michaelg

When I was about two years sober I was looking for an extracurricular activity to add to my life. Something that would hopefully align with the more healthy and spiritual way of living which had brought me back from the brink. Tai Chi is a moving meditation and so I thought might be a good candidate. I went to a studio to give it a try and they were actually teaching Kung Fu that night. I found the particular flavor (Shaolin) and the instructor to be a bit too flowery for me. It looked and felt a bit silly and impractical in this day and age with all of its weaponry and dramatic moves. But now the Kung Fu bug had been lodged in my obsessive head. Tai Chi was quickly forgotten.

I found another instructor who taught a much more practical flavor (Wing Chun) and was quite obviously a no nonsense kind of person. I signed up for the class, but it fell on one of my meeting nights. I figured "I'm sober now, I can ditch one of my meetings, no problem". So I started skipping the meeting and practicing the forms in the mornings where I used to meditate. For a month or so I found myself much more restless, irritable and discontented. Some of my old character defects began to slowly creep back into my life. And I got the real sense I was moving backward towards a drink. Rather than forwards towards recovery. Finally the connection dawned on me and I picked up another meeting.

I observe this phenomenon occur all the time in our program. It works so well we stop doing it. People like myself will get a new job, a new girlfriend, a new hobby, a new something, and the importance of their program takes a back seat. Never did it occur to me that it was sobriety which gave me the ability to embark on this new endeavor. Without it, all else will disappear. For me, the old adage is true. Adding healthy things alongside sobriety has been great. But whatever I put in front of my sobriety will be the first thing to go.

I gave up the Kung Fu.