Never ceases to amaze me how great meetings are

I am so accustomed to being able to choose from hundreds of meetings within easy reach, that I completely forget sometimes how lucky I am. It’s not something that really makes sense to people unless they have actually been to meetings, but basically I have an extraordinary range of scope in terms of the type of people that I get to speak to on a daily basis. I can very easily completely forget that this is not normal for most people. I’ve been living like this for over 20 years or so, so I forget all the time that this is not the norm.
Anyway, I went to a meeting that I normally can’t get to because it clashes with something else but I have enjoyed going to in the past, and I was wildly impressed at what a great meeting it was. For me, AA is ‘the pub with no beer.’ It’s like a David Lynch movie sober. Reminds me of Twin Peaks. Some amazing characters.
I LOVE that nobody knows how great AA meetings are except the people that actually go. I like that it’s a unique subculture with a genuine democracy, accessibility, and authenticity unlike any other social sphere I have encountered. And remains completely free as well. Amazing in this day and age.

Perhaps it’s really different out there in the sticks? but I have a feeling it is ? might be pretty similar. I used to drink in fairly remote places compared to where I am now, and it didn’t seem to matter where I was, because I always ended up hanging out with pretty !! colourful people, no matter how conservative or parochial the neighborhood was. I think alcoholics must have an affinity for seeking out the nonconformists. Who knows. But all I know is that I am extraordinarily fortunate to have seemingly limitless access to fascinating people who feel like long-lost friends even when I’ve never met them before, at my fingertips, any day of the week should I feel like dipping my toe into AA. It’s like this ? magic multiplying address book of connections, that never seems to stop getting bigger. Just when you think you’ve met more people than you’ll ever (!) have time to speak to, you meet some more ‘long lost friends’ who are actually strangers.
All this would be completely unsatisfying if there was not a meaningful and authentic connection with these people, but to me they feel like family. All of them. I really don’t understand ? why it works like that, but I just know it DOES, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have this. No matter where I am in the world there will always be people within easy reach who feel !!! utterly familiar, even when I’ve never seen them before in my life. My family is huge. Well that’s what it feels like anyway.

None of this will make any sense to you if you never really got into the swing is going to meetings, like most things in AA it only makes sense once you actually DO it. Until then ..it sounds like hokey :)

Nothing is as good or as bad as you think

Nothing is as good or as bad as you think.
I just thought I would mention this as it's been on my mind lately.

If I feel as though my mind is being drawn towards some sort of drama, some sort of resistance, some sort of inclination to get caught up in a ‘fight’, I remind myself of this motto. It is very anti-drama. It is very hard to hold onto drama when I remind myself of this motto. It gets me out of polar thinking. Black-and-white thinking. Us and them thinking.

All drama is bullshit really, but we fall for it every time. Just the ego desperately looking for a hook. Anything to create division, get us back up on the moral hilltop, and create a separate sense of self.
I think a lot of the time I kind of feel my way to the right answer. Meaning if I feel peaceful and reconciled. If I have stopped fighting, then I know I am doing something right.

And if I am still at war with something, even if it is merely some internal surge toward ‘contending’ against something, (even when I have said nothing), as far as I am concerned, I am full of crap. A little harsh you might think, but to me resentment is poison, and when I feel it internally, it feels like poison. It feels wrong. Like strange tiny green ivy tendrils encircling my veins and arteries and weaving its way through my body in ever-increasing quantities. An energetic poison. I feel embarrassed and stupid.* Like being stuck with spinach on your teeth at a party. Like farting in an elevator. I find resentment socially embarrassing, even when I’m alone in my own company.
*When I say stupid I mean that familiar Step one feeling of being caught with your pants down. Knowing you’ve been rumbled. It’s very humbling. It feels foolish but in a good way.

Resentment feels wrong even when on the surface it’s something that could be easily justified. Wanting revenge against a paedophile for instance. Wanting to punish an ‘evildoer’. It’s all the same in the end. Just another justified resentment. Baseless. A fiction to prop up the ego.

But basically, I really love this motto when I’m feeling ‘drama’. What I mean is when I am making a problem out of something, as thats when I feel like there is a drama. It seems to stop the drama in its tracks. It goes against my innate pre-programming toward drama and that’s why I like it. I believe it to be true. It’s like cool water. I want to keep it close in my mind when thing seem tough. It’s like a friend.

Hope you’re all having a lovely Tuesday. I’m still up to my eyes in papers and books. Physically and mentally tired. I still have plenty of inner rebellion against study, so am trying very hard to do the next right thing, which in this case involves looking at the next page, a paragraph at a time if necessary. Bleh. I find it interesting that the material I am studying is so universally disliked by other students, (apparently, but who knows if they are telling the truth) even the ones that gave me the impression that they were into it. It seems very difficult so I just have to plough through it. I’m very much in the just for today card ‘do something for 24hrs that would appal you if you thought you had to keep it up for a lifetime’ territory :)