Grief

There's been some talk on Scout's post about grief with some very good insights. I thought I'd share my thoughts about how I've come to understand my grief.

I had a dog-trainer friend suicide a few months ago, high, alone and terrified, I'm sure. I could never carry the message to him despite him watching me walk through recovery and having a male friend 12-step him. Although we had not been close for a few years, when I was told of his death, I was struck with grief. It was instantaneous and lasted, intermittently, for several weeks.

My friend had caused so much wreckage in his life that no one, not the few friends he still had, not his mother or his fiance, would claim his body. Over the weeks after his death, all I could think of was his body, alone and unclaimed in some county morgue. It really caused me pain. It still hurts, perhaps because there was no funeral where I could grieve and grieve with others and say "Goodbye. You may not have known it, but you were loved, if only by me and your dogs." Funerals usually provide closure, at least for me.

One of my friends was puzzled that the death of someone I was no longer in touch with would upset me so much. As a result, I didn't talk to anyone about how I felt about his death. It's easiest to talk to others when we feel safe exposing our feelings.

As He often does, God sent me an Eskimo. Right after his death I was on a plane trip to Seattle to visit my brother Fast Eddie. The lady who sat next to me was a Christian. We began to talk about her church in Chicago and as often happens with women, the talk quickly turned personal. I found myself pouring out my feelings about Mike's death, my hurt that his body lay unclaimed and my worry that he was not any more at peace in death than he had been in his 40-plus years on earth.

She spoke about God's immense love and our inability as humans to know what takes place at the moment any person passes into God's arms. As a result of being able to talk through my fears and my feelings with her, a loving stranger with her calm and comforting words, I was able to have some closure over his death.

I still think about Mike from time to time. He was a classic example of someone who, no matter what others said to him, could not love himself. In that case, we often can't help, no matter how hard we try. As my sponsor used to remind me regularly, "It's an inside job."

A lot of people don't "get" grief and are uncomfortable watching us grieve. If they don't know how to help us, they may try to "cajole" us out of it with platitudes or tell us when it's time to stop grieving. In those cases, it's best to walk away. I try to recognize that they are doing the best they can. In their clumsy way, they may be trying to comfort us.

Over the years, like anyone who takes life on life's terms, I've suffered many losses. When my marriage dissolved many years ago, some days I would stumble home from work and sit in a bathtub, aching all over. I talked to Vida, a wise recovering L.A. addict about it, telling her my body hurt from the pain. "Sure your body hurts," she said. "Why do you think they call it 'heart broken'?"

After a failed three-year engagement at 10 years, I literally could not get out of bed for a week. All this over a heartbreak? I wondered. I eventually understood that the grief that overwhelmed me was not just about that particular loss. It was all the losses of my life: the broken hearts, my father's death, the loss of many friends along the way, career losses, watching my brilliant mother lose her mind, all the losses of my messy life.

If I don't feel the feelings when things happen, perhaps because I'm numbed by pain or feel I have to "stay strong," I will still feel them eventually. Sometimes the grief I feel is a combination of griefs and losses. Often none around us will understand except those who have experienced it.

As I heard a woman say in a meeting in LA after she lost her fiance, she "put on the blues and leaned into the pain." There is no way around grief but through it. Some people are equipped to help us with our pain, some not. With or without support, I've found grief vital to my recovery. I don't need permission to grieve.

Daily meditation book excerpt (from my upcoming book)

Courage is fear that’s said its prayers

Emboldened by drugs or alcohol, we often had false courage. As we began to recover, many of us had no idea what fear felt like in our bodies. Part of the journey of recovery is identifying feelings like fear and how fear feels in our body. Once we can identify the feeling, we slowly learn how to handle this new emotion.

In our addiction, we never admitted to fear. Our bravado, we believe, may have saved our lives when drinking and using. But in recovery, fear may sometimes become a paralyzing force in our lives. When fear overcomes us, we must remember -- God is bigger than our fears.

Fear may be the catalyst that allows us to develop deeper faith, perhaps because through our questioning we become greater friends with our God. But beyond the fear, keeping faith requires us to ignore fear-based thoughts. Instead, we focus on the broader spiritual truth — that God, if trusted, will provide our every need.

Courage is an action. Even though we may be afraid, with help from our recovery community and our spiritual advisers, we continue to walk forward courageously trusting that God holds our safety net.

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it is that quiet voice at the end of the day that says 'I will try again tomorrow.'”

Mary Anne Radmacher

The believable lie

What is the core "believable lie" your subconscious tells you about yourself again and again? What is that voice saying to you, over and over and over? What is the recurring theme in your life?

Believable lies are just that; self-statements which, if taken at face value, seem believable but are in fact lies we began to believe about ourselves, often formed early in our lives. To change the spiral of negativity these thoughts perpetuate, we must first discover our believable lies and then gently push them away.

Try this exercise. After reading this paragraph, close your eyes for a few minutes, sitting quietly. Ask yourself this question. "What is the core thought that comes to mind when I sit with myself for a few minutes, the thought that constantly recurs in my mind when I'm discouraged, distraught with myself, can't sleep or in turmoil?"

If you hear that thought, the answer may surprise you. For me, the answer came quickly and clearly. "I am unlovable," I heard my mind speak. "No one will ever love me."

This exercise was a great discovery for me. It illuminated the problems I had in relationships; the feelings of inadequacy I carried despite a number of years in recovery; the need I felt to have everyone like me or something terrible would happen; the need to be a hero again and again, the need to be the best and the brightest; the fear of success to the point that I again and again sabotaged myself in my career and my writing. It came when I felt that if I stopped for one minute, my entire life would implode.

I tell myself many believable lies, most of them stemming from my one core self-denigrating belief. "This is the best it will get"; "I'll always be alone"; "I'm a failure"; "No one understands me"; and one of my most frequent, "I'll never be good enough, no matter how hard I try." These believable lies suck me into my own personal drama, a dangerous and isolating place for any addict to be.

I usually know today when I'm in stuck in the believable lie because I'm discouraged, quick to judge, angry, sleepless or somewhat depressed. But once I was aware of them, I've learned tricks along the way that have helped me counteract those thoughts with more positive thinking.

I sometimes hear that voice that says "You are unlovable." Today I have solutions: The Steps, a sponsor, loving friends in and out of the rooms; my s/o, who loves me despite myself; uplifting literature; and twodogs, of course, who love me unconditionally.

Those believable lies block us from self love and the discovery of who we really are, and hide our true purpose on Earth. Once I identified my believable lie, I could begin to become the person I was meant to be.

God Calling journal

I've mentioned my favorite daily meditation book, God Calling, the book on which our Twenty-Four Hour a Day book is fashioned. We were at the bookstore last night and as I looked in the poetry section, my s/o mogged around the religion section and found me a gift. It's the God Calling Daily Devotional Journal.

It is a lovely leather book with gold leaf. It has the daily reading, space to write one's thoughts about the reading, and a Bible promise to go with it. I've used the God Calling devotional for many years, having stumbled across it somehow in my many spiritual travels in bookstores and it's simply, to me, the best devotional around. Recalling that it was written in the 1930s and edited by someone other than the two "listeners," some of the readings may require several readings to fully grasp their meaning. It's worth it, though, because the beautiful comfort found in the pages of God Calling surpasses most of the daily readings I see on bookshelves today.

It's available at http://www.barbourbooks.com/ if you can't find it anywhere else. I highly recommend it.

A blogger's convention

Here's what I think. I think all recovery bloggers need to pick a location to gather and meet! I'm planning to attend the World Convention NA in San Antonio August 30 to September 2, 2007. Are any of your planning to go? Forward this to as many recovery bloggers as you can!

Let me know!

Amends revisited

I have a dear friend in the Oakland area, Louisa J., who I have learned so much from over the years. I remember once when I had a few years clean we were talking about amends in a meeting. I had a situation troubling me and I talked to her about it at "the meeting after the meeting."

I knew that a friend of mine was upset with me for something I truly believed was not my fault. I have always been stubborn, and I didn't want to make amends for something I didn't do. I told Louisa this, and she commented, "I've found that even if you didn't do anything wrong, it's sometimes better to apologize anyway in honor of the friendship."

That comment didn't sit too well with stubborn old me. I don't believe I ever made amends in this case, but over the years, I've learned the value of her belief. If an issue is standing between me and another person, I need to talk with them about it. Usually, even if I don't believe I did anything wrong, if they're hurt or upset, it's often better to apologize.

I was talking to a friend the other day who is having a hard time with a family member who continues to throw her behavior in her face despite the passage of many years. What I recommended she say, rather than defending her behavior at the time, was "I'm sorry that you see it that way."

We often get frustrated with people who can't seem to forgive us for our transgressions. We may not feel that we did anything, or the other person won't tell us what we did. Those are tricky amends to make, and I've got catchphrases I use when I don't feel that I've done anything wrong, for example, if by my setting appropriate boundaries I've hurt someone's feelings. "I'm sorry that you feel that way" or "I'm sorry if you were hurt" often covers it.

Amends cost us nothing, yet we stand much to gain by making them. We often gain an understanding of the other person's perspective; we gain humility; and we often gain stronger relationships when we make a heartfelt apology.

Making amends

Isn't he a cute little fletcher? We had a great night here in Missouri. We organized a New Year's Eve party and I organized the beverage committee, which despite my fears and the initial difficulty of getting people to agree to take a shift, went without a hitch. This fear, like 99 percent of my fears, never materialized.
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Because it's been on my mind lately, I wanted to talk about amends and how we make them. When I had quite a few years, I was living in LA and went back to Oakland to visit a few friends, where I spent years three through seven or so. I ran into an old acquaintance, who, the last few times I'd seen him, had been really rude to me. I didn't know what I did so I just figured I must have offended him somehow.
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This trip to town, I saw him at a Sunday morning meeting and he came up to me after the meeting really friendly and apologized for being so short with me. I didn't ask him why, but he offered, saying "I just heard from some people that you were really selfish!"
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I was flabbergasted. I just didn't know what to say. All I could imagine was that it must have surrounded my divorce, which took place in Oakland in year five. This particular man was involved with one of my good friends who had strong opinions about my marriage, so I immediately suspected that she must have told him that I was selfish.
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I was crushed, both at what he had told me (of course, there was a ring of truth in what he said, as there always is when people make these sideways "I love you/you are a bad person" attacks), and at the suspicion that my good friend had judged me and talked out of school, contributing to the whole mess.
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I talked to my friend I was staying with, who had been my wasband's sponsor and knew me for years. He told me not to worry about it, because that's the way this particular person often approached people; he was known for these types of attacks. In other words, "Don't take it personally."
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It bothered me for some time, and whenever, in the past ten years, I saw this person (which isn't often since I don't travel there much anymore), I avoided him like the plague. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.
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In my early years of recovery, I didn't know how to make amends. My sponsor was never specific about how to tell people I was sorry, so I figured it out the best way I could. I would find the people I needed to talk with, tell them in great detail that I was sorry, but only after explaining in greater detail why I had wronged them, allowing them to clearly see what I felt they may have contributed to the situation.
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For example, I might say "I'm sorry that I snapped at you at the service meeting over the way I was handling the meeting minutes. You see, I'm very sensitive to that because as a child, my mother constantly criticized me and you triggered all those childhood feelings of inadequacy." (I called this the "You stole my tinker toys" defense.)
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However, when I had seven years a good friend I worked with at the WSO, Deb M., who knew more about the Steps than about anyone I've ever known, set me straight.
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"Here's how you make amends," she told me. "You simply say "I was wrong; I'm so sorry." Then, of course, you determine how or if you can right the wrong.
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I realized after Deb taught me this that it isn't an amend if you tell someone you were sorry by pointing out any part they may have had in the problem. It's your amend, not theirs. Amends, as Meg Moran reminded me with her comment today, are an exercise in humility.
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I may understand perfectly well why I acted like I did. The other person may have been acting badly, as well. They may even have a huge part in the whole mess. However, there is no reason for the other person to know your life history or what "triggered" your feelings. That is your issue to resolve and your responsibility, not theirs.
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Amends are a powerful way to transform relationships. The simpler the words, I have found, the better. People will read into our words many meanings, so when I make amends, I use the KISS principle and "keep it simple." Making an amend is supposed to make the situation better, not worse, so be careful!
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Have a great day! Remember, it's the start of a new year and you can do anything differently you'd like, starting now.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

or Happy New Year as they say in Chinatown. 2007 is the year of the Pig. I hope you find yourself surrounded by people you love tonight.

I received an email yesterday from my sponsor, who lives in Phoenix (hey, it works for me but don't try this at home). I emailed her regarding the issue about my birthday night and my home group member's almost palpable disgust for me. She said "Unfortunately, you suffer from the 'endless loop tape' like most addicts."

I remember once when I was in treatment this old guy spoke at a meeting we went to. As he stood at the podium, he held a flat rock, about three inches in diameter. "This is how you turn it over," he said. He took the flat rock and turned it over, setting it down for a moment. Then he picked it back up and turned it over again. He did this about five or six times and at first I thought "Gee, this guy is mentally challenged." But suddenly, it was one of those "aha!" moments for me. In one clear moment, I understood exactly what he meant. We keep turning it over until we don't have to turn it over anymore! (Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words!)

If no one has told you yet today that they love you, I do.

Weird dreams

Do you ever have weird dreams? I always try to remember my dreams, but often they're just hazy recollections, quickly forgotten once I rise to begin my day. As I lay in my bed last night for hours unable to sleep, I remembered some really strange dreams I've had over the years. I'm not a good interpreter of dreams, but I do believe they speak to us in some way. My most vivid dream occurred many years ago, when I was still pretty newly clean.

Pope John Paul II was still alive. I dreamed I was on a huge-grass covered hill, probably Golden Gate Park, with hundreds and hundreds of other people. We were waiting for the Pope's appearance. Suddenly across the sky the Pope appeared in a giant hot air balloon, fashioned to look exactly like his face. He (rather the two Popes) looked down at the crowds, and I'm sure right at me. He blessed us, waving his hand first down from his face then across his chest.

We were all running after the hot air balloon on the gently rolling hill, all arms stretched up, hands extended as if reaching for the Pope. I was wearing cutoffs and suddenly, they exploded, blowing bits of denim everywhere. The pope balloon drifted slowly out of sight.

I saw a blog or website once devoted to dream interpretation. I sent this dream description to them asking "What do you think this means?"

I received a terse reply. "You are a very sick woman." I already knew that. They did not enlighten me at all.
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When I was in college, John Paul came to San Francisco to speak so I covered the event for my college newspaper from outside, an article focused on the crowd and their reaction to the Pope. The streets were lined with people waiting to see him, and for hours I stood next to a person who were hilariously irreverent. The entire time he had the crowd laughing with Italian jokes, Catholic jokes, Irish jokes and Pope jokes.
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Having been raised Catholic but having fallen away by then despite one try at returning (I quit the returning Catholics class after being chewed out by the woman who ran it, one of the things I didn't need from organized religion and still don't), and I never thought covering the story would have any impact on me.
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We waited those hours, people chattered among themselves, laughing, yelling to each other when they spotted people they knew. Suddenly, a hush fell on the crowd from my right and everyone craned their heads to look. The Pope came toward us, standing in his Popemobile, his arm raised in benediction toward the crowds, first right and then left. The crowd fell completely silent.
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I felt this incredible awe, this visceral feeling that I was looking at God's representative on earth. What surprised me and continues to this day is how deeply moved I was by his presence.
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I continue today to be drawn back to the Catholic church. I get almost furious when some (many fundamentalists are so close-minded toward the Catholics) suggest that Catholicism is a "wrong" religion. Their smug superiority is really irritating to me. It immediately makes me think of my mother, one of the greatest Christians I have ever know, rotting in Hell because she believed with all her heart that the Catholic church was her salvation. Then I think of Mother Theresa and wonder if Christians feel she, too, failed to achieve salvation despite her amazing deeds here on earth.
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I hope someday to be half the Christian my mother was. If I achieve that, I know that my loving God will welcome me home.

Thank you, God

A few nights ago I spoke at my AA home group for my birthday, since we celebrate at the end of the month. When I was very ill and still almost psychotic from the prednisone prescribed after the transplant, several members of my home group took my inventory pretty viciously behind my back. (Don't you love the people who tell you?)
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After discussing the issue with my sponsor, I did 10th steps with them (I to this day don't know what I did and they aren't talking). Although they still talk superficially with me, it's clear that whatever I did or said or asked of them at the time has altered the tenor of these relationships. I've done all I can to clean up my side of the street so I am powerless over that change. If I ask and am willing and others still won't tell me how I've offended them, I believe that's the end of my story. I've done all I can to clean up the street and I can't keep carrying the guilt.

Having said all this, when I spoke Wednesday, several of my home group members hung their heads and avoided eye contact with me. It really threw me and what should have been a joyous occasion was very uncomfortable for me.

There is a gift in every "bad" event that happens in my life. As a result of being judged so harshly by these members, I can no longer judge others harshly. That is the "Thank you, God," in this affair.

Almost without exception in my recovery when I've gone through hard times or behaved badly for almost any reason, I've received love and tolerance from other members. That I'm not receiving it from two or three members and receiving it from dozens of others, which should I focus on?

I know what my sponsor will tell me: "Pray for them." I've answered my own question. Today, when something I perceive as "bad" occurs, I say "Thank you, God!"

What if?

The flags are half mast today. I thought it was because James Brown died. I know that I'm dreaming, but what if? What if a half-crazy American musician was just as important as a President?
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What if, when a musician died, the music, all the clock radios, the stereos, the bands playing salsa and reggae and jazz, the radio stations, the whole wonderful, musical world stopped singing?
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What if, when a poet died, the whole world ceased for a moment, hung its collective head and wailed, "This is called heartbreak; how will we live without her poetry?"
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What if artists, not a Picasso or a Ruben, but the artist working in Central Park or in cold studios on landscapes only tourists will buy, what if the flags fell down for them?
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What if a writer, working alone day after day, writing for no one but herself, wrote her final line? Would all the pens run dry? Would she be honored with salutes and pomp and better circumstance?

What if potters, dying with hands covered with talent and clay, left this earthly home? What if the world cracked open just a little, crying "My life will never be the same without her beauty?"
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What if the flags flew half mast for actors, for the joy and the laughter and the sorrow they have brought into our lives? What if, when an actor died, the bells stopped tolling for just one hour? What if every curtain fell?

What if a dancer sank to her knees as she whirled, leaving this place called earth? Would all the tangos suddenly stop? Would every castanet be silent for just one day?
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What if?

A flashlight, not a spotlight

I talked to a good friend of mine this morning. I credit my life to her because before I had the transplant and I was in the hospital, toxic and with failing kidneys, she was my patient advocate. The doctor had pretty much given up on me and had told my brother that I wouldn't live through the night.

She knew me well and she knew my fighting spirit. (Those of us who survive to get to the rooms are all fighters, I believe!) She confronted the doctor and insisted he re-examine me and the situation and fought for me. That I am alive today is a credit to her love, her belief in me and to the grace of God, as I've often said in this blog.

Today she and I talked about God's will. She used a beautiful analogy that seemed to fit my life because it has changed so radically.

She said that walking in God's will is like walking a dark path with a flashlight. If you use the flashlight beam effectively, which is right in front of you, your path will be illuminated and you won't stumble. But if you shine the beam too far forward, you won't be able to see right in front of you and you'll stumble and even fall.

There's another thing, I told her, based on my experience. I use flashlights with an adjustable beam. Sometimes God's beam in my life is wide but many times, it's very, very narrow and only illuminates a small area of my life, usually one I'm struggling with.

How can I widen the beam? I wondered after we continued to chat. I think God's will widens only if I keep seeking His will for me, sometimes very specifically.

There's the old Program adage: "When you don't know what to do, don't do anything!" It has served me well over the years. It's simple but effective, because if I'm not sure I'm walking in God's will, then the chances are high that I'll do something out of self-will that feels right but ends up a disaster.

God's light is often a flashlight, not a spotlight. Today I accept that God's beam may not be wide, but it is always very strong if I keep it focused on today.

Playing his cards

Merry Christmas from twodogsblogging

Muzzle-tov

Why do animals just slay me? Couldn't you just give this big snoot a smooch?
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As I peruse the various recovery blogs, I find very little emphasis placed on the holidays. We always hear people say "A lot of people go out during the holidays." That's probably true, but my experience has shown a lot of people go out all year long. I'm not sure if the number of people going out during the holidays is statistically significant, but I do know the various functions are a great way to help you to stay clean if you want to.
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After I became an adult, I was never too wild about the holidays. When I was out there, I always hoped for cash so I could drink and use more, but other than that, anything holiday-like in my life was created by my parents.
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My mother had beautiful Christmas things, small houses, lights, Christmas dishes, a beautiful manger set (that Oz ate a few years ago). But it seems like to me the holidays are just something to "get through."
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I can't tell you the number of Thanksgivings and Christmases I spent sitting near my connection's house waiting for him to get home from some family function so I could score. What a miserable way to spend what should be such a loving day. Through the grace of God, I haven't had to do that for many, many years.
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What I love today about the holidays are the Narathons and Alcathons. In Phoenix, there were many throughout the valley and I usually spent most of the four days at Christmas at one after another seeing people I don't normally see throughout the year.
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Here, we may have one club holding an Alcathon, but we are having a big New Year's Eve bash and I've been working on the committee to put that together. It's really been fun. If you aren't in service yet, it's a great way to meet people. I've met a few women that I otherwise probably wouldn't have met.
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I've been a little blue for a few days, I wasn't sure why until I hit on it last night. I probably am blue because I miss my mother. This will be my third Christmas without her, but I still feel some days like I could walk into a room and she'd be sitting there, smiling that loving smile she had.
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My s/o's family are Christmas nuts. We're going to spend the day there and cook a ham. I had so much fun going with him to shop for them. I love to shop and whether I'm buying it for me or someone else, it's really a blast. Yesterday a new woman friend and I went shopping at a discount score. Two women with ADD and and high loads of caffeine in a TJ Maxx is probably not a pretty sight. But we sure had fun.
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Today I'm making my first batch of fantasy fudge to take to the club tonight. I love the fudge from the recipe off marshmallow whip.
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Anyhoo, I have to vacuum now, stopping frequently to wrestle it from Oz' teeth. He views the vacuum as his mortal enemy. So until tomorrow, Muzzle-tov!

Step Two

My sponsor gave me an outline for Step Two, which is where I am this trip through The Steps. This outline speaks to the restoration of sanity from active addiction we received when we worked Step One, which leads to a natural vacuum. This vacuum is the unhappiness of "me." We may still not care for ourselves 0r may be acting the way we acted when we used and drank, except we no longer have the chemicals in our system to insulate us from the pain and consequences of our behaviors.

This step guide asks three simple questions.

1. What does "came to believe" mean and how it is happening [in my life]?
2. What is a power greater than ourselves? [I ask my sponslings to define their Power; what can that Power do in their lives? What can't that Power do?]
3. What is sanity?

Question 3 is where I always get hung up. As I reflect in my recovery, I see that many, many of the actions I've taken have been by definition "insane." How I handled money, many jobs changes due to bosses I found "unacceptable," geographics, relationships I entered into that I knew or soon knew were detrimental; all these things are definitions of insanity.

I'm doing my 2nd Step with my sponsor by phone on Saturday, who is in Arizona 1500 miles away. Better clarity comes from working The Steps.

I really appreciate my sponsor, who has stuck with me through many changes; many years, some of not working the steps (except the maintenance steps) with her; of crazy decisions I've made; all those things that may have made some sponsors "fire" me.

Thank God for sponsorship.

A cry for help

You may recall that I have blogged about my extreme dislike for the entire state of Florida. (Sorry about that for any blog devotees from Florida. You can invite me and perhaps I will come visit you sometime (at your expense).

In Hawthorne, Florida, there is a North Carolina woman who desperately needs a Twelfth-Step call. She approached a deputy sheriff at a convenience store yesterday complaining that the crack she had recently purchased was below her usual high standards. Apparently crack in North Carolina is much stronger than the crack sold in Florida. The deputy promptly arrested her but she did have the money to post bond, so you might look for her in the local crack-selling area near Hawthorne. She's probably the one wearing a thong, few teeth and bearing North Carolina plates on her hoopty mobile.

And speaking of Twelfth-Step calls, last night my girlfriend and I picked up a newcomer and took her to a meeting. I took over our area's phoneline at the last meeting because calls weren't being returned. It wasn't anywhere in my imagination to undertake this service; I removed myself from general service six years ago (for the second time) for a variety of reasons I may one day blog about.

But I was having some major heartburn about the phoneline, which is an important tool in our program of attraction. So if I'm going to complain about things, at this stage in my recovery I'm usually willing to do more than complain. So I'm helping out by putting together a list for people who'll return calls, check the messages and do Twelve-Step calls.

Anyhoo, she called our area's helpline (she had called "a lot of times" with no return phone call -- doesn't that hurt your heart?) and wanted to go to a meeting, but didn't want to go alone. I could tell she was a bit intimidated by the whole idea of arriving at a meeting alone ("Will you be there?" she asked timidly.) I asked her if she wanted us to go together and she quickly agreed.

I called one of my other friends and asked if she would go with me. I learned the hard way (how I usually learn things), to never make Twelve-Step calls alone. So off we went last night to pick her up, and it's a good thing that I did take my other girlfriend because the first thing she said when she climbed into my vehicle was "My husband was going to go, but he decided he'd stay home and have a beer." You never know what you will run into on a Twelve-Step call, so be sure you work in pairs and others know your whereabouts. Use your cell phone to stay in contact and when you're done with the call, let someone who's aware of where you are know everything is okay. It can truly be a matter of your life or death.

When I had seven years clean, I stopped by my connection's house to leave NA literature and a meeting list for him with his mother. I did this almost every year after I got clean, because we'd been really close friends before he was my connection. Whenever I dropped by he was always in prison or not home, but I would buy tamales from his mom and talk to her in my broken Spanglish.

This particular year, I knocked on the door and no one answered. So I left the literature in the door and started to walk back to my car. Just then, a hooty pulled up and in it was my connection and three other men who were so scary looking that I immediately felt that terrible feeling in my gut, you know, the one that tells you that you may be in deep doo?

My connection was wearing a beeper (that dates this, doesn't it) and his arms were covered with tracks. (When he was my connection, he didn't use heroin, just "recreational drugs.") It was clear that he was really strung out.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked and gave me a big hug. "Where you been?" (I hadn't seen him since I got clean.)

"Well," I said,"I've been clean for seven years."

Opening the door of his house, he said, "Well, come in, you won't be."

I looked at that open door, on into the house where I had gotten loaded so many times, and a million thoughts seemed to go through my head. "No one will know; what if he's HIV-positive?; maybe he has bleach; you can do it one time and quit; you can fix in the back of your arm so no one sees the mark; who are these other men?; he won't let them hurt me; I don't know him anymore"; you know, those insane thoughts that tear through our brain when we try to rationalize our desire to use, or not use.

Then I remembered a line, someone may remember it from our literature, that says basically we will eventually be put face-to-face with this dilemma and at that moment, only God can save us. (I'd love if someone has the quote.)

I started to pray, something like, "God, get me out of this mess!" and said to him, "Hey, I love you but you don't have to live this way anymore. Here's a meeting list. Come to a meeting with me." And I literally ran to get in my vehicle and drive away.

As I bolted down the sidewalk, he stood in front of he house watching me and yelled, "Hey, I'm staying at the Trails End motel; come by, we'll just play pool." Of course, I didn't, although for the first time since I'd gotten clean I wrestled with the desire to use for over a week.

The end to this story is that I went back to my folks' place where I was staying and I immediately got on the phone, calling any addict I knew. I couldn't get hold of any of my friends but I was terrified I'd head back to his house or to the motel looking for him. I immediately began rationalizing how I could go "just shoot pool" with him; I didn't have to use.

Finally, I got hold of Jeff T., who you might say I did not get along with at the time. (He's the one who asked my future husband in my early recovery if he was seeing me. He said "Yes." Jeff T. said, "Wow, you're a better man than me, because when I get around her, my balls shrivel up!" I told Jeff later (from the podium when we were both speaking at an ARCNA convention on "The Triangle of Self-Obsession" that it was a good thing my wasband hadn't told me what he said until a few years later, because I would have made his balls shrivel up!). I have owed Jeff many amends over the years.

Anyway, Jeff answered the phone, I told him the story, he listened without comment (I could tell he was thinking "what an idiot!", I got the whole thing partly out of my system and I learned a valuable lesson. Never go on a Twelve-Step call alone. I also learned this. A member may not particularly like you, but they will always go to about any lengths to help you stay clean. You never, never know who's going to save your butt, so be nice.

Yup, due to this dumb maneuver, I spent a few miserable weeks wanting to use, literally the only time in my 22 years of recovery that I wasn't sure that I could stay clean. I was extremely blessed that I didn't. I had been told not to do Twelve-Step calls alone, but would I listen? No, because in my mind this wasn't an official call, it was just dropping by and "visiting."

Well, I've had a fun trip today down memory lane. Thanks for meandering along with me.

My primary purpose

My favorite quote from Kurt Vonnegut fits me so well, at least for the past few years! It's from his semi-autobiography Timequake.

"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different."

Having said that, guess what I'm doing today?

Dancing dogs

Q. Why don't dogs make good dancers?

A. Because they have two left feet.

How full is your basket?

I went to the women's meeting this morning and although there were only four of us there, I heard something that really struck home with me. One member talked about dealing with the pain in her early recovery of a mother who was never emotionally available to her. She received some wonderful advice from another recovering woman when she shared with her how her mother had never been there for her.

The woman she was talking to about her parent's lack of emotional availability said, "Dear, if someone is holding a basket of apples and you want a pear, they can't offer you a pear, they can only offer you an apple. God gives us what we need; it just may not come from people that we want or demand it should come from. If you keep your focus on having pears magically appear from your mom's basket of apples, you will miss the other women who come into your life bearing pears because your "vision" will focused on your mom. You won't be looking around for the multitude of places one can find pears."

A person cannot give you something they don't have. If we keep hanging around saying "I wish he would stop belittling me" or "I wish my brother would stop drinking and be a brother," then we haven't achieved acceptance and we will continue to stay frustrated. Acceptance is giving up the struggle.

Acceptance is often a long process. My experience has been that gaining acceptance in any difficult situation takes time and repeated acts of "turning it over." I didn't suddenly wake up one morning and say, "Gee, I've accepted that my mother wasn't as loving as I needed as a child," or "I've accepted that my career has changed dramatically" or any of the myriad core emotional events that have taken place in my life. Instead, I struggled with each situation, allowed myself to feel the feelings surrounding those events, the anger, the grief, the sorrow, until I gained acceptance. I felt the feelings until they changed; I didn't deny them or repress them. One of the best gifts of the rooms, in my opinion, is that people in the program surround us with quiet acceptance and tolerance as we struggle through these stages toward acceptance.

Because of my years in the Program, today I have been given a basket full of a variety of fruits: love, compassion, humor, tolerance, empathy and a sense of justice. Now, I have many of these fruits to offer others.

What fruits has this Program given you?

Switched to Beta

Last night the blog was converted to Beta. I am trying to monitor to ensure things are going well, but hang in there. Also note I have lost the formatting in some old blog entries. I am trying to redo them but if you read some older blog entries, they may have no paragraphs. Thanks for your patience. I dreaded this conversion but it went very smoothly other than these small glitches.

Yesterday was another good day. A woman from a women's meeting I go to came over for coffee. She reminds me so much of me, the way she dresses, she's about the same age, she's had some similar health issues and she's going to graduate school (I'll be starting in January). We spent a few hours chatting and it was really nice. She only lives a few blocks away, she's a dog lover, and hey, looks like I have a new friend.

Last night two of my program friends came over to 1) help me organize my office (try having ADD and all your office furniture in another state!) and 2) hook up surround sound on my stereo. They worked a total of over eight hours, refused to take any money, and in short really helped me out.

It's amazing how much our program friends provide. Not only do they offer an ear if we're down, if something isn't working, most of my friends would drop about anything to try to help. I am really blessed by the people in my life.

My s/o took the day off today so that we can shop for Christmas. We're heading to the nearest bigger city to shop and I'm looking forward to it. Having said that, I have two black muzzles waiting for walkies, so I'd better head out. Until tomorrow, take it as it comes, but take it clean!

AA joke

An alcoholic died and entered the pearly gates. All her friends on earth really missed her. One day, God sent her back to earth to assist with one particularly recalcitrant drunk, and while she was there, she decided she'd drop by her former home group to see her sponsor.

"Wow," her sponsor said when she saw her, turning white as an igloo, "I thought you died."

"I did," she said.

"Wow, well, I'm just stunned. But tell me, what's Heaven like?" asked her sponsor.

"Oh, it's great," she replied.

"Really? Tell me more; I want to know all about it," her sponsor insisted, patting the empty chair beside her.

"Well," she hemmed, "I'm not really sure you want to know."

"Sure I do," her sponsor said. "Here, sit, let's talk."

"Well, it's kind of a good news/bad news kind of thing. I mean, there's an endless supply of gourmet coffee, soft chairs to sit in, no one takes your inventory anymore, all the meetings are non-smoking, and every Saturday night there's a big speaker meeting," she explained.

"Hey," said her sponsor enthusiastically, "that sounds pretty good to me. What's the bad news?"

"You're speaking there next Saturday."

Congratulations to my Higher Power

I celebrate 22 years of recovery today. It's really through no power of mine. In my early recovery when anyone celebrated a birthday, the "old timer" of Phoenix NA., Red, would say "Congratulations to your Higher Power." It took me a few years in the rooms, but today I truly get what he meant. (He's gone to that big meeting in the sky.) It is simply additional grace that God bestowed on me, the grace to walk through 22 years of life on life's sometimes very catastrophic terms and stay clean.

I've lived in quite a few places and in each one, they celebrate birthdays a little differently. In LA, for example, they call it "taking a cake." Your sponsor or a close friend shows up not only at your home group but sometimes at any regular meeting you attend and presents you with a cake. Most Angelenos take a cake for any meeting they attend the entire week. It's pretty cool, although sometimes by the end of the week we would look at each other and roll our eyes and mouth "Again?" when we watched members take their third or fourth, or fifth, or sixth, cake.

Here on the last Wednesday of the month, my home group celebrates all the monthly birthdays. I like that, but I've never been in Missouri the last week in December to celebrate that night, so I've always had to wait until January, which kind of defeats the purpose. This year is the first year I'll be here for the end-of-month celebration.

Today one of my sponslings and a few other women important in my recovery are taking me out to lunch to celebrate, then there's a group celebration at the women's meeting I attend next Saturday. So for this week, it's all about me! ("Not that it isn't most of the time anyway," I can hear my s/o thinking.)

Phoenix is my favorite place to take a cake. At your home group one of your friends or your sponsor brings a cake, you are the only speaker and the whole meeting is devoted to my favorite topic, me! (My home group for years was Hip, Slick & Kool at the Arid Club in Phoenix, until it burned down last year and the caretaker, Ake, died in the fire.) Word is spread and all the people who knew me when I got clean show up, plus others who came after and who love me. It's always a blast.

I was taught early on that we don't take our chips and our cakes for ourselves; we take them so the newcomers or those struggling know that it works. I always keep that in mind when I celebrate. Hope, that light I saw in other people's eyes when I first came into the room, that's what kept me coming back. I was so far gone, but the joy and light I saw in others' eyes when I got here made me begin to believe maybe I, too, wasn't hopeless. Watching people pick up chips, even 90 days ones, to me was a huge deal in the early days.

I'm having dinner tonight with my s/o, who spoils me rotten. All in all, I thank God for another day clean and sober and for this birthday. In reality, I am doubly lucky to be alive to celebrate it.

Inevitably as we celebrate more years, a newcomer will come up, awestruck, when we celebrate, and ask "How'd you do it?" I always say "One day at a time!"

So until tomorrow, take it one day at a time.

Today's view

The snow is melting, but the critters seem perennially hungry. I put out bird food today for the squirrels and birds, and hoards of cardinals flocked to my feeder. They are truly beautiful and some days if I remember all t he beauty instead of all the "I don't haves" that I tend to get wrapped up in, it's a great day.

Twodogs new logo

Our new logo was created by my wonderfully creative brother, who takes care of my blog with such good humor (I can be a total moron at times, at least technologically). Thanks, Bro!

Get off my sofa, you twit!

Nothing like a cat fight to end the day, is there? I'm not much into blogging today; not that it's been a bad day, it's just that it's been sort of an emotional one.

I went to my home group tonight and it was packed. Every time the drug task force in town makes a big bust, our rooms fill up with referrals from the courts. Tonight there were about eight newcomers, which always makes it a good meeting. Today's reading talked about sticking with the winners and a lot of members had strong opinions on that topic.

One of our newer members opened the meeting and shared that he had moved to another city for a new job. When he got there, the job didn't pan out and back he came. He said that this was the first time he'd lost a job and not used over it. He realized he said, for the first time, that if he could choose not to use over losing this job that he'd made it over a big hurdle in his recovery.

Often we get here with reservations. I used to wonder in the beginning if I'd be able to stay clean when I lost my father. I sometimes would cry just thinking about it. He got cancer and not only was I able to stay clean, I was able to administer his drugs, from codeine to dilaudid to liquid morphine, without using.

I couldn't even imagine losing my mother because we'd become so close after I got clean. Not only was I able to help her through over a decade of Alzheimer's and administer her valium when she needed it, I was able to stay clean through her agonizing death.

Then I got sick and while facing an almost certain death, I was able to stay clean. The grace of God, if we allow it, gets us through these trials by fire. What we often view as a personal tragedy often turns out ultimately to be a blessing in disguise.

Tonight my brother Fast Eddie called with news that he was back in Seattle at a funeral of a dear friend who probably died from our disease. The family ain't talking. We often think when we lose close friends to the disease "Is this enough to make me stop using?" Many times, it is not. It may sober us up for a few days or even a few weeks, but those of us with this terminal malady know that only divine intervention gets us into the rooms.

I am so often struck by how blessed I am to have made it here and stuck. So many never make it, or they may arrive, stay awhile and decide the program isn't for them. I don't know why I've made it; God has truly blessed me.

There was a song by the band XTC called "Senses Working Overtime." In my case, it's been "Angels Working Overtime." Thank you, God. By the way, listen to Senses Working Overtime free and a few other great XTC cuts here http://www.rhapsody.com/xtc/videos/sensesworkingovertime

I'm off to listen to a Leonard Cohen album, Essential Cohen, so you know if I wasn't depressed before, I will be soon. If no one has told you today that they love you, I do. Namaste.

Truthiness

Every year, Miriam Webster, the dictionary publisher, chooses a "word of the year" based on their on-line survey. This year's word is "Truthiness." Apparently Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert first used the word, which he defined as "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

Isn't that what recovery is all about, truthiness? My entire childhood I lived in fantasy. I read books to escape the reality of what I believed was a boring life. I waited to escape away from Phoenix to someplace exciting. My teen years I lived a crazy, exciting life so much so that I longed to be back in Phoenix sometimes. I read like a fiend even while I was strung out, a way to escape, I guess. Truth, to me, was an inconvenient dead-end.

Today, I'm trying to live my life authentically. This may mean taking risks. I know it no longer means I can hide out in corporate America pretending that I'm just like everyone else. I'm not, but neither am I terminally unique today like I was when I got here. Yes, I have a past, and special gifts that go with that past, and a need, no, a requirement to use them to help others. I just don't know yet where all that will lead yet.

I don't need to know. All I need to do is keep discovering then living my truth. Just for today, I'm going to act with truthiness.

Pearl Harbor Day, or the day after

While I was in Phoenix, I was asked to speak at a meeting where the average age was probably about 25. Recalling that I used and ripped and ran, much of it in Berkeley during the end of the peace, love and free sex era, from 1971 until I got clean in 1984, my experiences were almost unexplainable to the women who were listening.
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In 1971, I was living about a block off Telegraph Avenue. It was the end of the Free Speech Movement (FSM). The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had just disbanded the year before, but there were remnants of protest on and around the Berkeley campus where I lived. People's Park was still a big issue with young people, mostly bands of the homeless, trying to tear down the fence surrounding it so they could camp there.
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The "Blue Meanies," as the protestors called the Alameda County Sheriffs sent in by then Governor Ronald Reagan, who arrived in buses to kick hippie butt, were likely to turn up on any corner at any time, sending protestors running through the streets in fear of their lives. I was no exception, although I wasn't a protestor.
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The Vietnam War had torn apart my family and was the main reason I left home at 15. I couldn't take the constant stress anymore and when I heard the Beatles song "She's Leaving Home" with its lyric "after living alone for so many years," it spoke to me directly. I just didn't bother to leave a note when I left.
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So I went to Berkeley, after a terrible time hitchhiking from Arizona through Hollywood, where all the runaways go. One day I'll blog about what it was like to be 15 and on the streets in Hollywood. It was terrifying and I credit my survival with my basic distrust, at that time, of anyone.
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In Berkeley, I attended Berkeley Adult School which was for kids like me and adults who were trying to finish their high school education. In the late afternoons and early evenings I worked for a leather maker painting designs on purses and other leather items like stash bags and wallets. But it wasn't unusual, when I came out of my apartment to head for school or work, to get caught up in a demonstration. I was shot by a rubber bullet, tear gassed and almost club-punched in the kidney as I ran, because to stand still was insanity and on many days fought my way to the bus stop or home. Life in Berkeley was always exciting.
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Trying to convey this life to young women who had never heard of the SDS or the Free Speech Movement, who had never watched dissident crowds throw bottles or rocks at the police, who never saw the remnants of the Black Panthers walk through a quickly parting crowd at Sproul Hall, well, it wasn't an easy share.
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It's also very difficult for me to talk about those times because of the difficulties that lay right around my corner. The addiction, the homelessness, the failure to go to college, which had been my dream. I was going to become the female equivalent of Williams Burroughs, but in reality I became the female equivalent of William Burroughs without the published books. Oh, yes, and I never traveled to exotic places like Tangiers to smoke Thai stick because I rarely had money for bus fare across the Bay Bridge, let alone airfare to travel anywhere outside the Bay Area.
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So I shared, and when I talked about the fear of being homeless on the tough streets of Oakland at 17, of being preyed upon by men with bad intentions who thought I'd just fallen off a turnip truck, of having my clothes stolen and going through one cold Oakland winter with only a thin sweater, it is incredibly emotional to talk about those times. Although the women at the meeting probably couldn't relate to my location, what they could relate to were the feelings -- the fear, which I couldn't show, the hopelessness, the belief that I would die a junkie in the streets in West Oakland, like I saw some of my girlfriends die.
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Through God's mighty grace, I was given a reprieve from that life, so different from what I believed it would be when I left home. I often ask myself why I was given this gift when so many, my family, my friends, don't find it. For today, despite some of the distractions in my life such as unemployment, I am truly grateful for this gift.
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They just opened a Korean restaurant in the city where I live. It's pretty provincial here, so this is a big deal. We don't even have a Thai restaurant yet. I asked my s/o if we should take his father there to eat, who fought in the Korean War. He looked at me like I was crazy.
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"Oh, yeah," I said, remembering how my father felt about me driving a Japanese vehicle after he'd fought in WWII. But you know there's a funny thing that happened. In the 60's in Arizona, he and my mother, who were insurance agents, began to insure many of the Japanese farmers and grocers around west Phoenix. Over the years, they became friends and were soon invited to Japanese weddings, dinners and other social functions. My father spoke so highly of these Japanese people -- their industry, their honesty, their wonderful kindnesses and politeness. Yet he stood, during the war, on the deck of a destroyer in the Pacific watching kamikazes circling his ship. It's amazing what assimilation can do, isn't it?
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While it's trite and was the object of so much ridicule, I loved what Rodney King said after the riots. "Can't we all just get along?" I was living in LA at the time, and it was scary for sure. I was heading for an insurance class in Pasadena after closing our office which was a bit too close to Compton and Lynwood and Watts for safety, and when I arrived at the class, I smelled smoke. The streets were deserted, so I quickly got onto the freeway and sped home to my knotty-pine panelled guest house in Van Nuys. I stayed in the house for two days watching the city burn. I hope I never have to watch that again, a city destroying itself by racial hatred and division.
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Suspending judgment; it's so hard and yet so necessary, I think, for true spiritual growth. I had a therapist in early recovery who was a Buddhist. She gave me a little tip. She told me when she found her mind judging, good, bad, black, white, she'd say to herself "Judging!" It helped bring her mind back to center. I've used that advice sporadically in my recovery, but I've decided I'm going to redouble my efforts to stop judging using that technique.
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Today, I am grateful for the squirrels feeding on my bird tray in a foot of frozen snow. I'm grateful for my dogs, my big black defenders, for the evening we have planned, for the warmth of my house on this cold, cold day. For a girl with my history (for although my hair is gray and my face is becoming lined, in my mind I am still a girl) who should have died in the streets, I am blessed beyond compare.

Rats need love, too

I'm not even sure what to say, but this picture is worth a thousand words, or more.

Stick meeting

Today at my noon meeting we had a stick meeting. In case you've never been to one, at many clubs there is a can of popsickle sticks and written on each one is a different topic, for example Tradition Two, anonymity, self-acceptance, tolerance, or even a slogan like "The door swings both ways."

The can is passed around the room and each member draws a stick and then hopefully shares on that topic. Of course, there's always that dissenting voice who doesn't want to be told what to say and chooses to comment on whatever is on his or her mind, but that's okay, too. (Those are usually the ones who draw the "self-will" stick, I think.)

There's a neat advantage to this approach to a meeting. First, it allows the newcomers a chance to hear a variety of topics. Today's meeting was pretty lively and all over the board. For those of us with short attention spans (me, me, me!), it's great. Second, it allows us to stay in the moment. When there's a topic, we often sit and think, "Now what am I going to say if I'm called on or when it's my turn to share." This element of surprise allows you to really listen to what others are sharing.

And speaking of really listening, isn't it great to go to out of town meetings where we can hear speakers where we have no personality attached? We don't know if they walk their talk and we don't really even think about it. We just listen without attaching any judgment to it. When I got clean, there were only seven meetings a week in Phoenix. We drove all over town to hit one and if by chance someone had a resentment and a coffee pot and wanted to start a new meeting, well, we drove there and supported that one, too.

I was in a meeting the other night and twice I heard about a local meeting where some really unspiritual things were allegedly occurring. First, I don't want to hear it, either one-on-one from a member or especially in the group where newcomers may get the wrong impression of our Fellowship.

I shared what I'd been taught in early recovery. First, as they say in Minnesota, "watch your own bobber." In other words, is your program and your walk so strong that you can afford to take others' inventories? Second, and I have seen this prove itself time and time again -- if a meeting is spiritually unfit, it will die. Members will quit supporting it, they'll lose their facility, or others will go in, join the home group and turn it around. I don't have to warn anybody about nonsense in a meeting. The most I might say is "I don't go to that meeting."

I have my hands full with my own spiritual program. I can't help anyone else unless I'm on the right track myself, so it leaves me little time to worry about what others are doing. So for today, I hope you have a great day. I am.

There's no excitement in my life today . . .

thank God! I went to my favorite noon meeting yesterday, and despite the snow and the nippy weather, it was pretty well attended. Everyone seemed to be in the gratitude mode, maybe because most had been snowed in for a few days and were happy to get out. The sun was shining, snow was dropping off my car in huge chunks that I thought would break my windshield or dent my hood, and ice was the order of the day, anyway. Thank God for snow shoes because the dogs have pulled me down stairs and across driveways before with slick shoes on. They think they are sled dogs, apparently.

The meeting was very good; one of the members began by talking about how grateful he was that the Four Horsemen -- Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair -- from Chapter 11 of the Big Book "A Vision for You" -- were gone from his life today. His reminder literally sent chills down my spine.

I remember having DTs once when I was very young, probably 19 or so. I was staying at my parents' house in the lower level where my grandmother used to live when she was alive. I was lying in a single bed in a dark room, perhaps trying to sleep, I'm not sure, but I do know that I was very, very ill with the disease that eventually destroyed my liver. Despite being told by my doctor that I could not drink until I recovered, if ever again, I was still drinking heavily, mainly because I couldn't get my hands on my drug of choice.

I remember lying in that dark room and seeing the face of my grandmother, but she was a witch, terrorizing me. Then the spiders came and I don't know which was worse. I have no idea how long I lay like that, too terrified to move, maybe hours, maybe a day. Thank God I never, one day at a time, have to experience that sheer terror again.

The meeting was great and when it was over, I drove to the vet's to pick up the goombahs. They were delirous and ran straight for the truck as if to say "You ain't getting out of here without us!" I took them into an adjacent farm field and they ran in the 14 - or so - inch deep snow in joyful leaps. It must be genetic in German shepherds, that love of snow.

Last night I was exhausted so my s/o and I just sat on the couch watching Animal Planet and I drifted in and out of sleep. Traveling really tires me out now. I had a wonderful time in Phoenix, as I always do, but it is good to be home, home to a man who loves me probably more than I love myself at this point, which is slightly uncomfortable at times.

Working with the women fresh off the streets last week really put me face-to-face with my reluctance to get close to anyone. I saw reflected in those hard, hard young faces the need, so deep, for unconditional love. But their ability to shut down their feelings, their reluctance to admit that anything was wrong in their lives, made me realize that I too, when I used, survived by believing the rest of the world was crazy. If my parents, the police and anyone who cared about me would just leave me alone and let me use, which wasn't hurting anyone but me, I believed, then everything would be fine.

As one of the members said in the meeting yesterday, "There's no excitement in my life today, thank God!" I've had enough excitement to last a lifetime.

Borat and snow

Coming in from Arizona tonight, where the temperature was shirtsleeves, was a rude awakening. I can't believe how much snow is on the ground. I was nervous about the landing because it was 14 degrees and the plane windows were icy, and the two-hour drive home was slow because I'm a chicken. There are healthy fears and one of them is my fear of ice. But I made it and I am tired and glad to be home.

I love going to Arizona because I get to spend time with friends, some of whom I've known since I was in 8th grade, others since I started trying to get clean 24 years ago. There's something comforting about old friends. They accept you just the way you are. It's sort of like slipping into an old leather jacket that's adjusted itself to you over the years.

I went to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan last night with a friend and I laughed so hard my incision is still hurting. I don't know what it is about the movie that made me laugh so hard, but the nude wrestling scene between Borat and his tubby manager practically had me doubled over, except I didn't want to miss a moment of it. When he sings the national anthem at the rodeo, which he actually did, by the way, and the horse falls over, well, it was just classic.

I guess the most hilarious thing about the movie is the fact that Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) traveled around tricking people into thinking he was a legitimate journalist. That, in and of itself, is a total insult to journalists, but why not? The movie insults about everyone including gypsies, USC students, cowboys, charismatics, Uzbeks and Jews, but mostly Americans with our often narrow view of things. One of the best parts of the movie is the looks on people's faces as they watch the antics and don't realize it's for a movie. I keep laughing just thinking of their looks, like "I can't believe what I'm seeing!"

I have been accused of having a crude sense of humor, and Borat fills my crude bill, I guess. If you're easily offended, I suggest you steer clear. But if ribald parody and humor is your thing, go see Borat and laugh yourself silly. I was lying in bed last night still giggling.

As I was driving home, I was trying to remember when the last time was that I laughed so hard. I know it's been at least two years, well before the transplant. The past two years have been tough, as I was thinking on the ride home from the airport. Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm not. But I remember in early recovery going through grief over some teeth I lost due to lack of dental care when I used, so what kind of grief is there in losing a liver?

Sometimes a good laugh, or 90 minutes of laughing, is better for me than about anything else I can imagine. I am off to bed.

Life on the ho stroll

I'm back in Arizona for a few days and one of the things I'm doing is spending time at a program founded to get working girls off the streets. The program was founded about a decade ago and it boasts an extraordinarily high success rate for taking women through a one-year program, cleaning them up, since so many of the gals are addicted, addressing their health needs (one girl we chatted with last night was 11 days from the due date of her fifth child), helping them further their education, and helping them find employment. Gals who enter the program must attend NA if they are addicts, and Prostitutes Anonymous.

Last night I accompanied two street outreach workers as they drove through the various Phoenix "strolls," pulling up beside the women and handing out a small packet that contains information about the program and other social services in Phoenix. It was about40 degrees, and since many of the girls wore few clothes, we had available socks, sweaters, water and snacks.

The outreach gals were careful not to approach the gals whose pimps were obviously hanging about nor girls about to transact business, but it surprised me how many of the gals came up to the vehicle to chat with us or take literature. Both the workers, former prostitutes, had street credibility (we heard one of the girls, a pretty Hispanic gal in her mid-twenties, say to her probable stable sister, as her pimped sisters are referred to if they work for the same pimp, "She used to be a ho").

It was difficult to see the women, some obviously still under 18 and many with such sweet faces, stand on corners. But as I quickly realized, the outreach workers are "planting the seed" so if the gals get sick and tired enough, or get busted because they run a diversion program funded in part by the City of Phoenix, they know there's somewhere to go.

But it was clear that the working girls or "prostituted women" as they're referred to by outreach, because few of them chose this life, most of them were exploited at an early age by pimps, liked seeing the outreach workers. "We love you!" one of the gals shouted as we drove past. The last words the outreach workers say as they pull away is "Be careful," because any car the gals enter may be their last. That is the grim reality of prostitution, although our society loves to glamorize the sex industry with movies like "Pretty Woman" or "Striptease." It crossed my mind that the love these women showed them was probably the only unconditional love they get, and many of them seemed hungry for it.

Some of the women we talked to were "circuit hos," which means their pimps move them from one city to another, usually along Interstate 10 or 44, when the city they're working in gets too hot (from the police, not the weather). The women, of course, work rain or shine, snow or blazing heat.

It's a grim life, a life like this. Last night I found myself dreaming of the gals on the stroll. For many years I've wanted to get involved in this type outreach. In a few weeks I'll be visiting a similar program in Kansas City and I hope in Chicago. I'm not sure what I can do where I'm located, but there's no similar program in St. Louis, so my wheels are clicking, as my wheels often are.

God has given me so much, he's given me my life back twice. I think if I could make a difference in some small way in the lives of women like this, society's dumping ground, it would be a very good thing. Until tomorrow, have a great day.