The Fortunate Ones - Its Not Who You'd Expect

March 23. Hey friends, its Tuesday night & I have had a long day. I pushed through the whole day on little sleep so that tonight would be good rest. Hope that all goes as planned. I spent the day active & on the town. I started the morning off stopping to see some people. In my travels I stopped to see my jewler friend that has been very good to me in starting my business. I hadn't seen him in a month or so & heard rumor he was in the hospital, I had no idea how close of a call things were. I truly felt selfish when I found out he was dead for three hours while they exhumed his heart & lungs for a quadruple bypass. He is up in his age and he nearly did not make it. I then proceeded to hear that he was in the hospital for two weeks in recovery, and I felt more self centered knowing that I had not been by his side after all he had done for me. After a few hours of thinking that way I finally was able to let it go to my higher power & all because of something my friend said.. "I didn't call & tell you, don't feel bad. I didn't want to burden anyone." Despite it all I felt like I had a shortcoming to be forgiven for.

After that I came back home, it was early evening and I caught a recharge cat nap to get ready for the meeting at night. I met some friends early for coffee & then we headed out to the meeting. A wonderful topic in the room I was in & they went to the early recovery meeting that they send they thoroughly enjoyed. What I got out of the meeting is something I may have mentioned before, but it's worth mention again. Those who have not become addicts/alcoholics and have never entered a 12 step program are truly unfortunate. I say this because once in recovery the program helps us deal with life in ways that other people without it cannot.

We have countless trusted friends with experience in what we are trying to do with our lives, from all walks and professions, and they offer their help at no charge with no reservation. Normal people do not have this, and they do not have a model from which to build their lives by. The internal 'house cleaning' that the program offers to ones social, spiritual, financial, & professional life is unmatched by anything available to the general non-recovering public. There are thousands in the fellowship that have been through situtations we face & have not only survived, but come out on top. Willing and able to share the solution to the problem or the technique by which to grow areas of our lives. Its comparable to the concept of that mystical "secret soctiety" that people wonder, 'does it really exist?'. Its not so secrative and it does exist but not to exclude but to include.

The sick and suffering addicts, if before death or institutionalization, have this society available to them. To show them how to live a life of reasonable happiness, compared to those who are non-addicted, some might even say beyond imaginable life. There are joys we find that the "earthers" of normal life do not ever get to see, understand, or live. Those who do are fortunate enough to have found a truly spiritual way of life through other means, which do exist, but in today's world are rarely sought. Many of those who find that way of life however, have few like minded people in their lives to share it with. The 12 step fellowships have thousands per city, and in some tens and hundreds of thousands. They all have one thing in common, they are in service of eachother and their fellow man. They, along with myself, find a happiness that no chemical, no amount of money, and no normal life can provide. To this I say "Amazing Grace!" because it surely is. There is something special there for sure, if not divine and I am so grateful to be a part of it. My contribution daily to the happiness of others is somehow magically returned 10 fold, I cannot explain it as I cannot explain the universe, it just .. IS. Thanks for listening.. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy