Cross-Talking SOB

 Here's the doctor . . . 

"Feelings of love or the lack of it are noticeable in all the mundane ways we show that someone matters to us, especially in the amount and quality of the time we are willing to give them.  This is why there is truth to the adage that we all get the marriage partners we deserve, and why most of our dissatisfactions with others reflect limitations in ourselves."

I've enjoyed the A.A. adage that whenever we see behavior that we disapprove of we'd do well to look at ourself.  Man, do I hate seeing my shitty behavior on display in another person.  I can talk myself into believing that what I sometimes do isn't so bad but it sure looks huge when someone else is doing it.  Quick to judge; slow to act.  The ability to spot my own defects and to overlook yours is a sign of some accruing wisdom.

I left the meeting early today.  Real early.  The homeless are drifting back in but the real problem is that I'm finding the meeting annoying.  I'm not sure what to do about this and I'm not sure that there's anything to be done anyway. The time I've spent traveling with no access to meetings has sure made me aware that I have indeed grown spiritually.  I enjoy/have enjoyed/will enjoy the interactions I have in face to face meetings but I can see that sometimes I'm just filling up a few hours when my time might be better spent doing something else.  Habits are good until they become ruts.

I need to keep my tendency to criticize others while judging myself more gently always in mind.  One of the difficulties with my meeting attendance is that I only go to one meeting and I've gotten too familiar with the members to see them as often as I do.  For example, we had a man with a ton of sobriety start coming to the meeting regularly who was a bit of a bleeding deacon.  Not obnoxiously so but a bit of a know-it-all.  He led the meeting one morning and commented briefly after each member shared.  I wouldn't do it but I didn't think it was a big deal.  A couple of our long-time members were incensed at what they thought was cross-talking, a big A.A. no-no, so they cornered him in the kitchen and called him out.  That was it for him - haven't seen him since.  But these two characters regularly talk through the three minute timer that the group voted to enforce.  They don't go over by a couple of seconds and we're not talking about a new person in crisis - these are both long-timers in recovery.

Such problems I have . . . .