Sponsorship

Early in my budding relationship with my sponsor, she handed me a piece of paper that had a sort of outline as to how we were going to do things.

The 12 Steps Of Sponsorship

1.I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.
2.I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by your definition.
3.I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of yourself, more excited, less sensitive, more free to become the authority for your own living.
4.I cannot give you dreams or “fix you up” simply because I cannot.
5.I cannot give you growth, or grow for you. You must grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at times.
6.I cannot take away your loneliness or your pain.
7.I cannot sense your world for you, evaluate your goals for you, tell you what is best for your world; because you have your own world in which you must live.
8.I cannot convince you of the necessity to make the vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of growing over the safe misery of remaining static.
9.I want to be with you and know you as a rich and growing friend; yet I cannot get close to you when you choose not to grow.
10.When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for you and for me.
11.You must know and understand my help is conditional. I will be with you and “hang in there” with you so long as I continue to get even the slightest hint that you are still trying to grow.
12.If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults, leaving childishness forever to the little children of the world.

She instructed me to go home, hang it on my fridge and refer to it often.

When I got sponsee's of my own I photocopied it and passed it on to them. I keep it handy, read it often....mostly to remind me of what my role is as a sponsor.
I walk a very thin line between healthy sponsorship and co-dependancy. I have to guard against that little dastardly trait on a daily basis. I dont always know or see the difference between loving people and holding their hand through this recovery process and loving people right back onto their sickness.
Thank God sponsorship is just another one of the jobs that I dont have to do alone.

The House God Gave Me

The way he treats his body, you’d think he was renting. ~Robert Brault

Summer time (aka-bathing suit season) is pretty much here, and as a result, Ive had some interesting conversations with my friends. Mostly girlfriends because from my persepective men just dont seem to worry about how they look in a swim suit. I could be wrong (I very often am) but it seems to me that when its 32 degrees out, men just strip it off, put on a pair of swim shorts and hop in the water or attach themselves by a rope to the back of a boat to get yanked all over a lake with a board strapped to their feet.
No worries of looking too fat, ohmygosh is this suit see through when it gets wet, do I have an ass cheek hanging out?

I had a conversation recently with a sponsee in regards to our bodies.
Its beginning to feel that anytime I look in the mirror and pick apart what I see, it seems a little like thumbing my nose at God and telling Him he should have done better work.
This is not to say that I take no personal responsibility for body troubles that I have created.
These days Im enjoying the idea that God gave me a house to live in, my body, but I need to be responsible for the maitenance of that house. I need to treat with care and kindness the house he provided. I need to show my gratitude by eating well, exersizing, getting proper sleep.
Making the decision to not polute my house with drugs and alcohol anymore was just the beginning.
Sometimes when I light up a cigarette, I become all too aware that I am damaging the house God gave me. When I eat a bag of chips in place of lunch, I know I could and should do better.
Its another one of those things that I am going to need to ask for God's help with. (I havent asked yet because frankly Im a little fearful of what that help will look like when it arrives. And Im well aware that it will require a whole lot of effort and discipline on my part)

Viewing my body as a gift from God, the house He gave me to live in, has helped me to be able to look in the mirror and appreciate and even come to love and accept myself. There was a time when I would have happily trudged off to visit a plastic surgeon to get a smaller nose, perkier boobs and the little lines erased from around my eyes.
I have a deeper understanding of inner beauty and the importance of working all of the spiritual principles into my daily living. I am grateful and blessed that the house I was given is in fine working order (even though I treated it as a party house for a long while)and that I have a responsibility to not simply 'feel' grateful but to show my gratitude by taking care of my house. I still spend too much time working on my home's curb appeal and too little time doing the hard to see spring cleaning.
But as it has been with everything else in recovery....first comes awareness, then comes the willingness to change.
Home Sweet Home

Shaking God's Hand

The topic at my home group Sunday night was based on a reading in this months Grapevinve. The topic was based on 'finding' a power greater than ourselves, one that we could live by.
I listened to a man share about his belief in God, even though he's never 'shaken His hand'.
Suddenly, it occured to me just how far Ive come (came to believe...that concept I once scoffed at) in my belief in a power greater than myself. I call that power God....mostly for ease. Although sometimes I call him Buddy, Friend or even Hey-You.
I thought about my job (I work with persons who have fairly severe dementia, traumatic brain injury and end stage alzhiemers disease)and I thought "I get to shake God's hand every day!"
With every bone in my body, I know I am doing the job I am supposed to be doing. It has become clear to me that God gave me a gift, and that gift was wrapped in wrinkles and drool. Most days I can excel at my job with ease....I even have days that I cant believe I get paid to do what Im doing. (Nonono..not every day. Management drives me nuts, co-workers tick me off and the government red tape/rules/regulations baffle me and anger me)
But most days, when I am able to recognize that I am powerless to change management/co-workers/the government and I simply focus on what is in front of me, I wonder how I got to be so lucky. Who gets to come in to work, step off the elevator to a waiting 90 year old who has her arms outstretched for her morning hug? Who gets to hear they are beautiful and special dozens of times a day? Who gets to finish their shift knowing they made a difference that day?
I get to shake God's hand every day. I get to hug Him and hear Him whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
Mother Theresa said: "We can do no great things. Only small things with great love".
I finally get it.
Show up with gratitude in my heart, take care of all the small things, and sink an incredible amount of love into them.
What a gift.

Still Trudging

I read one particular recovery blog every day. I have a few others that I pop in to read weekly.
It astounds me sometimes that these good souls are disciplined enough to blog their thoughts, their experience strength and hope, every day! I've gone months without touching this blog.
Although I have been very busy living, working, parenting, going to school, being sponsored and sponsoring, there is something about this blog thing that I would like to cultivate enough self- discipline to visit here and post at least once a week.
It forces me to slow down, have a visit with myself and my life....
It allows me to organize my thoughts, and hopefully spit some of them out in a way that will help me see where Im at and where I'd like to go.
The girl I was will drink again. If I'm not changing, every single day...Im moving backwards. Im moving towards that drink."
Time to excersize and develop some self discipline.

An unfortunate meeting for a beautiful mess.

Remember the new girl? The beautiful mess girl? She had a really unfortunate incident in a meeting the other night....it almost scared her away.
What follows is an email I sent her about a personal story about my 'unfortunate meeting" in early recovery.

Ok, the story....and Im not making it up...this really happened.

I was somewhere around 60 days sober. I went to the saturday night meeting. It was not one of my favoite meetings....I found it clique-y, and it was too big for my comfort zone. BUT...it was a speaker meeting....so at least I wouldnt have to worry about sharing.
As plans go (not 'my' plans exactly...but whatever kinda plan is going on in the universe)
I was asked to read something.
At the front.
In front of all those clique-y people.
WITH a microphone!
Even though I didnt want to, I braved-up and agreed to read 'yesterday, today and tomorrow'.
I shook the whole time, my voice squeeked....it was a pretty scary experience, but nonetheless, I didnt die.
Then.......(drum roll please)
At the end of the meeting, a well known woman, with plenty of sobriety came up to me, and loud enough for everyone within a 10 foot radius said "Ummm, Julie...you might want to rethink what you wear to meetings."
Huh? What? WTF?
"well....that top you are wearing is pretty low cut, I mean...I can see cleavage for goodness sakes. What exactly are you trying to prove?"
At that moment I wished the earth would open up and swallow me.
I was so embarressed...and I wasnt even sure why.
I thought my top was ok....
I mean...I did think it was ok....
well, it was ok wasnt it?
Oh god...
maybe it wasnt ok...
maybe everyone was looking at me thinking that I was simply using AA as a way to attract men.
Oh my god....they all think Im a slut! Why would I wear this stupid top??!!!
I came home in tears.
My husband forced the story out of me...and then he laughed.
Laughed!
As it turns out, my top (at least acccording to hubby, and later the other 10 people I questioned) was fine. It was appropriate, it was not even slutty in a minor way.
But I took on the words and opinion of one other person, and I gave those words enormous power. I turned her words into the words that everbody must be saying behind my back.

Turns out, us alcoholics are extremely sensitive people.
The lesson for me was learning how to wrap my sensitive-nerve in a bit of insulation.
I had left that 'feeling-nerve' exposed to the world my whole life. If someone said the least little thing that I precieved as critical, then before long, I was ashamed, guilty, angry, less-than, broken, fucked-up, worthless etc....
How you ask? How do we insulate that particlar feeling-nerve?
We trust the people around us, that know us and love us, to tell us the truth.
IF my top had of been inapropriate, Jay would have told me. So would Christie and Lou.
Even if they knew I would be embarressed at that bit of info, they would tell me the truth.

I will always tel you the truth.
Lou will always tell you the truth.
Jen and Kendra will tell you the truth.
Trust the people who love you while you are learning to trust yourself.

The whirlwind that is my life this week

My 18 year old daughter swallowed 60 pills last sunday.
Bought herself a 72 hour psych hold. It ended (or is it 'began'?) with a soft landing in a treatment facility that is world renowned for a variety of things (addictions, eating disorders, post traumatic stress, panic and anxiety).
I hate her boyfriend.
I want to point the finger at him and make this all his fault, although my own program of recovery knows better.
I want her to move home with me after her stay at 'the hospital' because I think I could help direct her life for her. My own program tells me better.
I guess I will settle for praying that she is open minded about the help (the gift really) that has landed in her lap. I will stop thinking about good places to hide the boyfriends body.
And ~sigh~ I will get my butt to a meeting and dump all my thoughts there and be open minded to recieving my own help.