Nothing Comes Before It

As we have now put a dent in 2021, and my bloggerlust is slowly awakening- partially from topic inspiration, partly on the encouragement of my dear one- I recognize that these twelve months have the potential to surpass my wildest permutation of the future. Six weeks ago I rang in the new year with an entirely new (and completely unexpected)  magical pouch brimming with hope and exciting prospects, and as we turn a snowy corner towards spring, many of those prospects are coming to fruition. Work is stable, my physical and mental health continue their upward trajectory, and I am hopelessly and willingly steeped in an amazing new relationship, the bliss of which is gloriously transcendent. My existence appears to be humming along on all cylinders. I finally feel like I've got this “life thing” down.

Danger, JD!

You are so busy celebrating yourself, gleefully patting yourself on the back that you are subtly distancing yourself from the original source of your stability and growth in your life- the program which saved your ass, which singlehandedly enabled you to reach this festive day. Like the boring but loyal tride-and-true nerdy high school friend, you are abandoning him at the high school lunch table for the popular cool kids, the ones who mock and exclude him. And you are going right along with it. Don't forget what got you here, who got you here. Be true to him. Be true to yourself.

In the first four years of my sobriety, AA meeting attendance was the utmost priority. It was the power source. Step work with my sponsor, morning devotions, and reaching out to my sober network on a daily basis rounded out a powerful, enduring program of recovery. But something happened during the process. Good fortune showed up to say a long-overdue hello, appearing into my days randomly at first, but eventually becoming a regular presence. I reveled in my success. Jobs, social life, financial gains, even some contact with the children...everything began to happen just as my tribal leaders in recovery had prophasized. My program seemed less and less like a daily necessity and more like an obsolete implement, to be relegated into a storage bin in the attic to be sold at the next yard sale. Somewhere along the way "positive" momentum took over. I became...intoxicated...in my successes while the very foundation on which these successes were built was abandoned. Meeting attendance dropped from virtually daily down to once or twice a week, then to almost nothing. I all but discontinued my recovery readings, lost touch with some AA friends.  I stopped reciting  the Third Step Prayer.

Funny, despite all the great forward strides, I am now beginning to feel a bit...hollow. Like the ego-driven Hollywood rising star who abandoned his vanilla wife for a circle of sexy starlets, it felt good at first, but lacks a  fundamental staying power or spiritual satisfaction. Taking gratification and pleasure from personal achievement is nice, and even an important component of a balanced existence, but it is, for me, ultimately, a false god. I need to get back to basics. Back to my true HP; my foundation.

It is preached in recovery circles that anything in life we place before our program we are sure to lose. This hasn't whacked me between the eyes quite yet, and perhaps that's why I have felt the cockiness, the pride, the ego, seep back into my head. I need to fight back, call myself out. Retreat back to that core which enabled these recent victories. Recognize what is real, what is illusory. What is flimsy, and what is solid. Destroy the ego in lieu of longevity and the greater good.

I love my life, but it is a house which must be continuously maintained. Not by finger-painting on the walls and putting up a few cheap knickknacks on shelves, but by shoring up the load-bearing beams, replacing the leaking plumbing, and getting some fresh shingles up on the roof. In other words, the “boring” stuff. 

It is precisely that boring, tedious work which has permitted me to finger-paint on the walls of a previously solid home, which now shows the earliest evidence of disrepair. If I want the parties in the living room  and the great food in the kitchen, I need to recommit to the infrastructure. I need to work it. Every. Single. Day.

Tonight I am going to brave the icy weather, and sit in a badly-needed Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.