Action Jackson

Act:  To do something.  (Ed. Note: Pithy, that).

I have to laugh every time I recall the words that inevitably came out of the mouths of my Program buddies when they were listening to me talk about how stressful all of the death and dying had been: "Wow.  Sounds like you're taking a lot of good action."

This is the experience, strength, and hope that is bandied about as a pillar of our recovery community.  Not very profound, is it?  I wasn't looking for a vague affirmation that I was on the right track 9 I was looking for The Solution.  I wanted answers.  I wanted to be told what to do, not listen to guys toss out fairly obvious suggestions.  

"This is what you should do, Seaweed."  That kind of stuff.  Nobody had anything.  Nobody had shit.  Yeah, what did I expect and as it should be.  We're a bunch of amateurs trying to keep movement going in the forward direction.  Sometimes my recovery is like trying to drive a fast car really fast on an icy road. I never really feel like I'm in control of the process 9 I'm just trying not to kill myself.   A lot of people asked if I was doing a lot of things I was already doing.  I was hoping for something revolutionary, some new paradigm of thinking.   I got the same old crap.  But then again I'm also the guy looking fora new cure every time I get a cold.  "Drink plenty of fluids.  Get enough sleep.  Take two aspirin."  700 years of medicine and this is where we are.

I signed off with my therapist yesterday, and she agreed with this decision.  I went every week for a while, eventually tapering off to once a month.  I have also discontinued my participation in the biweekly grief group.  These two things were pillars of my journey out of the loss depression; that and finally coming clean with my friends in recovery.  It wasn't as if I was deliberately trying to hide what was going on - it was that I was oblivious, an occasional pitfall of long-term sobriety.

"I'm handling this OK, I'm still handling this OK, I'm still handling this OK, wow, am I fucked up."

Often I found that I had to sift through a lot of wheat and chaff before I got the nugget of wisdom I needed for that point in time.  Often it surprised me.  I didn't see it coming.  I didn't see how the timbre of the discussion was going to lead to the discovery.  Then again I'm the guy who wants to be in control of the process.  I want to take a series of discrete, logical steps to get through something in a linear, controlled fashion.

Yeah, good luck with that.