Quoc’s Web Journal

11,042

It’s terribly important for me to blog tonight to remember how I am able to get some relief from my bad attitude or what I’d like to coin it “baditude” as a result of staying sober one more day and see and hear the miracle come true with solution!!!  As you folks have been reading, my life has been riddled with challenges as of late…  Challenges that I don’t quite know how to handle…  I have experienced a lot of angst, anxiety, anger, resentment and feel placed in the position of a victim…  I have responded with vengeful, vindictive, arrogant, and judgemental thoughts of those I feel are perpetrators!

Thankfully, I have been able to share and share and share about it and get out of self by reaching out and being of service to others by just calling them!  Well, tonight, I took time to call a couple very important people…  The first one was my sponsor to check in with him as I haven’t spoken with him on the phone for quite a spell!  I got to catch him all up with the drama of my life what with J***, my boss at work, and Sean contacting me…  Argh…  I heard extend love and tolerance without compromising healthy boundaries and enabling others and co-signing their insane behavior…  I felt so much better having checked in with him.

I made a phone call to my last sponsor just to say hello to him and send him love.  I did just that and asked him how he was doing and how work is going and life in general…  Of course my last sponsor with all his wisdom shared some very very powerful experiences and framed it in such a way that I was able to apply it and see the similarities within the scope of my life and how I can take his solution and graft it onto the resentful, angry and hurt wounds on me…

Here is a summary of what he shared that literally transformed me from baditude to GRATITUDE deep to the core!  He just started sharing about how work is going and how the place that “hired” him had totally taken advantage of him and played him…  As he shared, I became angry for him and was baffled at how calm he was about the situation.  I asked him how he was able to remain so calm considering what they did to him.

He eloquently framed that they didn’t do anything to him; rather they did something to really lose the skills and services of an incredible person!  That what their actions are really none of his business.  WOW!!!  I was still baffled and answered honestly about hearing his serenity but not quite understanding that he was in every right to feel angry and resentful.

He shared that about the very traditions of the program of recovery… One of which is that our primary purpose is to stay sober and to carry the message and be of service!  He followed by imparting the tradition that this is a program of attraction, not promotion…  With that being said, he imparted with me how attractive would it have been for him to act out and be immature, vengeful, unforgiving and merciless to them.  It not only removes one personal serenity, but it further aggravates the situation rather than trust that these sorts of actions by other parties that are not spiritually fit will eventually catch up with them.  It’s not our hook they need be concerned with being let off of; it truly is understanding it’s getting let off God’s hook based on their actions depending on how selfish and harming they were!

He shared an anecdote with me that left me watery eyed with emotion to drive yet another moral to this story and provides me with more solution and serenity with my current dilemma… He shared about hearing a speaker earlier in the week who once had over a couple decades sober and relapsed and had come back clean and sober a few years again.  This person with a few years sober shared about how proud he was of his teenage son coming into recovery and having just a few months clean and sober and pulling his life together and going into college and just really making the father proud…  A few days later, his son was in a car accident where he was hit by another car head on!  The son was rushed to the hospital where he may die or worse yet experience brain damage if not needing to go through extensive physical rehabilitation and may not ever be fully recovered.  His son had everything going for him and just out of the blue, some horrific event like this happened out of nowhere!

The moral of the story is to be mindful of how fragile and short life is and can be.  Knowing this TRUTH, am I mindful of how I spend my time…  Am I spending my hours and days obsessing over the troubles that others like my boss or J*** create and cause in harming themselves?  Sure, I have been impacted and I have no control over that.  What I do have control over is how much time I am willing to let it reside with me mentally and emotionally.  In spending my time obsessing about the problem and negativity, I am dishonoring yet another important tool that the big book of AA imparts on page 96… That the hours I squander on negativity and on people that I cannot help or will not accept my help, I may miss out on a precious opportunity to help and be of service to someone who is desperately ready, eagerly willing and urgently ready to receive the first aid I have to offer…  By the way, this person may be just right in front of me or right under my nose and I may not realize or notice them and overlook them because I am unwilling to let go of my powerlessness over changing people, places and their self manifested misery and problems!!!  I don’t need to wallow in the misery of others when I have done the work to clean up my side of the street and maintain a clean street!

I get to see pray for their best interest and continue to show up and be of service to those who are open to receiving the service and love I have to offer.  I get to let go of those who continue to harbor negativity and act on unhealthy and spiritually poisonous intentions!  It’s possible to co-exist with others who are unhealthy and not allow their negativity to be my negativity!!!  It’s not mine to have unless I allow it in and invite it in.  I don’t get to be meanspirited, vengeful and hateful and arrogant and feel better than because I work a spiritual program that demonstrates gratitude for the serenity that I have been graced with.

I get to demonstrate my respect for the disease of alcoholism and gratitude for such a powerful support group by doing the following:

- suiting up and showing up and being of service to those who want it!

- going to meetings daily (work & health permitting)

- doing stepwork

- praying and asking for God’s help, then relax and let God handle the results… I get to continue doing the work

- NOT DWELLING ON ISSUES THAT need not my attention!!!  A lot of the times, the problem goes away if I just don’t pay it any attention.  I don’t have to force it out or away as by forcing it, I am creating stronger roots for the problem to dig deeper into my mind!  In order to let it go, I must surrender it up to God!

- reaching out and asking for help and sharing honestly about what is going on; immediately followed by strenuous, constant and painstaking effort in reaching out to others and being of service!

- staying sober just for today and not worry about whether I will tomorrow…  What I get is today, right now…  What I get to worry about it today and right now and what I am doing right now to stay serene and sober!

My last sponsor concluded after I shared that by this job not coming through means that something better must be in store for him… His response… OR NOT!  He is accepting of the possibility that this was just a crappy situation he went through because other people are spiritually sick and him being impacted had nothing to do with him inviting it in.. He just happen to be caught up in the wake of it… He can continue swimming and fighting the wake, or just let it pass and remember that his primary purpose is to stay sober and to carry the message of love, tolerance, compassion, mercy, patience and utter service to others!  I get to practice modeling a program of attraction rather than one of promotion and trying to control and force others how to act or make decisions on.  Lastly, regardless of how the others person is acting, IT’S THEIR BUSINESS and when I choose to partake in it to any degree, I am being MEDDLESOME!!!

I get to butt out and stayon my side of the street!!!  So, in this given moment and with the understanding that life in incredibly short and fragile, where am I placing my attention and focus on?  The problems and woes and trials and tribulations of my life?  Or am I focusing the lions share on gratitude, optimism, a spirit of curiosity openness to new experiences and how wonderful this is a learning experience and opportunity TO DEMONSTRATE GOD’S GREATNESS IN WALKING THROUGH TROUBLING TIMES WITH COURAGE AND FAITH!

Cheers,

Quoc

PS – In my daily interactions with others, am I asking myself what do I stand to get and take from this person place or situation or am I asking HOW CAN I BE OF SERVICE, GIVE AND CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PERSON, PLACE OR SITUATION?  Each decision will determine the level of sobriety I currently stand in… Understanding that I cannot strive and outgrow being “human.”  I get to extend to myself that which I so generously extend to others!