BEAUTY
AND
THE BEAST
Alas! The regret I had in never experiencing a blackout. "Pass-outs", yes, hundreds of those beauties. But there I was, in AA rooms, listening with childlike envy to the tales of those who got to enjoy life for a day, or days--or even just a few hours now and then--in a world somewhere other than this globe-like ball of dirt and water we call Earth.
This morning we read the story "The Vicious Cycle" in Big book, p 225, about this guy who went to a morning movie in NY, and when he left many hours later (he had spent the day, drinking in the darkness) he picked up a newspaper, and read that he had been picked up by ambulance, taken to the hospital and had his stomach pumped out during mid day--and DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT. He wound up in the movie house again, thinking that he'd he'd been there all day.
Now, I call that a "blackout"! Thank god I could finally recall some life-time lost By me. And now I can proudly announce my own "blackout daze". But I don't! Except here with my friends....
After about ten years dry, my sponsor-of-the-day asked me to write some of my life. So I began with 1956, '57, and '58, and all was proceeding well. A funny thing happened though...I could not remember anything during the years 1959 and 1960. Simply could not recall if I had been working or where I lived. I didn't know if I had been married or not, nor to whom, since I was never without a companion...well, you know. Fourteen years after that, I did become drink-and-drug-free...sober!
Life is certainly different now. I can freely live, freely give. I have found a "way out" from despair, from hopelessness. I can think of someone other than ME! I can love.
I know what is is to be an "outsider--it hurts deeply, I can tell you that. I can feel sadness and pain. I can experience happiness, gratitude, and know what "how it works" to spread good cheer wherever I go. I try to do that today.
But right now it is 5 AM--been up all night--and I've just GOT to finish these doggone tax forms. They were due April 15, so a six-month extension brought me to October 15. That is NOW! At least I know that procrastination is NOT one of my character defects...it is simply my whole life approach! Oh well, (sigh)!
But I love my Peeps, and wish you all peaceful soberness today. And me, too--I'll stay sober today, OK?
