Merlin's Musings

I turned the porkchops in the skillet and began to tell my daughter about my day. At seventeen she was used to hearing my examples of life lessons. Today however it was she who kept it simple and put it all in persepctive.

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There's a story in the Big Book by one of the first women in AA.. Sylvia K, wrote her story called Keys to the Kingdom. She speaks of many things but "aloneness" seems to be a topic coming up more and more frquently in conversation and meetings lately and I think she expressed it better than anyone.
For years I felt less than, alone, not a apart of....drinking to some degree helped with that. In sobriety, it have had to struggle with belonging and learning how to be a part of society. My homegroup is where I've learned alot of these skills - how to listen, humility tempered with belonging..how to be a friend. My sponsor taught me how to relate with people one on one...and the group how to function in a group. I had no social skills when I drank..I was totally motivated by protecting my supply and my next drink. If you weren't a part of that agenda or I couldn't use you to get me out of consequences from my drinking I had no place in my life for you.
Working with a sponsor teaching me the steps I began to see that pattern. The demanding immaturity of being entitled...of not being considerate or thoughtful of others then hiding it all in the guise of resentments and blame when I didn't get my way. The steps taught me that awareness..but it was my sponsor's patient guiding hand who by example taught me how to think and relate to others differently one on one.
It was my homegroup that gave me a "safe" place to begin to use those new tools to begin to deal with groups of people. Where I learned what true belonging was all about. That respect was earned...and attention wasn't something to be demanded. About moral values and ethics and honesty and charecter and how the lack or development of them each had their consequences.
I remember the day with great respect and gratitude that my first sponsor pulled me aside after a meeting and said.. You aren't a drunken slut in a bar room anymore and it's time you stopped acting like one. You owe it to yourself and to the program that saved your life to begin to act and look like the sober woman you are.. You are now an example to all who see you of what sobriety is..(and then pointing to the 2 sizes too small tank top I was falling out of) and it's time you think about just what it is you are showing the world that you think you have to offer.. I was flabberghasted..and angry..but after some thought I looked around and saw how the women who had what I wanted in the rooms dressed..and it certainly wasn't how I looked. So I started dressing differently..and slowly found people treating me differently.
These were the things beyond the steps I had to learn.. social ettiquette, manners, being respectful of others, not needing to be the center of attention... how to simply be "one of the group" no better than and no less than others. I didn't have those skills..but this was a journey about learning to live sober and be a contributing member of society again... and the rewards of the effort were incredible.
I'm not standing on the outside anymore wondering why I don't seem to fit in anymore..one of the gifts I received was dignity and self respect and with those feelings came a sense of belonging. And for me today that fills me with gratitude.