The Master Gardener

It's Saturday afternoon and I know that you're all waiting for the women's meeting update! This morning's meeting was about eight of us; the meeting is slowly growing. Several of us start each meeting by reading a passage from a daily meditation book. As I usually do, I read from my favorite, God Calling. This is an excerpt.

"The lifeline, the line of rescue, is the line from the soul to God, faith and power. It is a strong line, and no soul can be overwhelmed who is linked to Me by it. Trust, trust, trust. Never be afraid.

Think of My trees stripped of their beauty, pruned, cut, disfigured, bare, but through the dark seemingly dead branches flows silently, secretly, the spirit-life-sap, till, lo! with the sun of Spring comes new life, leaves, bud, blossom, fruit, but oh! fruit a thousand times better for the pruning.

Remember you are in the hands of a Master Gardener. He makes no mistakes about His pruning. Rejoice. "

I got to the second paragraph and broke up. This has been years of pruning, and this reading struck such a cord in me. One of the newer women sitting next to me looked concerned and said "Are you okay?"

"It's just such a beautiful reading," I said. Unless you've been through the fire, there is no explanation. Hers is about to come, I'm afraid, judging from her share. But you know what, we'll be there for her.

That was the last serious moment in the meeting. We were in rare form today, talking about drunk husbands, domestic abuse, rage, but through it all, we laughed.

One of our married members talked about one of her last drunks on a girl's night at her house. All her women friends were there, and oh, yes, one male, her brother-in-law. She blacked out about half-way through, she said, and woke up in her bed the next morning with a terrible hangover. She couldn't remember what she did after she blacked out, but she racked her brain, hoping she hadn't slept with her brother-in-law! We howled. I'm sorry, but that is a typical women's AA story.

I did have to describe to her one of my friend's bottom. She was my boss at the time and straighter than a yardstick. My boss went to her Lesbian employee's house, one of our coworkers, to a party. My boss went into a blackout and woke up the next morning in her Lesbian employee's bed. My boss couldn't remember if she had sex with her. That was her bottom and she went to AA right two days later.

I always remarked that her bottom would have been a good night for me; but, it isn't what we did that got us here, it's the feelings that accompanied what we did: The shame, the remorse, the desperate attempt to deny the reality of what we'd done. My friend never did ask her friend if they'd, well, done the deal. Denial, in her case, was a wonderful thing.

We had a great meeting and tonight we're having a Girl's Night Out. We're having dinner and going to see the movie Dream Girls.

If we let him, God will dance us to the end of love.

Women's meeting make a difference

I really struggled in early recovery with my relationship with women. It wasn't like I disliked them, they just weren't on my radar screen. When I was in the disease, women were competition. Men controlled the drugs and hence I sometimes "used" men for access to drugs. (Who was using whom is a matter for another day, but you know what I mean.) So women, to me, were inconvenient. Even the women I drank and used with and loved either left me due to my behavior or a new boyfriend or they died, several killed by men, one thrown out of a hotel window in New Orleans by her boyfriend. It didn't pay to get too close to women.

In early recovery, my first sponsor was a man, but as soon as I started writing my first step, I knew that I couldn't share my truths with him. I had to find a woman. I've blogged before about my first sponsor, Valorie, the one who looked like Gidget. But over the years and my many moves, I've had quite a few sponsors, all of them, of course, women. And not just "women," but strong, courageous, beautiful, tough women who were willing to confront me if my behavior was unacceptable or I was walking a slippery slope. They loved me when I felt, as I still sometimes do, unlovable. Thank God for these women.

After I got clean, I began to attend women's meetings because all my girlfriends did. The longest running women's meeting in Phoenix, now called PMS, was started in my living room by me and a few other women. I found that at women's meetings, the core issues I had, issues from my childhood, my feelings toward men, at least men the caliber of the drug dealers I was hanging around, my shattered sexuality, my distrust of any institution or authority figure, these things I could talk about freely in women's meetings.

About my fourth year in recovery, I had no support in my life for some of the things I wanted to change. My marriage was crumbling as my wasband stayed loaded, I couldn't talk about what was going on even in women's meetings sometimes because my experience, I thought, was too unique.

So a few women in Oakland, Louisa J., Constance T., Susan L., a beautiful woman named Danielle, and a few others banded together and formed, what they would have called in the 60s a "consciousness-raising group." A twelve-step format, we focused on our sexuality, what we had been through in our usage, the rapes, the getting knocked off barstools by men in a drunken rage, the domestic violence, in many cases early childhood traumas, the shame of being a woman alcoholic and addict, the whole traumatic mess of it.

We met for several years, until I moved to Los Angeles to go to work for the WSO and they continued to meet for another few years. This group was instrumental in changing many core problems I suffered with because I could explore them courageously, with support, love and understanding. Finally, I'd found a group of women who understood me and I could speak my truth.

My life, of course, moved on. As I've stayed in recovery, I've continued to attend women's meetings. They are where I check my ego at the door and talk about core issues that are still, at 22 years in the rooms, troubling me. This morning's women's meeting was a perfect example.

It was small today, about six, but we each got to share at length about what was going on in our lives. Two of the gals were newer members, one back from a slip. One was in tears over the ending of a short relationship. We know, though, whether the liaison is short or long, we often get terribly wounded as we lay our hearts on the line. One member was having problems in her business and considering "chucking it." Several of us were in great spaces and could offer some experience, strength and hope during the meeting and after, one-on-one, with the gals who were troubled. We talked frankly about things that we would never share in a mixed meeting. In a women's meeting, we cut straight to the core and we forget, for a time, about "saving face."

I go to more mixed meetings than women's meetings, but I leave a women's meeting with an incredible sense of peace, both because I've usually been able to be of service and I've identified with those core struggles we face as women.

My recovery has been so much richer from the women in my life and most of them I met at women's meetings. I see other women at mixed meetings, but I really get to know them and rely on them when I can see them, for one hour, once a week.

One of the best parts of our women's meeting is that we often carpool and we laugh the entire way there and the entire way home, often with an accompanying stop at the store or to eat breakfast and more laughter. Who can laugh for twenty solid minutes and not feel better?

There's six inches of snow on the ground and twodogs are ready to run, so I'm off. Until tomorrow, have a great day.