Quoc’s Web Journal

9,736

So I am visiting with my family down in Bellflower right now… Being away from home in West Hollywood; I sit free from all the distractions of bills, paper clutter, household chores, and just simply being in the midst of the energy and ambience of AA, my crazy head, etc…  Suffice it to say, it’s nice to be away…

The aroma of delicious tangy fish sauce mixed with hot grease deep frying freshly wrapped egg rolls permeates the whole household… It’s chilly outdoors, but all the cooking and warm bodies are creating such a warm and wonderfully nurturing vibe…  I guess this is still the household I’ve grown up in since 1979…  One can’t help but feel at home…

So, let’s just check in and catch you up with some of the things that I can think of in the past month and change that I haven’t blogged…  I know that I won’t remember everything that has happened…  I have made little notes on a weekly basis on lessons learned an inspirational messages I have heard with each passing day…  

- I start with the title of this blog I heard from an old timer share at a meeting…  He prefaced his share by asking himself… “What don’t I want to tell you?”  I thought that was so cool because as an alcoholic, one is reticent to share honestly about what is “really going on” for fear of judgement and rejection from others…  I have been getting into great practice of moving closer and closer to sharing honestly quickly after an experience that I feel is shameful, embarrassing or isn’t positive and not full of mistakes…

- I am sober 5 months and 2 weeks one day at a time…  These past few months have been very cool in the lessons I have learned…  Thankfully it has been happening in periods of time where there are themes for lessons learned for me…  It’s very very cool as I need that period of time to learn and practice making mistakes and get to explore all the different aspects of each themed lesson…  ”So, come on Quoc!!! Let’s get to telling us some of those themes that you are talking about…”

- The theme that has been going on for the past month has been “miscommunication” with other people… It happens whether one communicates clearly with one person or another…  Miscommunication and assumptions are going to be made…  In the past months, I have allowed myself to be very very very vulnerable around people… I have brought them within arms length and have taken chances letting people know exactly what my thoughts and feelings are…  In the process, I have made a few very very close friends!  I call them my fantastic four friends!  I am so grateful for them…  I of course have a couple friends who have been close to me for years…

In the past weeks, I have watched my best friend from work place our friendship on hold as a result of our need to prioritize our professional relationship over our friendship.  It’s been hard since I have been sharing closely about my personal issues and highlights with this co-workers and all of a sudden need to place a pause button on this part of the relationship so that I may maintain the integrity of my job and my professional relationship with my co-worker…  Sigh…

In the past weeks, I have been able to call someone my best friend in recovery…  Literally within a few days, I have been learning that there will be bobbles even in the best of situations when things come up… So, I had a different understanding of what the plan for celebrating new year’s eve from my best friend.  That lead to some hurt feelings… To make matters worse, I had made last minute plans to see Wicked with my roomie friend the day after when my best friend and I had made some “tentative” plans to go to a meeting together.  I made a decision to get to go see a show that is going away soon over a meeting with a friend who would be there in a few weeks.  My best friend took that personally and that lead to our not calling each other for 3 days because of assumptions we had of the other…. Sigh!!!  This brought back major feelings from when I was mad at Mom for doing nothing wrong, but I felt she did do something wrong and expect her to apologize for us to reconcile our relationship…. I felt like my Mom and decided to extend the olive branch and apologize for any harm done eventhough there was no harm meant.

I had a couple other bobbles where I did some things like cover a friend who was asleep to keep him warmer and also to bring out apple cider for a new year’s eve celebration with a friend only for that to literally fall to pieces!!!  I can’t share more information to protect the current friendships I have with those around me.

Sigh… All of a sudden I felt like Charlie Brown who despite his best efforts and intentions ended up harming other people and lost a couple friends in a very short time…  Very very scary for someone who has taken the courageous step in getting close to others and allowing close to me.  Sigh again… I am glad I have learned lots and lots in that time…

I have had lots of fun and have had great opportunities to help other people and be a great example of a brother, friend, employee and sober member of recovery.  I have also had lots of sad and painful moments that I got to walk through with friends…  I have had opportunities to embrace and other opportunities to be embraced.

- I got a new blackberry pearl smart phone which is supposed to have made life easier for me…  Instead, it has created more problems compounded up more problems in the past couple months… In a nutshell, I have had to learn how to type on a completely different configured qwerty board, need to replace a defective phone within a couple months and actually as of yesterday, was just informed that I need to replace yet another defective phone…  The phone has been randomly deleting my text message log as well as all of my phone logs… Worse, immediately after deleting my logs, it stops receiving incoming messages until I reset the phone by taking the battery out of the back and starting the phone back up again… I have seen over 10 Best Buy Representatives, 1 Blackberry Rep and made over half a dozen phone calls…. I have spent a total of no less than 10 -12 hours total invested trying to get everything going… Sigh…  I think the outcome is that I will be switching over to a brand new Blackberry Curve!  Argh…  

- I have been praying for an opportunity to learn how to be intimate with people in a healthy fashion…  Allow me to qualify that I want to learn intimacy with men… So, thankfully, God has been watching after me and has allowed me to learn this piece meal…  So, God gave me a guy who is staying with me that I treat like a brother…  He has taught me to co-exist with another person and learn to compromise when sharing a space and also setting healthy boundaries and communicating directly.  God has given me 4 fantastic guy friends who have offered me friendship, hugs, and laughter and fellowship satisfying that need to feel like I belong validated and just a necessary, wanted, appreciate and welcome.  I am learning lots and lots about relationships with others… I also have someone I am flirting with and chatting on-line on googlechat; this person resides in China…  He’s fulfilled that part of me that wants to hear validation about feeling sexy and romantically desired.  Practically all of the areas that I need in a relationship with man has been satisfied from this group of people.  It’s very very cool!

- Lastly on the recovery front… I must say that I have been immensely blessed to have an amazing sponsor who has been working with me and giving me perspective on how I perceive life; how I have been perceiving and living; how I have brought those into my present life and how I can change so that things no longer have to be repeated over and over again expecting the results to be different…  Change has happened so much in my life.. In the words of my friend, I am a completely different person…  Other people around me who have known me for awhile are noticing the changes and they are a bit shocked and confused as to what has come over me…  Unfortunately, I can’t tell them as a result of my doing the stepwork I am becoming less people pleasing, dishonest, gossiping, and immature… I have been setting healthier boundaries, more direct and honest, more consistent with others and much more mature in how I carry myself.

I will complete tonight’s thoughts by sharing the best highlight… I have been going consistently to 2 big book studies as well as working with a sponsor who is walking me page by page and paragraph by paragraph through the big book and making it more personalized to my own life… I see the parallels from Big Book to my life!  In the last week, in reading the big book by myself and attending these meetings, I had an epiphany!  The Big Book finally came to life for me… It no longer is a text book filled with unfamiliar words and concepts… Rather, what I see is a more complete picture of what AA is and how it indeed is a reflection of what it was like in my life; what changes continued to happen and will happen for me as well as the potential in the future for improvement in my life…  THIS IS AMAZING!!!

I will complete my thoughts perhaps on Sunday…  Right now, I sit here blogging as my family and friends play Master Detective (it’s like boardgame of Clue on steroids)…  We’re filled up on delicious freshly deep fried eggrolls and wonderful seared pork marinated in lemon grass, garlic and fish sauce and soy sauce…  It’s all tender, fragrant, sumptuous rich and most delicious!!!  This home is full of life, love, and warmth that a loving gathering of family and friends should look like…

I am in heaven right now as I type… How can I find time to blog when there is so much life to be lived… Sigh…

Much gratitude,

Quoc

PS – I am on facebook now… I will keep you folks posted as soon as I get it up to speed and with pictures!

Hello family & friends!!!

I hope this everyone had wonderful holidays and had a safe and wonderful time bidding farewell to 2008 in welcoming in 2009 with resolve and anticipation of great change for the better!  I am sure you all have noticed that I have not been blogging…  I only thing I an attributing this to is great efforts in taking stenuous, vigorous and consistent action in working towards becoming an even better man than what you folks already see me to be…  Life is going incredibly well!!!  I’ve learned so much since recommitting to sobriety…  I have 5 months and 2 weeks clean and sober today!  I have been working very very hard! 

With that being said, I miss seeing many faces and would like to plan a gathering to see everyone and enjoy a show at the same time!  At least I am gonna try my darndest…  Here is an invite to that event… Feel free to invite your friends to join my friends and family in fellowship:

Are you curious about why I do what I do so passionately for the past 6+ years being in recovery?  Do you ever wonder how Alcoholics Anonymous and all the ensuing 12 step programs all got started?  Well, here is an opportunity to see the Big Book of Alcholics Anonymous come to life on stage in a live performance!!!  See how AA was born and get some of your questions as to the method behind our madness of cliches, meetings, service work, and of course the stepwork that all brings us to a deep and meaningful relationship with spirituality!  I watched this show a couple times already and can’t get enough!  This show is perfect for those in AA and those NOT in AA!!!  It’s great for everyone!
 
I have miss holding another big gathering of friends and family; the last one was at my birthday party back in August 2008!  I am trying to be creative in finding a venue that is fun to do; meaningful and enriching to our lives and also gives us a reason to come together, hug and catch up!  My friend Johnny and I are planning on a group gathering of all our friends and family to fill up the theater on Sunday afternoon at 3:00P on January 25, 2009.  It’s a small theater and I think it would be incredibly amazing to fill it up with all our friends and have a great afternoon spent together to enjoy this very very cool show!!!  Feel free to forward this e-mail to all parties that you feel could benefit from this!
 
Here is the 50% discount ticket link for the Bill W & Dr. Bob Show at the 68 Cent Crew Theater on Sunset & Western.  The only shows left for $12.50 (plus $3.50 handling):
 
Sunday, January 4, at 3P or Sunday, January 25 at 3P.
 
There are other shows that are available, however, the tickets will be full price at $25.00 instead of the $12.50/person (plus any service charge/handling fee).  When buying the tickets, please enter promotional code: 008; it’s important you do this in order to get the discount!
 
https://www.plays411.net/newsite/discount/play_discounttix.asp?show_id=1736
 
Those interested in going to any other showing of Bill W and Dr. Bob may go to the direct website for 68 Cent Crew Theater itself for more information:
 
http://www.68centcrew.com/
 
We have tickets for the Sunday, January 25 showing because we’s poor!!!  $12.50 sounds a lot better than $25.00!!!  But believe you me, it’s worth seeing even at $25!!!
 
Let us know if you are planning on going to join us at the Sunday showing as we already have our tickets and definitely going.  Looking forward to seeing y’all at 3:00P on Sunday, January 25!!!
 
AGAIN, FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS!  IT WOULD BE COOL TO SEE A SMALL THEATER FILL 100% WITH PEOPLE WE KNOW!  WE WILL BE CRYING, LAUGHING AND BE LIFTED TO ANOTHER SPIRITUAL LEVEL… TOGETHER…
 
Yours in love & service,
–
Quoc
e-mail: quoclam@gmail.com