I've recently celebrated my fiftieth birthday.
I'm amazed at the reflection that involved.
Huh.
Must be what people do if they don't drink away another day, huh?
They think about stuff.
I'm getting to an age
where to review this life...
takes a bit of time and sorting.
I used to be able to turn a simple birthday into a week long bender for everyone within a mile of me.
Anyhow:
I've a friend who's returned to drinking as their priority.
He's been in and out of the rooms for a couple of years now
and can never get to that third step...
which is what I couldn't do that first trip to AA back six years ago
or maybe it was seven.
Recently, he visited my house
and tried to tell me how out of control his life is becoming.
As if he couldn't understand why.
I was amazed to hear myself.
And I felt so ... detached ... while listening to him.
His inability to stop drinking ...
was not my 'fault'.
That is, far as I know -
the first time that was ever so ...
*clear* to me.
It was as clear as neon lights
he was not asking me for recovery
he was just 'running his riff'
so ...
I was not responsible.
He wasn't asking for help.
I heard myself saying something to him that
I would like to share because it's been quite thought provoking for me.
I have learned that there are many many realities
but there are only two worlds:
In one world there is hope
In the other ... there is none.
You so much as chage your mind about lunch...
and you've changed your reality.
But all those realities
can be taken down into two
and only two
worlds.
Hope.
Or No hope.
I have lived in both worlds.
I know what it's like in the world he's chosen.
I remember that world.
A cold, superficial ... shallow world
and I'm just another cold lifeless speck of sand
on the great beach of existance.
And I remember what it took for me to get out.
For existance ... is not life.
Thank GOD for the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous
and for the individuals who help me day to day to choose life.
Today -
I choose the world with hope.
Every day.
I choose.
Thanks.
Needed to share that.
