K4D Rising #4

[25yearsmlc]

How do you find an AA meeting that is not full of excons? Something that has corporate people in it?

Kevin

You do some looking and researching yourself....Geez how can you be this UNresourceful? I really hate how this dynamic has evolved, b/c I feel like a bitch when I post to you this way, but it's like you need me or someone, usually a woman, to be this way or you won't get it. Almost like you want a verbal spanking, Seriously. You are a grown man who should not need an angry mommy helping him with his late homework again...and I don't want to be an angry mommy with my own kids, let alone with you. I dislike this dynamic intensely. So it ends with this post.

And What kind of a question are you even asking? Maybe you should show these posts to your priest friend.

Do you think I just dialed 411 and said, "Hi, I'm a PROFESSIONAL person, and so, I want an AA/NA group with smart successful people like ME, so I can only see the winners who already "beat this thing" and not be dragged down by those...'other people still struggling and oh by the way, how can I tell the difference between THEM and ME??'"...???

First off, THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I...AND YOU....Did you ever wonder where someone who gets a DUI might be sent by the court? Often, it is to court ordered AA meetings.... So is it really incredible or impossible to you to think you might have someday landed there yourself? Or known someone you care about, who could land there?

I was given prescription medication for pain, and drove a car, more than once. Never hit anyone, but I could have, and that could have ended my life or another's, and I could have had my children in the car with me. So I could have killed or hurt the people who mean the most to me.

And it is to my shame that I only realized this at a meeting. I heard a man at a meeting who mentioned that although he didn't drink often, when he drank, he could on occasion become difficult about releasing his keys to another person, partly b/c he LOVED his beautiful car. So one night, he felt fine enough to drive home, really he did, and witnesses said he seemed a "little buzzed but definitely NOT DRUNK", and he drove home after a few beers, just a tad over the legal limit. He lost his focus for a second or two, and hit a car that was a tad close to his lane but that he could have avoided if he had been more alert, and in that car was a family, consisting of a mother, father and 9 y/o daughter, and the mother and daughter were killed, though not instantly...This man at the meeting had ended a FAMILY and deeply wounded his own, along with the many many people who knew those whom he had killed and he wounded many who loved HIM. HE may not have been an alcoholic, but he went to AA for 3 years as assigned, after he served 9 months in jail for manslaughter. ( thereby making him now "an ex-con" and, also, a former pharmacist as a manslaughter conviction there cost him his liveliehood, and the lawsuits in civil court cost him a lake home, and God knows what his own family went through with his kids being taunted in school and the level of shame...but I don't see him as a loser or someone with whom I could not share a common interest. In fact, he was among the most morally sound and honest men I have ever met).

I never heard him complain that he didn't need the meetings though he rarely drank before and he sure didn't anymore...Was he an alcoholic? I'm not an addition doctor or expert, but I know HE needed those meetings for many reasons, including lessening the chances of a recurrence in case he did have a drinking problem or became tempted to have one...which I could see.

Second, as to finding suitable groups, if you were seeing a psych or C then he/she could tell you which group would be the best fit, so the "hunt" would be easier for you, but you'd have to see a c for that and you aren't doing that either...(SIGH...always somehow so hard for you) maybe check for a group of "newly single men" or those going through difficult family issues...just one more idea.

So you call AA in the phone book (they are listed) and ask around for "men only" groups, and or you can ask for groups like "engineers anon" or any professional group solely for those in that field, with addiction issues. Most professions have support groups, doctors do, atheletes do, lawyers and teachers do. You can also ask your priest if the Church has meetings there, as most do, or know of them, as do local hospitals & clinics, and YOU can even anonomously call your employee assistance person at the company you work in, EVEN though you may not have any benefits, and just ASK them for groups nearby, OR you can ask an addict/alcoholic in recovery, where THEY go....the more likely the members are to be employed the less likely you'll be uncomfortable. Sure there are places I didn't feel great, if it were made up of dangerous looking gang members I would stay at the meeting and listen carefully to see what I could get out of it. If it didn't surprise me, I'd probaly just keep looking. Good grief there are so many kinds and types...

And for the record, of all the groups and meetings I attended, which has to be over a 1000, (started when pregnant working full time with 2 little kids at home, a h and a full time job and demanding avocation and kept going after having the baby.... so don't say you are too busy b/c that's a cop out and it's way too obvious.) Tell that to the neuro surgeon I met at the meetings...but NOT ONCE did I attend a meeting wherein I didn't hear something I REALLY needed to hear. Not once. That's a miracle really. And btw, those are people I met at meetings. Lots of "winners" have this problem...
I attended a meeting wherein most people didn't speak English well enough for me to understand them so sure, I found another meeting place/group. But don't be nearly so quick to judge or dismiss. Some of these ex cons are NOT bad people at all. And some of them WERE, but are not anymore. I'm no bleeding heart, but your cynicism and "spiritual journey" seem to be colliding...

People or men who made mistakes and were caught, sometimes doing things many of us have done or thought of doing, are labelled "ex-cons". Some of these men have lost everything including their self respect and maybe even their manhood, men who cannot go to their mailbox or their driveway for their newspaper, without being pursued by their local pusher trying to tempt them, b/c that's how their neighborhood is...When even these "losers" somehow reached out to someone like me, driving my "important person" car and wearing clothes that cost more than they earn in a week, and HELPED ME!! or comforted me b/c I was crying...well then, I'm learning something valuable, and spiritual from them. I was blessed with a healthy pregnancy and so much more...Though it was the most difficult & humbling experience of my life at that time, as it turns out it was among the most spiritual and yes, as THE STEPS SAY, I had an awakening that forever changed my life.

The first person to reach out to me, to give me a tissue as I sobbed, was a man just out of prison, who said "It's hardest the first time you say it out loud, even to yourself". Boy was that the truth...

Kevin did you EVER drive after a beer or two, and did you EVER have the kids in your car? Can't you see that "there but for the Grace of God, go you..."?

Not drinking isn't really listed in the steps, per se. It is a given. As you must have heard 383 times now, "Recovery isn't about simply not drinking....
It is a program for LIFE."

If you actually looked at the 12 steps you'll see things like; taking a fearless moral inventory of yourself, (though I think it's terrifying), write down the wrongs you commited and share them with another human being, out loud, identify those to whom you owe amends, [i]and make amends to them, when appropriate....The pharmacist made amends to the father/husband of the people he killed. First in writing to ask to meet in person. They did. For two hours.
[/i]
That "alcoholic recovery" stuff....well, like I said, it's a program for life. It is not for the cowardly or feint of heart, but for brave human beings.....spiritual beings, on the hard road to recovery -- which is about living a life worth living. A life of clarity and honesty and integrity. A life that involves an active R with a higher power, whom some refer to as God. Thanks to the meetings I attended, I have that. I know people who live by the 12 steps who do NOT have drug or alcohol problems but started going to meetings b/c their parents did, or they just liked the concepts.

You have been given a lot of blessings here, more than most. But it seems to me you are at a crossroads of your own making. Good luck on making the right choices, which tend to be the hard choices b/c if the right choice were easy, it would be made without a 2nd thought. It's the tough ones we struggle with. Not the easy ones.

j-