Life has been moving very quickly in the past two weeks between work and family. I had a trip to Florida right before the inauguration. The following week I had a few health related appointments (nothing to worry about, routine things like an eye exam — turns out I need readers for my daily computer work). Of course, mixed in there has been the rush of being a father, with a son in cub scouts, and basketball. I got violently sick (Norovirus) towards the tail end of last week and didn’t really recover until Monday of this week.
I’ve been trying to keep with a cadence of at least one post per week, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to write since the inauguration of President Trump. It’s hard to believe its only been twelve days since the inauguration and only nine since we were introduced to the idea of “alternative facts.” Everything feels like it’s accelerated over the past two weeks, and the chaos with which the administration steeps its tea hasn’t helped much either. The truth is, I’ve wanted to write, but not about sobriety.
I’ve wanted to write about politics, but I am trying not to do it here. I am considering writing about it elsewhere but I don’t know if I’ve got the energy for it.
My energy has been sapped — sucked out of me. With the whirlwind of travel, my son’s activities, my wife’s activities, illness, and just life in general, I have not made many meetings in January. In fact, I think I only made it to three meetings in the whole month.
Now, I’m keenly aware that this is very likely a bad thing.
But I am also keenly aware that (at least prior to the shock and awe of the last two weeks) I actually was feeling better and more comfortable in my own skin than I have in a long time. I firmly believe that part of this was likely due to the fact that I wasn’t listening to the negative talk that sometimes overwhelms meetings.
And yet…
With the overwhelming machine gun fire of news over the last two weeks, I’ve known that I needed desperately to get to a meeting. I could feel the tension starting to fill up in my body. I was starting to lose my temper over things that weren’t a big deal. The cortisol and adrenaline, pumping through my veins was taking their toll. My emotional sobriety was shot.
So, I went to a meeting on Monday night. And it was good. I saw friends who I hadn’t seen in a while. I got to share about a powerful experience that happened as a result of this blog — an experience that lead to a great sense of healing for me and one that I want desperately to write about, but cannot because it would break another’s anonymity.
Yesterday, I spoke with a friend in recovery who like me is struggling with the news of late. We spoke of having faith, faith in the process, faith in our democracy. We spoke of how stunning things have been for us, and how it’s hard to know how to respond. And we spoke of the fact that this may be a turning point in our lives, perhaps a turning point in the country, and that perhaps, there may be a better dialogue which results — that maybe good can come out of what we perceive as so horribly wrong, so violently against our shared values as a nation.
I don’t know if that will happen. I’d like to thing so.
What I do know, is that in these tough times, I need the connection that the program offers more than ever. I know that getting out of my head, getting out of the political morass, getting off the social media, and actually seeing and talking with other people who struggle with this brain disease called addiction, is key to my survival.
And so, I’ll keep coming back.