Bad Luck, Bad Deal - The Truth In Consequences

Jan 22. Hey everybody. Today was a pretty good day, although I slept too much & had to cram alot of things into the early evening & late tonight to catch up. Now that things are up to speed I thought I would share some things with all of you. Thanks for showing up to see what is going on.

I went out to dinner with my parents & one of their good friends. It was nice to not have to be fake or not be myself for a change. Alot of years I had to try extra hard to hide my toxic truth when around others. I didn't do it to keep anything a secret so much as I was embarassed about my condition & didn't want to pass that embarassment onto my family in front of their friends. I got good at keeping my mouth shut and eyes on something else or closed when people were around. This time I didn't have to. Its actually nice to see that my parents aren't ashamed to talk about whats happened, instead they can speak proudly on the fact that I am living the solution. I wish the same could be said & done for others, but tonight I was reminded that not everyone who talks the talk, walks the walk too.

I was asked by my sponsor to help a guy out that was having trouble getting to meetings. I had seen the guy at our home group before & assumed like most of us that he was trying to find out more about the disease & how to combat it. Assuming such things I volunteered to help him get to and back home from our home group meetings on fridays & home on mondays if he could get a ride there. There are too many people in the fellowship to keep track of everyone's story, or to even have a personal conversation with them all. Those kinds of things happen if a person sticks around long enough to let such an opportunity happen. Well this was an opportunity for me to meet another alcoholic & possibly make a new friend as well as do service work which helps me get outside of myself by helping another person out. On the ride to tonight's meeting he said some things that made me wonder where he was at in his sobriety & where his acceptance was for his situation & consequences.

It seemed he had quite a track record of drinking, driving, & getting caught. I tried to negotiate into his mind that its not the justice system or the getting caught part that is the problem. By then I had gotten no return through from him because we had arrived and the meeting was about to start. I don't believe in coincedences, everything happens for a reason, even when we think we are using self will. Well fate would have it that the topic at the meeting tonight was consequences. It gave me an opportunity to think back at all the 'dues' I had paid to earn my spot in the chair at the meeting. I have faced fines, institutions, near death, and spiritual devestation time and again. Friends & loved ones had moved out of my life, some never to return. I was toxic minded before finally listening to the message & taking that honest, fearless, & moral inventory of myself. I used to blame judges, cops, girlfriend's, parents, employers, and many other people & things for the consequences I had to face in my 14 years of insanity & addiction. I still face some of them today, but the difference is that I have done that inventory with my higher power as my witness, and I have found my part in all of them. I was wrong or had guilt in more scenarios than I can remember from my past where consequences came to surface. Today I can admit that, and as the meeting concluded and we prepared to go home the conversation from earlier resumed while getting into the car. It seemed this fellow alcoholic was not yet able to have the rigorous honesty & perspective it takes to gain spiritual progress, I'll explain why.

He proceeded to tell me how that next weekend he will have to do 2 days in jail for missing a required treatment court meeting (something that is not associated with the 12 step program I work by the way). He blamed it all on them being too strict and not giving him a chance to be human when the reality is that he missed the date on his calender and realized before it was too late, just did not leave work to go and handle it. He also said that the times he got caught driving while drinking were not the big issue that it was the cops not cutting him a break because he wasn't that intoxicated. And the final thing that reminded me of my old self, taking any excuse, any new method, any reason to keep going or start back up again.. he said that if & when he gets the braclet off his leg and drinks again, he just needs to not drive because its definite jail time long term and that his only problem was not knowing when not to drive after drinking too many.

I remember trying to rationalize certain consequences, figuring out new ways to try and manage an unmanagable problem to avoid getting in trouble the next time. From not traveling with anything but a gram & rolling papers all the way to having everything delivered to my house so that I didn't have to risk the outside world stumbling upon my addiction at all. I now can see how insane that thinking was. I know without a doubt that the problem was the chemicals themsevles & the lack of a way to keep them out of my life for good. I have that now, so long as I continue to work the program & follow its suggestions. As long as I remain honest, willing, and able to find my part in things. If I remember my consequences from the past & do whats necessary to never fear them repeating themselves. I can only pray for this man who is still sick & suffering, that he will one day connect to his higher power, find his part in it, and recognize the insanity and do whats needed to remove it from his life. I can no longer find an excuse to kill myself slowly, risk instant overdose, deterorate my spirituality & relationships with others, or avoid the thoughts or feelings of who and what I really am by masking it with chemicals. There is no reason, no excuse left in my body. My life is in the hands of sobriety and all the promises that develop true daily because of it. It's because of the still sick and suffering & my opportunity to do something as simple as give them a ride to a meeting that my higher power has reminded me of this tonight. So may we all be reminded. "Have we been blind to our consequences, always placing the blame on bad luck, a bad deal, or a poor choice? Have we been honest and searching of ourselves to find out that the real problem is something we are doing, feeling, or romancing in our minds? When we find our part in it and work on ourselves, can we not grow past the blame and move into the solution for us?" Thank you so much for listening in. You are all the ears to my mind, as sick or as well it can be, you are loved for listening. Til Next Time.. Good Morning. Good Night.. <3 Jimmy