Recovery Check In

Today is Tuesday April Fourth Two Thousand Ten. I am pretty fucking happy today because I finally broke the two twenty pound plane and now weigh two hundred eighteen pounds, a weight I have not seen in quite a few years. I've now lost thirty pounds and I only have eighteen to go to meet my first weight goal. Its cool that all those early winter mornings and gallons of sweat are paying off. Whats weird is that I will be at a certain weight for a few weeks and then I seem to lose five or more pounds in a week. I don't care how it happens, just that it is happening. I finally told my trainer about how my right knee gives out every once in a while after I've done cardio for an hour and she wasn't pleased. She had me do this exercise to test each quad at a time and my right quad was quite a bit weaker than my left. So she is going to come up with some exercises to target that muscle group and I am going to get a referral from my doc so I can get some phys therapy for that leg.

Just had an interesting conversation with my friend who is retiring in a few months and he mentioned that management isn't listening to him about a possible replacement. One thing I have learned in recovery is not to set yourself up for failure or disappointment therefore needing a drink to make things better. I very well may have a shot at the job or I may not, the important thing to me is to learn something from the experience. I did find out that one of the upper management types making these decisions is someone who I know and knows my name. We are only friendly on the work shuttle but still I will be more than just a name on a screen. We are waiting for them to create the job rec so there is something in writing that I can go after. He also mentioned that two of his staff are leaving and popular opinion is that the remaining staff person won't be able to handle the the job. He said that mgmt for the most part is lazy and that if I am able to present myself in such a way that it will be easy for them to make a decision then I should. He suggested that I maybe approach this mgmt guy and start talking him up. The question then becomes, how do I do that ? Do I ride the fucking shuttle a few hours a day and hope I run into him ? Do I stalk him and just bump into him ? Do I bribe his admin for a few of his schedule ? So many things to think about.

So this jay-Z parody has been making the rounds by a group called the super secret project. A good friend of mine in the program evidently knows the founder and hopefully they will get some traction from this. They do a bunch of music and short film projects and you never know whats going to happen. Ellen DeGenerous (sp?) contacted them to see if maybe they could get down to NYC and be on her show. I like when the internet helps bring people's creativity and message to people who wouldn't normally see or get it. I wish the best for them, they seem pretty creative and any song about New Hamster is ok with me.

I have not written about my own recovery for some time because things are going really well. I still have issues with my sponsor but I can deal, at least for now. I attend meetings, participate, and talk to others in the program as much as I can and thats what is working for me right now. There isn't any super secret formula or anything like that, I just have to place everything else behind my desire to stay sober. Sure, there are a few women I'd love to ask out that attend meetings but I won't ever do that because if they ran screaming from the room at such a suggestion then I wouldn't feel comfortable in those meetings ever again. Well, maybe ever is a bit much but it would take a really fucking long time before I stopped feeling like a heathen. Certainly dating someone in the program does make some sense but I dunno how to execute something like that. I dunno, as cool as having a cool woman to hang around with would be, its not worth me screwing up my meeting schedule over. I guess I need to worry about something these days now that the drama of drug and alcohol addiction is over but there are two sweet women in the program I'd love to get up against.

Last nite's speaker was awesome. He had this deadpan delivery and way of looking at things that was very refreshing. He kept mentioning that he didn't have a very long and difficult active period but I think thats just crap. Any time you plan your entire life around drugs and alcohol is pretty fucking grim. I don't care if you only drank stoli on the rocks rather than mouthwash, the fact that you were dependent on alcohol is the point. I remember some guy pschawing about another member who said that she only drank a couple of glasses of wine a nite. I didn't say anything but I remember thinking at the time what a jackass he was for saying any thing. This woman drank a couple of glasses of wine a nite, every nite for over twenty years. She planned he life around her evening drinks and she depended on them. Who knows, maybe her version of a glass was a quart milk container ? Alcoholism is so much more than drinking, there are so many other things at play for many people beyond the fact they drink every day. They say that drinking is but a symptom and I tend to agree with it.

So how have I grown over these last fourteen months ? I am more confident in my ability to see things thru, I don't lie except when its to spare other people's feelings (no, you don't look fat in that comes to mind) and I feel good about myself. The fact that I have not had a drink in that time period is just one part of my overall recovery. I do wish that someone would ask me to sponsor them, I am sure it will happen sometime but as the speaker mentioned last nite I feel like helping someone as much as this program has helped me. I had no idea how AA would effect me, I thought that it would help pass them time and that I would maybe learn a few things in the meetings. I am really gung ho when about the program because I am such a different person both inside and out due to AA. Yes, it does get tiring to hear about people's problems day after day but it feels good to know that I am helping them by just sitting there listening. People share stuff in meeting they wouldn't share anywhere else and I think it releases a bunch of crap inside you that normally wouldn't get released. I dunno, addiction = bad, recovery = good.