed for my now ex-wife and sons while I worked and donated time to bring God’s message of how He changed my selfish nature to now being of service to men in jail, homeless shelters, and hospitals. I have learned that love is an action word. I can’t sit idly by and wait to feel loved: I need to take action and demonstrate through my actions my love for others regardless of what I may receive back in return. A kind word to a store clerk, a smile to a passerby, visiting with a lonely person in despair. Cleaning up a public washroom rather than complaining about the mess. Adding more to life than I take. My wife did not owe me anything but the hate she first expressed towards me. Though still divorced, we have been back together now for about 5 years. She may never trust me again but that’s ok because today I know I am trustworthy. I had misplaced my need to feel loved by placing my demands to be loved upon my wife and others. I know now that God has always loved me even when I did not deserve His love. I continually pray that God show me the way to get through each day with a knowledge that I am His beloved son. I am special to God. His own unique creation. I feel good as long as I live according to His purpose for me. Maybe His purpose for me is a simple is being a loving husband and father even when my wife is incapable of returning love back to me or when my boys become unhappy with me when I try to be a responsible father. Today I do not know if my wife really loves me or not but I know that I love her and feel blessed that God has chosen to restore us to being together as a family. I am so grateful for God’s mercy and grace and know that my wife and sons are free to think and feel the way they want about me. God gives me the faith to share His love in my relationships today regardless of how I might be treated by other people.

Tags: Reflective

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August 12, 2007

My boss’s boss called me Friday on the way home from work and I used the opportunity to communicate negative information about my immediate supervisor.  First, the justification.  I believed I was right to communicate the information for the well being of the company.  Serving a greater purpose and all.  I owed it to the company to tell on my boss.  Its incidental that I happen to be the benefactor of my boss’s declining status.  A customer communicated his ill feelings about how he was treated by my boss.  I did not speak ill of my supervisor to the customer and explained she was not in the home office and that he could place the order with another staff member who would take his order in her absence.   I was not in a position to take his order at the time.  The customer did place the order and it was later relayed to me by the home office.  The customer confided that he had an argument with my boss and he was not comfortable calling her.  I told my supervisor’s boss this information when he called me Friday night because I thought he should know about the problem.

What I confided was true but I immediately felt uneasy once the words came out of my mouth.  In the 10th step of the 12 & 12 on pg 90 it says it is a spiritual axiom that any time I am disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me.  What am I seeking out that I am afraid I won’t receive in this instance which is making me feel uncomfortable?  Or is it fear of what will happen as a result of my actions?  My fear is the retaliation of my boss for sharing this negative information about her.  Instincts in collision can create quite an uproar.  Instincts affected within me are self esteem and security.  I used to own this business and lost it through my alcoholism.  I thought I had accepted my diminished status working for the concern I once owned but find my character defects surfacing at certain times.  It was the end of the day and I was tired and had not eaten.  I was feeling self righteous because of how hard I worked without feeling appreciated by my employer when a call comes in from an important client who pumps up my ego and then followed up by my big boss goosing up my sense of pride in everything I accomplished for him.  I found myself seeking more personal prestige by diminishing the stock of my supervisor by trying to make myself out to be more important at her expense.  

The bottom line is that the end results were exactly as they should have been even though my motives were not pure.  I feel ill at ease because of my fear and pride but my actions were right.  I would have preferred to have had the opportunity to talk to my immediate supervisor about the issue instead of talking to her supervisor.  Her boss called me:  I did not seek out the opportunity to hurt my boss.  I was asked about the status of the account and communicated the facts without embellishing.  I believe my amends   to my immediate supervisor is to tell her what I communicated to her boss on Friday night so she will not be ambushed with the information from her boss.  My fear is that she will be angry with me but I have not done anything wrong and need to feel secure with myself regardless of how she may react to the information.

I pray that I might remain secure with who and what I am and remain unfazed by how others may perceive me but remain focused on God’s purpose for me.

I know God provides all that I need as long as I rely on Him rather than seeking to satisfy my own needs for security and prestige. 

Tags: Reflective

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