Being Back
Where It All Began
What to Write About?
The problem when I get away from daily writing for a while, is figuring out where to start, when I start getting back to it. There are so many threads of thought that want my attention. I need to choose just one, and follow it to where it leads my fingers on the keypad. That’s what I’m doing right now.
So much is going on in my life, and I ask myself, “is that something that anyone else wants to know about, or is it something only of interest to me?” I don’t like to bore my readers — I prefer to make what I write interesting enough that you’ll want to come back for more.
Seven Day Mental Diet
But those are kind of negative thoughts, and I just started on a 7 day mental diet (Emmett Fox), where I will not follow any negative thoughts that come up. When they come up, as they will, I just nod in their general direction, keep on my positive way and bid them adieu on their merry way. See ya later, pal. I’ll be right here. Don’t hurry back.
Making the Adjustments
So, what’s going on, you ask? Oh, lots of interesting things, really. Interesting to me, anyway. I made a lot of assumptions when we moved down here, and of course, life didn’t follow my assumed directions. It threw a few curves at me, as life will. I swung and missed at the first couple that came my way.
At this stage, I am an experienced slugger in this game of life, and I have learned how to make adjustments to my swing. I’ve learned to choke up on the bat, and swing just to make contact when I have two strikes on me, as opposed to swinging for the fences, and striking out more often than hitting that home run.
12 Step Fellowships
When the AA meetings here sucked (for me), and weren’t showing any signs of getting better, I tried the NA meetings. While they were what they were, maybe not the best meetings in the world, but certainly different, I almost immediately connected with more people in my first few days there, than I had in over a month at the AA meetings. I quickly accepted that, for whatever reason, NA must be where I’m meant to be, down here.
Why does it matter? It matters to me, a lot. At AA, I didn’t feel like I could just be myself. It was very conservative, and somewhat standoffish, here. That was my perception, just how I felt, but I paid attention to that feeling. At NA, I felt like I could let my hair down, and just be who I am. It wasn’t that way when I left NA, some 35 years ago, but it is now, for me.
So, that took care of where I go when I go out to a meeting. There’s still an AA meditation meeting I go to on Sunday nights, the one AA meeting I felt a connection at. My friend D had started that one and it’s been where I connect with him. We’ll often go out for a bite, or a cup of coffee, after the meeting, and he’ll catch me up on what’s going on with him. There have been a lot of big changes in his life this year, and I’ve sensed he really needs a good friend who’s not from here.
He came down a couple years ago, and while he’s made the adjustment, he is far more liberal than I am — a part of him has to have felt stifled, here. In fact, it was probably in a conversation with him, at our meeting after the meeting, that the seed was first planted about checking out NA.
A History
I have history with NA. It’s where I first got clean, 39 years and 9 months ago. After two years of not drinking, but still getting high, I was drawn to an NA meeting, where I learned about addiction, total abstinence, and the fact that I wasn’t just an alcoholic, but was actually an addict. I wasn’t both, since addiction includes all drugs, including alcohol.
I’d shown up there right as I was getting back into writing and other creative pursuits, and when NA was in the process of beginning to write its own basic text for recovery from addiction. While it had been around since 1953, it hadn’t grown a whole lot in those 27 years, partially because it existed in the shadow of AA that whole time. Addicts would go to NA to get clean, and be around other addicts, but would eventually go back to AA, to get recovery. There weren’t many in NA with long-term abstinence under their belts.
The Book
A movement to write its own book had gathered steam in the late 70’s, driven by a guy who had the passion and wherewithal to get the movement going, and to follow it through to completion. I met him and the others who were writing that book when I was 3 months clean. Me and my group had already put together a lot of material on the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions by then, and after we met up with Bo and crew, the synergy created a momentum that drew a lot of addicts to the project. It also was primarily responsible for keeping me clean while I struggled to gain traction in my own recovery.
On My Own
Events led me away from NA right when I was coming up on 4 years clean, and then eventually away from 12 Step fellowships altogether a few years later. I just lived my life, and enjoyed the recovery I’d found, for years after that. My life was so much better without active addiction, and I never forgot how bad it had been before, and how difficult it had been in my first few years struggling to stay clean. I had no inclination to ever want to go back to that. It was too damn hard, once. No mas! I had what they call the “maintenance steps”, Steps 10, 11, and 12, to keep it all fresh and to deal with issues that came up in life, that I used to have to get high to deal with.
Back to a 12 Step Fellowship
About 5 years ago, I was drawn back to a 12 Step fellowship, actually AA. I wasn’t expecting that, although I had been wanting to get involved in one of them. I’d just had a hankering to do that. I’d spent the previous 4–5 years trying to figure out which one to get involved in. AA had answered that question, until the aforementioned move to Fredericksburg, which finds me back where it all started for me, in NA. Now that I’m here, it all seems to make perfect sense.
Opened Doors
It has opened up some doors inside of me that have long since been closed. I didn’t realize how much I’d left behind, when I left N.A. 35 years ago. Each day I’m back, I become more aware that this is all definitely for a reason. The new friendships I’ve made already, and the deepening of some long-standing friendships that now have this program in common again, have made my life so much richer. I am so glad to be here! That’s about all I have on that, for now. More will be revealed!
