things social – Trezvennost II

shadowed star

He is a shadowed star child

He is the pale light piercing atmosphere

Looking for life to care for him

Breathing poisoned air

When the womb wants him no longer.

Time comes when bones bend bizarre

And mind goes sideways

His living becomes torture to others

Caring smiles turns to sardonic grins

Helping hands grow short and cold.

He is no longer life cherished in their heads

But a strange alien not belonging to living

Once wanted color becomes a burden

Desired touch retreats beyond horizon.

His breath is shortened with time

Yet his light not all gone

Once extinguished, energy come back

In another field, another womb.

He keeps reappearing,

Broken body and mangled mind

Reborn until we understand

His spirit keeps looking for care unconditional.

the image was copied from https://phys.org/news/2014-09-cosmic-dark-clouds-sunshine.html and shadow-mangled by me. thank you.

Combined Factors of Pouring Light

I suppose there cannot be true recovery and progress without gratitude for what have happened outside of one’s personal efforts. Changes roll along the horizon and the wind of difference blows in many ways that are sometimes in alignment of what we hope for, and sometimes not.

I was lucky. When I came to an AA meeting 16 years back, I had no idea what to expect, and yet the wind did blow in alignment to what my tortured mind and spirit were calling for. I kept revisiting the meeting and kept listening and sharing. The social factor united with the spiritual worked wonders for my recovery. Combination of all the right things, even though sometimes looking scary and not something I wanted to do the work in, brought me to the places where I felt and home and had support I never hoped for.

I still look back once in a while and think “Hell, I haven’t really did much, have I?” The Steps work was not like a coal mine work. It was a cozy time with a book and a conversation with a person who walked in my shoes. But it was still hard at times, because I had to look deep inside at things I said and did, things that were not nice, things I wasn’t proud of, and some that I was ashamed of. Strength with which I addressed those issues and confusions paid for success in continued abstinence and more joyful living, enjoying sobriety.

How? I had poured those efforts and hopes into the recovery that I believed in, and what came out, as reflected light, with the support of the AA community and the spirit of healing was a light of ten-fold strength. That thought kind of lived with me for years, but I’ve never put into words until recently I looked up yet again at the Pink Floyd poster in my room and realized that the “Dark Side of the Moon” cover art reflected those thoughts exactly. The Promises of AA worked for me so greatly. I’ve received in sobriety so much more than I’ve put in.

Thank you again, Dave T., fellow in recovery, who gifted me that poster and thank you to those that supported me all these years. It is my thinking of you and I, that keeps me together. May we all last joyous and free in mind, body, and spirit!

———–

the image was copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon and sand-blasted by me. there is also some interesting info on that page how the artwork came about. thank ya!

Allowing the Learning

I know the Force may be with me, but I think it is important to let it be with me. In other words, I need to allow myself to accept change, just as allowing myself to learn of it, or the lessons that come my way.

Over 15 years ago, I saw the signs that there were negative events happening in my life regarding alcohol consumption, and yet I’ve chosen to disregard them until they stared me right in the face.

I had to make myself teachable in order to learn. I could’ve been taught by the most brilliant minds, and still receive nothing. So often when been talked to as a kid and youth, I blocked it all, staring into the space of the floor. Why? Perhaps I knew not how to react, how to say what I was really thinking. Perhaps there was pride involved. Perhaps I didn’t understand why I wouldn’t be just left alone in serenity of my own devices. The point is, I blocked what was said, and made the people who were trying to break out to me disgruntled.

Disgruntlement kept blooming where I went from there on, and sometimes I had no idea I’ve caused it. Also very important, I wasn’t learning, be it from school classes, or people, or environment. Thus, naturally, I kept making mistakes, usually the same ones.

It took dire circumstance such as realization of being enslaved by alcoholism and asking strangers of AA for help to allow myself to learn. I had to recognize personal mental deterioration to invite positive change. I had to allow myself to learn to get better, because, again, no success of recovery could be instilled if I refused accepting help.

From the day of my allowing myself to accept change, my life started to spring in positive direction. So far it has been 16 years of it, and many things were accomplished, mostly because learning from the initial experience of acceptance, I’ve practiced embracing openness to change on a daily basis, whether I liked it or not. When you ask the cosmos for assistance or somewhat re-assurance, you recognize personal vulnerability and become open to suggestion. Among other things, it’s called a prayer. I prayed a lot in the last decade and a half, simply because there were so many things out of my control, and because by then time I knew of my powerlessness AND accepted that vulnerability was not always being a negative thing.

Let the Force be with you. Allow it.

the image was copied from https://giphy.com/explore/may-the-force-be-with-you. thank you.

Subjectively Generalized

Somebody in the meeting long time back said something meaningful about sobered up folks reuniting families, adding “There must be something seriously wrong with you if the sound of kids playing and laughing doesn’t make you happy.” No matter how much strong and connected I felt that morning prior and through half of the meeting, I somehow managed to find myself thrown to the side of the road by those words, coming out of the mouth of the person I respected a lot. I don’t like the sounds of kids running around shrieking. Call me weird, I don’t mind. That’s how I feel. No big deal for me. No big deal for me to consider there is something really wrong with me, either. But there are others. They may feel inferior in that room designed for care. I tried to get over my “thinking too much” which I know I do have… and I couldn’t, because generalizations stink. I hear them a lot.

“We all know,” they say. They like saying that. Maybe there is a desire to be part of it all. Maybe there is a need to think you know more than you know you know. At any rate, it doesn’t help.

When someone says something in the vein of “everybody does it” or “you all know”, it has a potential to be a thorn in someone’s side. Maybe it’s just me… but maybe not? The only time it does speak the truth about us the everybody, is when that song on the radio comes up, singing “everybody hurts.” That I cannot argue with.

Yet the rest of them generalizations and maxims, such as “never” and “always”, they don’t help, because we are all different, and some of us don’t have others’ experience and they can and do feel inferior to the rest. Words can single people out more than actions.

Nothing is absolute in this world. Subjective statements are not cool when imposed on others. Let’s try not to do that to each other, especially in the meetings. I assume we are all there to heal and connect, not break away, hmm?

[the image of deer Algiz, the rune of protection, health and spiritual connection, was copied from https://society6.com/product/algiz-rune-and-deer-in-silver_print. thank you.]

Shark-swim Life

Inspired by a conversation between the characters in the LA’s Finest series I have recently watched, I began thinking of the phenomenon of ever-moving sharks.

Modern mythology suggests that sharks don’t sleep, that they have to move all the time in order to breathe and therefore stay alive. Contrary to that, says Don Vaughan in the article Do Sharks Sleep? while “many types of sharks must keep moving in order to receive life-giving oxygen from the water passing through their gills… some types of sharks are able to remain stationary because they possess special structures called spiracles, which force water through their gills. Some sharks use both spiracles and buccal pumping… in which water is pulled in through the mouth and forced out through the gills by the cheek muscles… Whatever method they use to breathe, sharks are able to engage in periods of deep rest while still but do not fall asleep in the traditional sense. Lacking eyelids, their eyes remain perpetually open, and their pupils still monitor the motion of creatures swimming around them. Sharks that are able to rest while stationary include the whitetip reef shark, the Caribbean reef shark, the nurse shark, the wobbegong, and the lemon shark.”

So, the mythology is wrong, but I will go with the wisdom of the myth anyway, because I am looking into metaphorical sense of the shark example. In order to stay sober in body, I need to be like the ever-swimming shark (without hunting and attacking humans, OK?). I must not stop doing right things and keep myself busy if I want to continue to breathe recovery.

Since the beginning of my sobriety, I was attending AA meetings, and shared, and listened. I did the Twelve Steps, as it was recommended. I chaired meetings a few times. I did service for the home group as putting up chairs and making coffee. I went to recovery houses and detox centres and shared the way of AA with people in treatment. I wrote my personal blog about recovery for over ten years.

I’m not boasting. I have listed here things that I think anyone can do. They are not difficult activities to take action in. The best thing to do is practice these things on a regular basis. It is harder to do these things, perhaps, in the events of the last 365 days when many places are shut down or don’t allow visitors, but there are still Zoom meetings and as I attend those, I am still blogging and connect with recovery through my writing.

On regular basis. I am not saying going to meetings 24/7 (although some people do, and for years). You still have to go to work and spend time with your family, and what not. Yet I keep in mind that I need to be like a shark, constantly moving, being involved in recovery, because to me it is a full-time job – my health and sanity. This is priority.

(image was copied from https://www.nrdc.org/experts/elizabeth-murdock/more-vulnerable-vicious-sharks-need-cites-protection thanks.)

times

There are times when one comes close to doubt reality.

Times when one starts seriously pondering the existence of time beyond the obvious existence of time as in nature of seasons changing.

Times when death doesn’t seem to be much different than life; when death seems to be not just continuation of life after the moment of physical demise of bodily processes, but a constant process that is following life as a being breathes each moment.

Times when the necessity to keep going and doing things different to survival of one’s body and mind is meaningless, for all effort is vain considering the eventual bane of physical life.

Times when even survival of one’s body and mind makes no sense anymore considering eventual and absolute bane of physical life.

Times when breathing is the only thing that seems to be real, for nothing else seems to matter.

Those are the times when I say to myself that wondering about reality of things is what is going to drive me up the wall sooner than I’d know, and persistence of marching through the day today counts as a good reminder of a good effort tomorrow and I have to keep going forward one step at a time because what the fuck else am I going to do today?!

[the image is the segment of the painting by Salvador Dali “Persistence of Memory” 1931 copied from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79018%5D