by Teri KO4WFP After striking out at Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, it was time for this POTA Babe to get back on track with my goal of 60 new valid park activations for 2024. As much as I enjoyed the historic sites and the refuge I recently visited, I needed to return to activating … Continue reading Two in One Day for the POTA Babe →

Good Morning, Friends, If you haven’t read my previous posts, here’s the situation in a nutshell: we live in a rural mountain community in Swannanoa, NC, where the bridge connecting us to the outside world was swept away during the 1 in 1,000-year flood event caused by Tropical Storm Helene. We’ve also confirmed that a … Continue reading Helene Aftermath Update: Community, Coordination, and Misinformation (Monday, October 7, 2024) →

I am so grateful to be sober. I’m grateful for a long weekend, for rest, for books, for my friends and my family. I’m grateful for our puppy, for our apartment, for AA and my service commitments. I’m grateful for a fresh week, that things change, for the Fall and for coffee.

Gooood morning my friends,

As always, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and you are feeling refreshed for the week ahead!

Today’s a short one because a) I’m tired of hearing myself talk about the same thing over and over and over again and b) I started writing just a tad too late.

Know given I am tired of hearing myself talk about the same thing my question is – what do you do when you’re stuck in your in shit, you have all the tools, you are uncomfortable and yet there is no motivation to fix it.

Maybe motivation isn’t the right word, and maybe not enough energy is a stupid excuse. My cup is so so empty and three days of rest didn’t quite fill it up like I wanted it to. But more than three days just isn’t a possibility right now.

I am tired and I am isolated, and Timmy told me he’s worried about me which is something I must take seriously because he has never said that in all the time, we’ve been together.

I keep thinking about ‘this too shall pass’ which I really hate because I don’t want to WAIT for it to pass, I want it to pass right now.

And I’ve been thinking about the person I was when I first got sober, who made a million meetings and had a million service commitments and at one point had four sponsees at a time and I miss that. I miss that little AA flame, and I want it back.

I don’t think I every really gave myself time to adjust to all of the things that have changed in the past year or maybe I did and I’m just full of excuses I don’t know but I’m so.tired. Of going round and round in this circle.

They say you can reset your day at ANY point in the day. Might that also apply to a year? It’s October already but I can reset at any point.

I feel very alone, and I know I’m not actually alone, but I have definitely forgotten just how many people I have and how good it feels to even just talk to a sober friend you haven’t talked to in a while.

So, I’m stuck in my own shit and I’m too tired to get out of it. This will pass and it’ll be okay but truly I’d really love it, if it just passed.

Leave a comment

xx

Jane

Many thanks to Malen (VE6VID) – Canada’s first SOTA Double Mountain Goat – who shares the following article about his trip in Alberta, British Columbia, Washington and Montana. Malen and I work together and I can read this in his voice – including his laid-back “Oh well…” – Vince. As a SOTA activator I challenge … Continue reading Seven Summit road trip with Canada’s first Double Goat →

I’m grateful for an early morning and a gorgeous sunrise. I’m grateful to watch the sun slowly layer the sky with color. I’m grateful for always finding myself in the mornings. I’m grateful for coffee. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

Good Morning, Friends, If you haven’t read my previous posts, here’s the situation in a nutshell: we live in a rural mountain community in Swannanoa, NC, where the bridge connecting us to the outside world was swept away during the 1,000-year flood event caused by Tropical Storm Helene. We’ve also confirmed that a tornado swept … Continue reading Helene Aftermath Update: Egress, FEMA, Resource Organization, and the National Guard (Saturday October 5, 2024) →

As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things! ? by Vince (VE6LK) In August and September 2024 I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along … Continue reading Sailboats at a lakeside activation →

I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for getting things done. I’’m grateful for the plate appearances. I’m grateful for what’s been granted me. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

This has almost been the sotw several times. I’m not sure I can tell you why it never made it over the top, to the milk and honey of the promised land of the sotw archive.1 But now it has and things do somehow feel different. Speaking of things that are different—we are revving up to re-boot the podcast. That’s right Breakfast with an Alcoholic is about to make it’s return. Prepare the garments and palm fronds.2

I can hear the collective whoosh, the excited gathering of breath, the first thing that tumbles out of your mouth,

“Is it going to be pretty much like it was before?”

Thanks for the enthusiasm,. “Yes and also better,” is my official answer. We’re changing the format slightly, and instead of featuring interviews with interesting and random alcoholics (although I would love to do more of that), it’s going to be me and Daniel and (they are sponsees) going through how we got sober. Not like a minute by minute approach, but we’re starting at the beginning and we’re going to work our way through both the Steps and the Big Book.

I don’t want anyone to faint, but we’ve already recorded the first episode and it could be available to your listening ears next week.3 If you’d like a reminder of the olden days:

Anyway, our plan is to march through the steps of our recovery and show precisely how we recovered. That, after all, is the whole point of the Big Book. Those old-time alcoholics didn’t f*** around or mince words. The second sentence in the Foreword to the First Edition:

“To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.”

So, that’s our plan, too. We’re going to wend our way though the Book and some Step work. The secret part of my plan is it’s going to be a little like getting sober again for the three of us, and I heartily invite you, the listening public, to play along at home. Digression: I have spoken often and achingly about my dream job, the thing I was built to do, the career that would make the best use of all of my diverse talents:

Being a game show host.

I’m not going to get carried away here, but I have the sport coat collection to outdo Monty Hall (please don’t ask if you don’t know who he is) and way more snarky and cutting comments. Also, I think he might have died. Anyway, the current version is super lame and they are nice to the contestants and sorry when they get zonked—which misunderstands the whole genius of this game show. It’s hard to find out that the ‘70s were just a much more clever and sophisticated era—because it didn’t seem that way at the time.

Anyway, one of the things disappointed contestants received as a “consolation prize,” was the home version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” This made no sense to me. How could there be a version of “Let’s Make a Deal” in my house? Were my parents going to let me trick them out of valuable prizes while issuing clever, cutting zingers? Not really. I didn’t get my first blue blazer until high school, so I wasn’t even ready.

Anyway, what I’m suggesting is that you, the alcoholic or the loved one of an alcoholic or if you’re just interested in what people are talking about when they talk about “working the steps” and such, well you can follow along at home and do your own work. We’re going to share our work around the Steps, including working through a 4th Step inventory—so buckle up for that. We’re also going to repeatedly invite participation, by you, the listening public. Meaning that we could answer your questions or even share things you have written…

Our first stop will be the First Step and we’re going to focus on Chapter One of the Big Book, “Bill’s Story.” We’re not going to read the whole book together, but we will probably read some parts together. There is definitely something to reading the book aloud with other alcoholics that generates a deeper level of engagement and meaning. I’m not sure how that works, but it works. Ask an alcoholic who has tried it.

As I’m going to be mentioning frequently, I’ll be celebrating five years of sobriety later this month and that has me reflecting on how I got sober and why, after all of the failed attempts, a decade of futility, did it finally work? This is not hyperbole, the thing that changed things for me was this:

Reading the book aloud together with other alcoholics.

Now, we run our own little AA meeting on Tuesday nights and we read the stories in the back of the book together. It sounds like about the worst thing you could be forced to do; like having to re-attend 8th grade geometry. But it’s not. The words somehow hit differently when they come out of the mouths of other alcoholics and the discussions that follow are always more revelatory and real than a lot of what gets talked about at meetings.

This is all cart before the horse, cloaks before the donkey, until TBD gets the episode edited—and this is a laborious but welcome process. Anyway, stay tuned, Breakfast with an Alcoholic, Season 3 (we need a catchy title for Season 3, like “The Reckoning”) will be invading your personal space soon.

I make notes during the week of particularly interesting insights or potentially brilliant comments. Then I sit down and they simply make no sense. Some of them are song lyrics that suddenly popped to mind:

The very thing we seek is the one thing we can’t find

This, from a very old Vanessa Williams song, suddenly popped into my head on an early morning:

This is a truly bizarre video—what with the very creepy axe being featured very prominently and actually the sun never, ever, ever goes around the moon. If that happened, it probably means the universe ended about 15 minutes ago, and shit is about to get very real. Not the point, however, that line, the thing we seek is the one thing we can’t find. There’s something to that.

I spend a lot of time navel-gazing and trying to understand what changed for me and how it happened. I do that because I’d like to be able to share the secret with other people and also, whatever it is that pushed me over the top, well, I’d like to do more of that. The Big Book and Steps 10, 11 and 12 make it clear that continued sobriety requires continued work and adherence to the principles that brung you here.

One of the things that brought me here was giving up on my own notions of how my life was supposed to go. I know that sounds extreme, trust me, I’m a lawyer working in a law firm, so it’s not like I’ve gone off to the Unabomber cabin to live off the land. I mean I stopped trying to decide in advance how things were going to go, what things meant, what happiness would require. I stopped seeking, and that’s when I began finding.

It’s not that I gave up on wanting answers to those questions. I simply gave up on insisting on my own answers. I write about courage being the process of being guided by the heart. The problem is following one’s heart can be tricky, it’s not always clear why we’re taking this particular route, and some of the stopovers don’t seem to make a ton of sense. But living this way, and being grateful for what gets served up, is at the core of my recovery, and is the foundation of my continued sobriety.

I used to listen to Tears of a Clown in the years immediately following my divorce. I’m not sure who or what it was I was mourning, but that was the persona I adopted for a while. There was more than a little truth to it; that decade was a very dark and hard time—punctuated occasionally by a brilliant smile and maybe true love. It’s still kind of hard to think about that time. There was so much fear in my life. I felt completely lost and never thought I would find the way out.

Deep down, even when I got to read “How it Works” at the DuPont Circle Club, I believed I was never going to get sober. I simply found it impossible to believe that I could live my life without drinking. See what I mean? It was my own beliefs that held me back the most; the lies I told myself were the strongest bonds holding me in alcoholic captivity. The answers I was seeking took me to exactly the wrong places.

Reading the book and working the steps changed that. Seeing that I was a part of an amazing world, where mysterious and miraculous things happened, often involving pancakes. The trick was, I had to let those miracles happen. When I say things like “life is a miracle,” I don’t mean it in some treacly, “oh, come watch the sunrise with me!”4

I mean it in the sense that wonderful and unexpected things happen, when I let them. Sure, there are times when I feel alone and lost, when I wish things were a different way, when I wonder what could have happened? But here I am, living an improbably happy life, walking through doors I didn’t know would open, doing things I didn’t know I could do, living a life I didn’t know I could lead.

And then I realize all of this was in front of me the whole time. You know the story about God talking to me in the Equinox locker room; the command was

Do the thing you don’t know how to do.

That’s what is different about my life. I’m doing the things I didn’t know how to do. I stopped seeking the answers and let them begin to find me. I let my life be guided by love and acceptance. But the biggest thing? The thing I didn’t know how to do the most? Yeah, I’m doing that, too. I’m finally living the life I was meant to lead.5

Happy Friday.

Good Morning, Friends, Today, I’m taking most of the day to focus on organizing, administrative tasks (FEMA applications, insurance, etc.), and some much-needed cleanup around the house. After several days of intense labor, we all need some time to recuperate. Basically, we all smell like sweat and chainsaw exhaust. If you haven’t read my previous … Continue reading Helene Aftermath Update: Aid, Community Resilience, and Egress/Ingress (Thursday, October 3, 2024) →

I’m grateful for a meeting focused on acceptance. I’m grateful for talking through my challenging family dynamics with my partner in an honest, vulnerable way – a conversation I would never ever have been able to have were it not for being an emotionally sober AA member. I’m grateful I have developed the ability to think deeply before I speak more often than not. I’m grateful for being in a partnership that is supportive and not ego-driven. I’m grateful for the reminder that acceptance, with time, can segue into serenity. I’m grateful that the care I’ve put into creating a cozy, comfortable, and colorful home is a reflection of my internal values expressing themselves externally. I’m grateful for the complexities of life becoming larger as sobriety continues since it symbolizes to me that I am a part of this world and not hiding from it.

For so long I’ve labeled myself a mediocre communicator. My ability to speak clearly and honestly in real-time was marred by how fearful I was of other’s perception of me. I felt that if I didn’t say the perfect thing at every turn then I’d likely be shunned or hated.

Pre-drinking I dealt with my fears around communication by not speaking at all. Silence was a safety blank. The less I spoke, the less people would judge. Growing up I had a lot of secrets I didn’t want people to know, especially around my sexuality, so I believed it would be best to keep mum. That didn’t necessarily mean I was a good listener. People assumed I was because I was quiet, but I was just in my own little world of fear, anxiety, and insecurity.

When I eventually took that first drink it was quite magical in some ways. The apprehension around speaking melted away thanks to newfound liquid courage. However that speaking unfortunately translated to a lot of lies. I totally skipped the essential maturation step around addressing my internal struggles with identity. Vodka gave me the “strength” to make stuff up about myself because I realized it would win people over in the short-term. Long-term consequences were totally sidelined. I’d deal with them as they surfaced, which meant with more fake stories.

After years and years of drinking and years and years of lying, I had constructed a very treacherous house of cards around my identity. When I entered the unmanageable phase of drinking where I couldn’t keep the lies straight anymore everything predictably fell apart – the job, the relationship, the social connections. I wasn’t the “functional alcoholic”, I was a dangerous, deceitful person to others and to myself.

Being in AA for a few years has taught me what it means to communicate with honesty and confidence while also listen with interest and compassion. Attending meetings and hearing people pour their hearts out in heartbreaking and funny ways has shown me I’m not alone in my struggles and that redemption can be found. I am not the lost cause I once thought I was. Additionally, the Steps have been an invaluable framework for me to dissect why I did what I did in the past, who I really am today in sobriety, and what tools am I going to adopt to ensure I present my authenticity to the world in a sustainable fashion. I never ever turned the critical lens internally until I came into the Program. Doing so has allowed me to mature in ways that had been stalled during my drinking. Meetings and the Steps have given me a permission structure to be comfortable in my own skin, which in turn lets me communicate with others without the crippling fear, anxiety, and insecurity that plagued me since childhood.

Yesterday evening I had a very real talk with my partner about my family. Certain events are coming up that will bring them into my life a little more in the coming weeks, which makes me uncomfortable. I’m not in danger of drinking, but I am aware that my emotional sobriety could take a few hits. When I shared my concerns with him I was not only pleased by his very empathetic reaction (which I’d of course hope for from good partner), but also pleasantly surprised at how well I was able to communicate the complexities of what I was going through without reservation. I took a moment after our conversation ended to give myself a mental high-five. A few years back this was not my approach to difficult topics. I would drink, I would yell, I would cry, I would lie, I would do a whole host of things that involved running away from a solution. Now I can readily identify the emotions inside me, convey them with words that don’t hurt me or those around me, that get to a reasonable conclusion, and that permits me to move on with my head held high. Being a better communicator is not necessarily something I envisioned getting from AA, but it’s one of the myriad of gifts I’m thankful to have found.