Excerpt from Starfish On The Beach (edited)

 

There is a parable I heard once that I often use to describe the work I was fortunate to do in the field of alcoholism and the work I continue to do even though I no longer get a pay check for doing it.

One day I was walking along the beach. I saw an old man walking toward me. Every so often, he would kneel down, pick something up and study it for a moment. Then, he would either put it back on the beach or throw it into the sea.

As we drew nearer to each other, I noticed that the beach was littered with starfish, washed up by the tide. The old man was searching for live ones and returning them to the sea.

When we were close enough to speak, I told him how pointless his efforts were. There were too many of them. He could not possibly make a difference.

In reply, he threw a living starfish into the sea. “It made a difference to that one.” Then, he leaned closer and said, “I could use a little help.”

27 years ago, someone scraped me off the beach where I lay dying and threw me back into the sea. Now, I walk the beach with the old man. There are still too many. It's still difficult to make a difference. Some days I just don't see the point. Other days I see I made the right decision. Those are the days that matter.

Predictive Text

 My wife made a comment the other day that I have a knack for predicting how things will happen. One time, I was at a gathering at my former place of employment. I made a comment to the effect that although I wasn't currently employed there, that considering where it was, in 2 month's I could have so and so's job. By coincidence, in 7 weeks, I had his job.

Earlier today, I noticed the wind getting stronger outside so I checked the forecast. There was a storm brewing. At the time, I was making a status update on social media and I mentioned the high winds and heavy rain on the way.

I had just put a meatloaf in the oven so my update was something along the lines that I hoped the power stayed on until supper was ready. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I clicked post, the power went. It was off for two hours and then I was able to continue cooking supper.

rear view mirror

 my sobriety date is getting closer. it's like turning 30 or 50 or 70. you wonder if you're where you should be by now or you become reflective and start looking in the rear view to see where you were and if you've moved far enough ahead to justify becoming a year older. generally, whenever I attend a midwinter roundup, as I do every year, I always feel somehow older. that was last February and I did feel changed. but, here I am now, it's late November, in a few days I will reach a new milestone in sobriety. 27 years. it is often said that once we start drinking, we stop growing emotionally. I  started drinking when I was twelve and by the time I stopped, 29 years later, I was still 12 years old. it's been 27 years so now I am 39 years old emotionally if you follow it through and of course if you believe that school of thought.

Thinking of Yourself Less

 I celebrate 27 years sober this month. For most of my sobriety, I worked in a transition house for men in the early stages of recovery from alcohol drugs and gambling. I don't work there now. I retired about 18 months ago. I was talking to a young man who currently resides in the house and the conversation was good. I told him I used to live there and work there. And he said, "Yeah, you're somewhat of a legend there." I laughed and we went about the things we had been doing to set up the meeting we were at.

Later, I realized that I never really gave any thought to the impact I may have had while working there. My name is on three plaques there. One as a resident, one as a staff member, and one as a resident who continues to donate his time to uphold the philosophy of the home.

Every morning when I wake up, I pick a word from my god box. This morning, yesterday morning now, my word was Pride.  I know that the opposite of pride is humility and that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

So, I'll do that now. 

November 7

 Every morning, I start my day the same way. First, I remind myself that I am powerless over alcohol and then I let God know that I might need a little help getting through my day. Next, I pull a word from my God box to give me something to do today. This time, it was the slogan First Things First.

Last night, I went to a meeting and was able to help some new people understand how the program works. This morning, I messaged one of them to give her a little more help. Later this month, I celebrate a sobriety milestone. 27 years. But, just because I have the time in now doesn't mean that I stop doing the things that got me sober and one of those things is helping others.

Today, we have a meeting with the Reverend of our local church, basically to introduce ourselves and talk about things we can do to make our community more of a community. See how that goes.

November 6

Hard to believe that Trump could get re-elected, but there it is. I'm not much for politics so I don't have any windy arguments on whether or not that was a wise move on anyone's part. It is what it is. I'm Canadian so it's not my circus and not my monkeys.

I'm celebrating a sobriety milestone this month. 27 years. There are a few others celebrating that night and because I will be the eldest, I get to select the speaker. I already have someone in mind, someone with over a decade himself and someone with a good story. I sent him a message so we'll see how he responds.

I think we're going to al-anon tonight. Usually, I do one alanon meeting per week, but since I was chosen to be an alanon speaker at the midwinter roundup, I thought I should let some of the members in this district at least know who I am.

I had been making these posts at night so I could talk about how my day went, but it was slipping my mind, so I thought I'd switch things up and post in the daylight hours. Now, I have to talk about what I plan to do as opposed to what I have already done. We'll see how that goes. 

November 5 Late Again

This entry is late, again. Maybe posting late at night isn't a good idea. Maybe early in the morning would be better. I'll try that tomorrow and see how that goes. Today was just ordinary. Nancy had an outing with some of her friends, the proverbial Group of Dames. I was baking cookies for a meeting I was going to tonight, so I made sure she got a few to take with her. I also made a pot of stew today and some tea biscuits to go with that.

I'm increasingly aware that I make a lot of typos. I was always such a good typist, even with one hand. Sometimes I'm comfortable with blaming it on the letters on the keyboard sticking, but other times I notice blatantly dyslexic errors. Age? Well, I am getting up there. It's difficult when you write to have to keep going back and correcting yourself. Oh well. 

November 4/24

I was supposed to post a blog entry last night but as Barliman Butterbur from Lord of the Rings used to say, One thing drives out another. We had a good day, a productive day. We started off by going to church, something we haven't done for decades. The building didn't fall down. The service was actually interesting and on a good theme. The importance of community within your community and recognizing that your neighbours may be good people also. We enjoyed the reverend's talk.

There was also some talk about outreach services the church would like to do and a few of them are similar to what my wife and I already do so a light bulb came on and gave me an idea or two. I always say that coincidence is how God protects his anonymity.

Later in the day, we went to a committee meeting and I let myself get talked into volunteering to be a guest speaker at the welcome meeting of the event. That will go alright bcause I am no stranger to public speaking. I'll just tell them the same story I always tell, except from a different perspective. It isn't until February so I'm going to forget about it for a bit.

November Again

It's been a while since I've posted something new here. I could say I've been busy and that could be true. I suppose one excuse is as good as the next. I find myself saying that to people I sponsor when they decide they want to go back out and do some research into the hypothesis that maybe they aren't really alcoholics. They often start their spiel with something in code red as we call it. They say things like, that guy really pissed me off, or it's really hard to find a parking spot around here I don't know why I come to this meeting anyway. And that's when I say one excuse is as good as the next. Give me a call when you get out of detox. I'll still be here.

I spoke today at a meeting downtown. Friend of mine had asked me to do that a  while ago and I have learned that when someone in the fellowship asks me to do something and I am able to do it, then my answer is almost always yes. I think it went well. I might even have been able to help someone get through another day and at the end of the day that's really all that matters.

This will be my daily writing. I'm supposed to write something each day and although this is not a well-crafted haiku or a gripping piece of short fiction, it is writing. Right. So I write.