So I went to a Recovery Dharma meeting! It was in a room where I have also been to AA meetings! And it was similar in other ways too. There is a programme involved, with equivalents of inventories and making amends (though the higher power concept doesn’t come into play, obviously many Buddhist teachings do). With shares you took turns like at SMART (and just say ‘pass’ if you don’t want to). This followed a guided meditation.
I have to admit I’m still not sure what I even feel about meditating, let alone the various similarities and differences between programmes. Intuitively SMART makes plenty of sense to me but like I even said at this RD meeting, ‘I need more than CBT to fill this void…’ But yeah overall this Recovery Dharma thing was a nice experience, and I was one of several newcomers which rarely seems to happen at my regular AA meetings.
AA is obviously the most convenient and where I’ve made friends; I just wonder if I can deal with the highly prescriptive programme/HP thing. I need to re-read ‘Recovery’ by Russell Brand (I read it when I was in active addiction) and I’ve also heard good things about ‘Common Sense Recovery: An Atheist’s Guide to AA’ by Adam N.
One thing with AA is I relate to much of the Big Book, an alcoholic being someone with an obsession of the mind, an allergy of the body (or compulsion as I read it by today’s standards), suffering from a ‘dis-ease’ within themselves. I was actually struck by this when leaving the RD meeting, how much my problem is just me, living in my own skin, anxious to the core, something I hear a lot of at AA.
I effectively believe I was born an alcoholic, and this is quite a powerful revelation to me.
But practically speaking my life is all out of balance right now, with depression, unemployment and housing issues, so the answer of what to do next might yet become clear down the road.
As Lao Tzu asks in the Tao Te Ching (about as spiritual as I get):
Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?
I think I like the freedom of where I’m at currently, but long-term I might have no figurative home. I’ve managed to get over eight months sober through going to whatever meetings I feel like (thankfully that’s been an option in this city) and SR.
But will the time come to really get with the programme? At least one of them?! Does it even matter?!
One thing I’m pretty sure of is I need IRL support. Thanks for reading my ramblings anyway. The journey continues...