Slow And Steady Ensures a 10th Place Finish

Steady:  Constant in feeling, purpose, or pursuit; not fickle, changeable, or wavering; not easily moved or persuaded to alter a purpose; resolute. 

I've mulling over the Long Haul the last few days.  When I was getting started my nickname was "Half-Measures Seaweed."  This is technically not true.  I heard someone tell that story when I was getting sober in Indianapolis and I liked it so much I made it my own.  I tell it all the time in meetings, happily, with no regrets, employing great poetic license.  It certainly could have been applied to me - I had taken doing as little as possible to stay sober to the Next Level, with the results that you might expect.  I did a little recovery and got drunk.  I did a little more, stayed sober a little longer, then got drunk.  It went this way until I was fully engaged in our 12 Step program of recovery and I've been sober ever since.  It's not like anyone is calling me "Full-Measures Seaweed" but my reputation has improved.

There's a guy from The New City who has been calling me since I've moved.  Good guy, clean and dry for a while courtesy of a long prison stay, now working hard on his recovery.  He's gotten busy in his personal life as his circumstances have improved - which is what we want and expect to happen - and it's crowding out his recovery life a tad.  I think he'll be OK but it bears watching.  It reminds me of all of the thousands of people I've seen cycle into The Rooms, work at this just long enough to get the trolley back on the tracks, and then cycle back into oblivion.  

This diligence with our recovery applies to so many other areas of our lives as well.  Slow and steady results in a tenth place finish but we're finishing and we're not tearing our Achilles tendons and we're in the race the next day, not like that flashy SOB who dusted us off in the last race.  That dude's in the ER getting his knee scoped.  It's like swimming across a wide lake - I don't get to swim for a while and then take a few days off, unless I like the sensation of drowning.  

Stroke, stroke, stroke.