I’m grateful for having the chance to pause and think about where I am with AA thanks to a speaking commitment I have today. I’m grateful to be on track with the ways I want to evolve my sobriety in the coming months. I’m grateful for my latest grocery haul and having the financial means to include items to treat myself. I’m grateful for hearing someone who I’ve known since the beginning of my journey share about where he’s at on the eve of his anniversary. I’m grateful for being reminded about how my alcoholic thinking long predates my first drink. I’m grateful for how my mind responds positively when I have a clear framework to riff off of. I’m grateful for being shown an old tweet from Viola Davis that got me a bit misty-eyed as it eloquently summarized my own life: “Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves. We grow up as a version of ourselves to sacrifice authenticity to minimize humiliation and prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us and which parts were created to protect us.”

Where I live in Denver there is a high percentage of dog owners who don’t regularly pick up after their dogs. For a little while I would go on rants about how disrespectful this is, the bad image it gives us responsible dog owners, the unhygienic conditions, etc. There’s validity to all these emotions, but I didn’t find my ‘holier than thou’ approach or the outsized negativity that consumed me around the topic fulfilling.

Then one day I went to a meeting where I heard this guy randomly talk about the same issue. He decided that instead of complaining he would start cleaning up after people who were being irresponsible. Not collecting everything of course, but whenever he could. Over time this issue started bothering him less and he was able to simply go about his day less annoyed and more at peace

I kind of instinctually laughed at his suggestion because, you know….gross. But after I gave myself a few more beats to think about his actions I figured why not give what he said a shot. Over the course of several weeks where I began picking up after other dog owners when I could, I actually started to feel better, to feel lighter. Instead of getting annoyed by what I saw every time, I reframed it as an opportunity to be of service in a tiny way. I can’t expect to know the situation of other dog owners – maybe they ran out of bags, maybe they weren’t paying attention, maybe…something else. I won’t pretend to know what happened, but I can do something to make it right.

Thinking about why I am less frustrated by the 💩 situation, I realized it was because I analyzed my actions using the framework of AA’s 12 Steps. Let’s start with Step 4. When I noticed fellow dog owners being disrespectful, it triggered defects I had previously identified about myself.

Anger – for our lovely streets being trashed and neighbors being inconsiderate

Fear – for possibly stepping in it myself and wondering if others would think it was me whenever I walked by

Control – for not having the power to force other dog owners to simply do the bare minimum

Some other things were triggered, but you get the gist. As I’ve shared before whenever I’m able to identify the roots of what I’m feeling and why, the power of that emotion immediately gets mitigated. Beyond naming it though I need to perform other actions too. Self-knowledge isn’t enough as I’ve read in the Big Book.

That’s where Steps 6 and 7 come into play. I have to embrace acceptance around what my situation is and let go. I’m not necessarily praying to my Higher Power about these irresponsible dog owners, but I am consciously making a choice to not allow external negativities to linger in my mind. The old saying “I cannot control other people’s actions, only my reactions” rings very true here. Humans will always be human-ing, which entails good and bad things. It is certainly not my place to be the ultimate arbitrator. In the end I need to keep my side of the street clean (metaphorically and literally in this case) and let go of holding onto Anger, Fear, and Control.

After letting my defects pass, Step 10 enters the mix. Doing a personal inventory I reflect on what the “next right action” is to better the situation? In this case it’s the very small, simple act of picking up after another owner. An act of service always makes me feel good and deters me from thinking badly about some unknown person. The “next right action” mantra frees me to proceed with my day with less animus in my heart. My “amends” here is being the best neighbor I can be to my community by cleaning it up.

I wrap up with Step 12, especially the part of it that reads we must “practice these principles in all our affairs“. My whole focus thus far has been on dog 💩 and dealing with the ways it triggers me. However I find that correcting my attitude in this seemingly microscopic manner does have an impact on my overall behavior. As I make small adjustments here and there in a variety of similar scenarios then, lo and behold, I become a happier and calmer individual on a more holistic level. For me I can’t clean up my thinking in one fell swoop. I need to invest in a series of minute changes across all my actions to get incrementally better at being the best human being I can be. Picking up after my fellow dog owners is one way I go from being disgruntled to being positive. When extrapolating this move to everything else I tackle in life, with the assistance of 12 Step thinking, I get a fighting chance to stay sober and stay sane in a sustainable fashion. One day at a time, one poop bag at a time.

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