If you were a flower I would pick you as a friend.
>>re - with all the programs that are available out there and the
>>subject of balance - I think one reason a lot of people don't find
>>recovery  despite all the programs available out there is because some
>>of these  programs force us to further fragment ourselves.  We have to
>>go one  place to recover from codependency, another place to recover
>>from  alcoholism, another place to recover from drug addiction, etc.
>>etc.  etc. 
    I can't speak for anyone else out there but I am a very multi addictive
    person. It is easier to tell you what I am not addicted to than what
    I am addicted to. Although you are right there are many programs out
    there for any addiction you can think of. One of the things that I
    learned early in my sobriety is that I am a very gratefull recovering
    addict. I am not grateful that I am an addict but gratefull that there
    is a way not to be an addict if I choose it. I have not felt fragmented
    at all from my addictions. I am sure that you must have heard the
    saying that a drug is a drug is a drug. It doesn't matter what the
    substance is that you take but that any substance is merely the symptom
    not the problem. Therefore I don't have to go to all different kinds of
    meetings to get recovery. And now that I have this computer I don't go
    to any meetings as I have found that they are very doggy dog today, but
    that is a whole nother story. I have been clean and sober for a very long
    time and the food is coming into place as well. I have lost quite a bit
    of weight this past year and am very grateful that I did.
>>Personally I don't have enough days in the week to go to even just ONE
>>meeting per week of all the programs that I could use if I actually
>>got honest with myself.  Maybe I am the only one, but I know that I am
>>a  mess.  I need a lot more help than I can get in such fragmentation
>>and  more and more I see myself pulling away from that approach.
>>TO ME the 12th step talks about practising these principles - the
>>principles of the 12 steps - in ALL our affairs and there has got to
>>be a way of doing this so that we become more WHOLE and not more
>>fragmented.
    I use to say all the time that I can't afford to find another addiction
    cause I won't have any time to go to another meeting. There were some
    addictions that I just dealt with through other programs. Like NA I have
    only been to 2 NA meetings in my recovery, but I deal with it in AA,
    as I said above for me a drug is a drug is a drug. I don't really
    understand why you have become fragmented so it is hard for me to respond
    to that in terms of my own recovery, but I will respond to why I am not
    fragmented and hope that that helps you some. Oh yes and you are 
    definately not the only one I was a real mess when I came into the rooms.
    I would cry and not know why I was crying, as I didn't know what a
    feeling was. I literally had to re-learn how to feel. Now if thats not
    a mess I don't know what is. I think for me I took it one program at a
    time and one day at a time. If my food was more of a problem for me
    than the alcohol than I went to more OA meetings, I was told from the
    very begining that I went to any length for my addictions and now I had
    to go to any length for my recovery. That meant for me to go to a lot of
    meetings in the begining, (begining meaning the first 4 years of 
    recovery). It took me three years to figure out that my only
    responsibility in life was walking my dog and that there was something
    very wrong with that. Another words it took me three years to figure
    out that my life was unmanageable, talk about mocus.
>>I joke around saying that I am going to start Ev.A.  - Everything
>>Anonymous - so I can only go to a few meetings a week and have time
>>for a life WITH my recovery.  
    Not for nothing Matrika but you all ready have this right here in
    this conference. It is a recovery conference and therefore deals
    with all aspects of addiction and recovery. And I did start a OA 
    and AA meeting combined in NJ when I lived there. I felt the same 
    way that you did and if you feel strongly about it go for it. Start 
    that meeting it can't hurt for sure.
  I wonder what BIll W. and Dr. Bob would say about AA
>>members so busy going to other recovery fellowships that we can only
>>make one AA  meeting every other week or so.
    Don't know what they would say but what worked for me is again
    a drug is a drug is a drug, it doesn't really matter what program
    you work the problems out with as long as you do. I never got drunk
    cause I was working on a problem in another room other than AA. I
    almost got drunk because I avoided the abuse stuff but not because
    I am working on it. Not to say that I didn't feel like getting drunk
    but what does it matter which room I learned the tools of program in 
    as long as I did and use them. I also learned in the rooms that it
    didn't matter why I was an alcoholic but that I was one and now what
    am I going to do about it, see I took that one step further and said
    it doesn't matter that I am a multi addicted person but what am I
    going to do about it. I choose for one thing to come from choice and
    then I chose to deal with the solutions not the problems. That worked
    for me real well and still does. Right now I am going to only SIA
    meetings because thats whats out there. Can I use the knowledge for
    my drinking or eating or whatever sure I can, if I choose to.
>>That's what I mean by balance - there has got to be a balance and a
>>way to LIVE through all this once I am sober, or I would hope so.  But
>>I am not seeing that in myself or anyone else I know and it is quite
>>disturbing to me.  I don't have anyone to show me how they got there
>>from here because I don't see folks who have done it.
    I don't know if you will think that I have gotten the balance or not
    but this is what I have done and it certainly has kept me sober and
    clean for 14 1/2 yrs. There are days when I feel real balanced and
    there are days when I feel like a real scatter brain but I accept
    the fact that there will be those days and thats ok, after all I am
    not in any way, shape, or form perfect and I don't want to be either.
    See if I am perfect I am dead, as the only time you are perfect is when
    you are perfectly dead. I stopped striving for perfection at that point
    that I was told that. I know that you didn't bring up perfection but I
    thought that I would throw that in.
 I almost wonder if I don't need a
>>vacation from all this INTENSITY and all this "working on myself" and
>>issues and so on.
    Sometimes we do need a vacation from all the intense feelings we
    get from working on ourselves. But I for one can't take a long
    vacation as my diseases don't take a vacation at all.
>>I am beginning to just want to focus on the hear and now, so I can
>>deal with the process of living.
    I don't know about you but that is exactly what I was taught to do
    focus on today and the hear and now, after all yesterday is gone and
    we can't change it and tomorrow isn't hear yet and we can't do anything
    about it till it gets here.
>>And if we never get to that in recovery, then what's the point?  I
>>don't see any right now, but I also know that the only way to find out
>>is to stay sober and see.  But, to be honest with you, right now I
>>don't want to.  That's okay too.  
    Your right there is no point except that if we don't stay sober and
    away from our addictions we will never get to that point for sure.
    Don't quit 5 minutes before the miracle. It is all right to sit with
    your feelings of not wanting to cause all you have to do is not pick
    up.
I've been here before and I am
>>thankful that an old-timer, Eddie B here in Worcester MA, once told me
>>that I don't have to drink even if I want to and he also taught me
>>that since it's the very first drink that triggers the physical
>>compulsion,  if I don't drink - even when I want to - I still won't get
>>drunk, even  though I wanted to.  So my life will go on in a decent
>>manner in spite  of me.  And something else this man impressed on me is
>>that even if I  can 't do that for myself, I can do it so that I won't
>>put the people I love through h*ll the way I used to.
>>Yes I know I am being negative tonight, but that is HONESTLY where I
>>am at - disgusted and discouraged.
    Hang in there Matrika and listen to the old timer cause he is right,
    This too Shall Pass. If you ever want to talk I am here and I do hope
    that I have helped just a little bit but if I didn't I got reminded of
    a lot of things tonight so it helped me as well. You take care and I
    will TTYS.
    Rainbow
I know that I am sane:  My voice told me so.
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