Getting Back to the Green Line
daily gratitude list 8.22.22 Audio Enhanced!
I’m grateful for the rain shower that’s drifting in on the river. I’m grateful for people who make me smile. I’m grateful for excursions and adventures. I’m grateful for seeing there is always something to learn. I’m grateful I can make myself laugh and I’m grateful that I do. I’m grateful for friends who don’t need explanations. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Perhaps we have created a monster. Reading things aloud definitely adds a dimension. I saw this the other day and it got me very excited:
I know someone who is 100% going to attend and will hopefully get a shot at reading something.1 I tell you this, because this, to the old me, would be completely inconceivable. I’ve wanted to write my entire life and have been. What I lacked was the confidence in myself and the courage to share what I wrote with others. I lacked the courage to share myself with others. Ka-boom, there’s a gift of sobriety right there for you.
I keep coming back to something that Tommy, “Your Sponsor” says, which is that getting sober is the process of discovering and then leading the life you were meant to.2 I was talking about this with a friend and actually drew a diagram:3
The green line represents the life I was meant to lead and the red is my life drinking—notice the downward trend. The blue shaded area, the “Delta,” is the part that must be anesthetized. This does represent part of my working theory of alcoholism, that we sense that Delta growing and that when we finally get as far away from the life were meant to lead as we can, that’s when we hit bottom. The bottom is the maximum distance from the life you were meant to lead.
When I was leading a life I wasn’t meant to, I was filled with anxiety and dread. I was ruled by the feeling that I was going to lose all of it, unless I worked really, really hard to hang onto it. The growing resentment and distress fueled my drinking and created a classic vicious circle that widened into a horrifying downward spiral.
When I finally managed to stop drinking and worked the Program, well, I started to get back to the green line. One funny thing about living life along the green line, I don’t worry so much. I don’t have the sense of impending doom that I used to live with and that I used to have to drink away. I wrote in a recent gratitude list about the roiling I used to feel—that roiling was the fear of losing things. I’ve realized now, the things that provoked that roiling feeling, the feeling that I had to go to any lengths to preserve what I had, that’s because I wasn’t meant to have those things. And the task became letting go of the things not meant for me as gracefully as I could.
The old me would never have contemplated sharing a story I wrote with an audience of strangers. The new me took a screenshot and put it on my calendar.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
It’s first come, first served and you know I’m good at showing up early.
My version is substantially shorter.
No one ever said I was good at drawing. Also, this is free
Have fun at story night! You’ll have to let me know how it goes.
Awesome! When I submitted a piece to read at The Listen to Your Mother Show, I was petrified. I love speaking to small gatherings of people, but standing in front of a crowd is not my thing. In the end, it was such a great experience! Good luck to you--would love to see the video if you share.
(Excuse me while I go figure out how to find those willing to participate in Story Night in the Deep South...)