Emotional sobriety

My cousin's cat. This is how I feel on bad hair days!

Today's meeting was awesome. The topic was emotional sobriety and comments from many members, new and old, were right on target.

One thing my sponsor does when I start ranting, and sometimes it makes me mad, is to tell me to "Lose the drama." She doesn't cut me any slack. When I walked into this morning's meeting where I normally go on Mondays and Wednesdays, there was a sign on the infamous board that announced a group conscience next month to vote on splitting the meeting so that non-smokers could hold the noon meeting upstairs and the "real" members, the smokers, could have the main meeting room. I don't know, but it struck me as incredibly selfish. I know today that a simple majority is not necessarily a group conscience, especially on contentious matters like smoking.

I started in on one of my friends about the smoking issue because I won't be able to attend if I have to wade through smoke and she just wasn't buying into my angry drama. So when the meeting turned to emotional sobriety, I was right where I needed to be.

When we are in emotional trouble, the focus must be on me, not on what others have done to me. I believe that we all need to vent when things hit us, but if we don't quickly move into the solution, we are in grave danger of relapse. As one member said, "I keep retelling my side of the story and soon my "right" becomes my "wrong." Think for a moment about that mouthful.
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Even as a friend to people I have to remember if I continue to allow people to vent it can border on me "patty caking" them. There is always two sides to each story and when I judge based on the one side I'm hearing, I am usually shortsighted and unhelpful to the one telling the story. I can only usually feed the flames of their "righteous" anger and pain.
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The meeting may well go to a split smoking/non-smoking meeting. I know I don't have to worry about it because it's not here yet. I don't have to politic, send someone to speak for me because it's not my home group, start looking for another noon meeting, nothing. Nada, not one thing. All I have to do is stay emotionally sober. The rest will take care of itself.
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Until tomorrow, my friends, I am glad to be home and back with you.