Dear Murph,

I’m back home in Virginia tonight.  My luggage, unfortunately, is not.  I assume it will arrive sometime…..who knows?  It could be sitting in Newark.  There’s not much I can do about that anyway, so I’m giving that one to you.  I’m also giving you the resentment of the day….disappointment.  I’m really letting that emotion rule my life lately.  I’m disappointed that my son kept something from me.  I’m disappointed that when I came home from Chicago, my house was a mess.  I’m disappointed that someone I love is in long term rehab because of his own choices and actions. …

I had one of those strange revelations of mind and spirit this morning. I’ve been ruminating on another break in anonymity that occurred yesterday. Maybe I’ll post about it at some point but suffice to say that it’s happened twice now by the same person. I’m not happy about it. I’m going to talk to the person who not only broke my anonymity but my wife’s and explain as plainly as I can why this isn’t a good thing.

With that rolling around in my head last night, I woke up in an out of sorts mood. I wasn’t angry as…

You’ve heard the old adage that “Opinions are like a_holes, everybody has one”. But what about those opinions that we form before we have adequate information. I’m talking preconceptions here.

I’ve done it before–judged a book by its cover, formed an opinion before I knew the facts. And with alcoholism, I’ve had preconceived notions about what the alcoholic will do or what will happen in a particular situation. It’s almost a Pavlovian response. If you experience enough chaos, disappointment, and let downs, then you come to believe that’s all you’ll ever get.

I suppose it’s only natural to think that if 99%…

When I found out about my husband’s sexual addiction, it felt like my emotional landscape faded from bright vivid color to monochrome shades of black and grey. I had three primary emotional settings: fear, anger (shading into full on rage) and heartbreaking sadness. And I’d display these by alternating between screaming, crying and sitting mute and paralyzed. My early experiences with 12 Step meetings were with partners of sex addicts who were in much the same state I was. There was a lot of anger and hurt in that musty little church room, and it was hard, as I slowly…

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about step four. One of the guys that I sponsor is working on his step four inventory.  In Al-Anon there is a work book called Blueprint for Progress that is used to help with this step which is a “searching and fearless moral inventory” to include resentments, fears, harms to others, and sexual conduct. I’ve heard that some people fear this step. When I did my Step Four, I looked forward to doing this work. I’ve been to therapists and told them my story. With Al-Anon, I think that this step was more helpful…

The topic for my home group meeting last night was dealing with unacceptable behavior. This is a topic that I struggle with often. My meter for unacceptable behavior can have a wide range. I’m dealing with an alcoholic in recovery so drunken acting out isn’t an issue. But angry outbursts and self-centeredness still occur. I can usually shrug off unacceptable behavior in the people that I love, but there are times when I simply buy into what’s going on and build a resentment. And eventually that resentment leads to anger.

I have learned to inventory my feelings. And I know that…

“I will seek to have the burden of resentments removed from my spirit”

(March 8 - Just for Today entry)

That is the quote from the NA Just for Today daily meditation book and boy do I need it today. I attended Jack D’s  20^th anniversary last night and it was awesome! Darlene S. told her story and shared a beautiful spiritual message with a standing room only crowd. After the meeting was over a new friend, Benjamin, whom I’ve been helping find a new sponsor, told me that one of the men that I had directed him to, Charlie P., had told…

I was listening to a speaker last night describe how hard it is to keep the focus on himself. He has two adult sons who are addicts. He said that it’s hard for him to keep quiet around them because he wants them to get a sponsor, work the steps and read literature, and do all the other things in order to keep them from relapsing. In short, he said that he has a hard time just keeping quiet. He wants so badly for them to stay in AA and do everything possible to stay clean.

It was an interesting discussion…

I’ve heard people say that having low expectations seems like a negative way to think.  I don’t see it that way. I have learned that an expectation is nothing more than a resentment in the making. What that means is if I expect someone to behave a certain way and they don’t, then I become resentful.

The only one I can have expectations of is myself because I am the only one I can control. I can have *hope* of certain things, but I cannot expect. I can hope my alcoholic doesn’t drink today, but I can’t expect her not to.…

“To err is human; to forgive is divine.” Alexander Pope

Last night’s meeting topic was forgiveness. It was a topic that a lot of people had different views about. Some didn’t want to forgive but get even. Several people including me talked about how working Steps 4, 5 and 9 made it easier to learn forgiveness of ourselves. And by doing that, we are able to be more accepting of the difficulties of others.

For me, I knew that the effects of my father’s drinking and my wife’s alcoholism had caused a lot of pain. But through the program, I learned that…

There are just some days that I want to start over. Today was one of those. I won’t go into specifics but suffice to say that someone I care about has been more than a little irritable lately. I had a moment today that I wanted to say, “Okay, I give up. You can do whatever you like. But just leave me alone.”

It’s my fear and resentment rising up again. There are times when I feel wronged and can’t deal with it. I want to wallow in self-pity and think about what a jerk the other person is. It’s so…

A meeting topic this week focused on guilt. It seems to be something that rises up for various reasons and can drag us down if we let it. Guilt is defined as having remorse for having done something wrong. What is important is to decide to forgive ourselves by letting go of what others have done to us. Forgiveness is where healing occurs.

I know that it’s easy to slip into the feelings of guilt. But guilt is like almost all feelings, best just felt and let go. The danger for me comes when guilt turns into shame, the feeling that…

Awareness not ammunition…Is that not the coolest quote you have ever heard? It was uttered this morning by a woman celebrating one year of sobriety. Everyone in the room jolted upright when she spit it out. She and her sponsor had made it up, she said. Rather than dwelling on the past, she explained, this quote reminds her to look back on it briefly and introspectively. Powerful. I get it.

I get it, but I haven’t always done it. Perhaps that’s why the thought resonated so strongly with me. If I stay too long in my rear view mirror, this is…

My sponsor and I talked about guilt last night. It seems that I have an over abundance of that, even when I’ve nothing to feel guilty about. I have gotten better since being in the program but the guilt beast is still lurking in me, ready to challenge peace and happiness at a moment’s notice.

Another big thing for me is self-criticism. So if someone finds out that I am harsh on myself or have that streak of integrity that means I want to do the “right” thing, then it’s likely that I will cough up what ever it is you’re…

Al-Anon has lots of slogans that help you to focus on working the program. One of my favorites is, “How important is it?”. When I think about the years that I spent worrying, being anxious and busting a gasket over insignificant crap, I know now that none of it was really important. In the grand scheme of life, there aren’t a lot of things that are really worth personal turmoil. The amount of energy that I wasted on criticism both of self and others, resentment, and a lot of other baggage never enhanced my life or anyone else’s. Instead, I…