My Checklist, Not Yours

Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness.   12x12, p. 67

Sometimes I don't realize that I gossiped about someone until the end of the day, when I take an inventory of the day's activities, and then, my gossiping appears like a blemish in my beautiful day. How could I have said something like that? Gossip shows its ugly head during a coffee break or lunch with business associates, or I may gossip during the evening, when I'm tired from the day's activities, and feel justified in bolstering my ego at the expense of someone else.

Character defects like gossip sneak into my life when I am not making a constant effort to work the Twelve Steps of recovery. I need to remind myself that my uniqueness is the blessing of my being, and that applies equally to everyone who crosses my path in life's journey. Today the only inventory I need to take is my own. I'll leave judgment of others to the Final Judge — Divine Providence.

Daily Reflections, October 15^th

Prior to recovery, I had few close relationships at any given time.  Even until recently in recovery, I had a larger but still limited circle of friends that I usually met with one person at a time.  In the last year, it has become abundantly clear to me that I need more people in my life for reasons of sobriety, health and happiness.

Part of this relationship stuff for me is learning how to talk with my people when I am disturb by an interaction with some other person.  I know I need to talk about it.  My lies of omission were a big part of my 2012 months-long relapse.  I want to never  repeat that experience.

Writing my Gratitude blog is an exercise in learning discretion when I write about my struggles with others.  As best I can figure, I have to practice talking about my problems to become skilled in keeping the focus on myself while not keeping my secrets.  One AA cliché is that I am only as sick as my secrets.  I don’t want to be sick anymore.  Another cliché is pain is mandatory, misery is optional.

It has taken a lot of pain to make this progress.  It could be a lot worse, most alcoholics never get this far.  There is a lot of room for compassion for the younger me that became so shut down as a self-defense mechanism instead of being loved and supported to develop a large social network from an early age.  Wow, that was messed-up job of parenting that taught me to avoid making friends.

I am grateful for the progress I am making in having a bigger and closer support group.   It is more complicated and a lot better than how it used to be.