« I got a new photo gallery | Main | Drama »
June 14, 2004
*waving white flag*
Gosh, I feel sorta like Doogie Howser writing every night before I go to bed. Hah. Except I'm not a 14 year old doctor ;-)
My sunburned ass was drug to Homo Depot tonight to pick out flowers for a friend's patio. It was actually sorta fun, and I saw a ton of
href="http://www.scotts.com/" target=_blank>Scotts and
href="http://www.miraclegro.com/" target=_blank>Miracle-Gro products, which is cool, since I work on their websites and rarely see the actual product. We picked up some plants and then went off to a meeting in St. Paul.
It was a really cool meeting. Huge barbecue in the backyard of a house near the
href="http://www.hazelden.org/servlet/hazelden/cms/ptt/hazl_255025_shade.html?sf=t&sh=t&page_id=26438"
target=_blank>Fellowship Club. Lots of newbies there like myself, but they were all very cool. A buddy I've met in the program, Jay, was the evening's leader. It was his duty to run the meeting and then present the topic. It was then an open forum for whoever wanted to speak on the topic. Jay picked
surrender as a topic - which I thought was a great topic, though I've heard it picked as a topic two other times, it's always a good subject.
In fact, the first time I saw
target=_blank>Jim, he was the topic presenter at the Friday night
href="http://www.pride-institute.com/" target=_blank>Pride meeting. He also picked surrender as a topic.
Anyhow, surrender for me has meant a lot of things. The first time I
surrendered was when I admitted that I needed to go to treatment, that things weren't going the way they should be, that I couldn't do it alone. I've surrendered in other ways since, and continue to surrender every day.
Many people said a lot of good things tonight. Some of the things I got out of the meeting...
- Surrender means giving up control. Since I can't control my alcoholism I have to give into it. If I admit to my powerlessness over booze, I gain the power to live my life. As people were speaking on this topic, I found myself wondering if people who 'go back out' think that they can control their addiction now. Have they given up surrendering? I guess that's what it means to me.
- Surrender means action. This is one I'm still working on, and will probably continue to work on forever. To me it means to do what people tell me to do. Not fighting to be in control. To go with the flow and take action.
href="http://www.andiamsomebody.com/jim" target=_blank>Jim told me that I have to call at least three people in the program each day. I've struggled with this, but am happy to report that I called five today! Yeah, me! I wonder if that means I only have to call one tomorrow? - Surrender means living God/Higher Power's will, not your own. And this one I know I'll be working on until the day I die, though it's probably the most important aspect of surrender.
One man spoke about the purpose of the program all boiled down to serving God and others. He said to check out page 77 in the Big Book. Hmph, I just checked out page 77 and I fear that I don't understand it. It seems to be talking about Step 9 work, making amends with those we've hurt in the past. It says not to present ourselves as doing spiritual work, so as not to be labeled as fanatics. I don't get it. Anyhow, I do see the value in service work - I truly believe
that it is probably necessary to stay sober. I guess I had better get
busy.
Posted by SparklesMpls at June 14, 2004 06:48 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.betablogs.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/323.