Here's my latest screed about the Keep It Complicated meeting. On Sunday The Malcontents lose access to their meeting space because the "church" where they meet holds "services," so some of them come back to the original KIC basement. I have avoided this particular day, mistrusting my ability to place principles before personalities. SuperK and I took a short trip last week so I didn't attend my regular meetings. I decided to go on Sunday. I was vaguely uneasy about this. I vaguely sensed I wasn't being any too smart. It wasn't quite as bad as putting whiskey in my milk but there was a good chance my attitude would go sideways.
When I got up and started to make a coffee I saw the machine was out of beans AND the container that holds the spent grounds was full. This is no big deal but it seemed sort of portentous. Because SuperK isn't up yet I try to be as quiet as I can and all of this manipulation can be noisy. I then noticed that the tray underneath the machine that catches any overspill was full and when I tried to slide it out it splashed spent coffee grounds and dirty water all over the counter and the floor and me and this caused me to panic and speed up at which point I knocked my coffee cup - full of coffee - into the sink, breaking the cup in the process.
There's a story about a guy who has a minor problem with his cat first thing in the morning as he's trying to get out of the house and go to work. The problem pissed him off but he ignored it and this caused a series of minor but increasingly disastrous consequences to happen. "I should have kicked the cat," he muses later. That's how I was feeling as I finally made my coffee - I should have just gotten back into bed, fully clothed, and pulled the cover over my head.
I showed up at the meeting a little late. I'm wary of the malcontents and wanted to avoid having to socialize with them. There they all were - lined up in a little group against the wall, very few of them wearing masks, a couple actually sitting under one of the brightly-colored signs the church put up here and there saying: "Notice - Mask mandate in effect for anyone using our room." I'm not sure if the malcontents were making an overt political statement or they just don't give a shit if they're disrespecting others.
Yes, yes, I know: Why am I still attending this meeting that gives me so much trouble?
I don't know what disturbs me the most: that they're ignoring a county wide mandate that requires all people to wear masks while they're inside any public space or that they're flaunting the church requirement that masks be worn or that they don't care that all of the regular attendees were wearing masks and that many of them have chosen this meeting specifically because masks are required. Maybe I'm not working hard enough on Principles Before Personalities. Maybe politics and social policy is intruding on our Traditions and infecting The Rooms. Maybe these folks are acting like assholes. Probably a little of everything. I know the solution is within no matter the cause of the irritation.
I'm not enjoying my Alcoholics Anonymous experience at the moment. In my particular town there has indeed been a resorting of people to different meetings and there have been a lot of folks who have disappeared from the places where I used to see them.
Willie had a sponsor from Cleveland who jabbed him in the chest one time when Willie was equivocating on A.A. protocol: "Willie, you've been around long enough to know what good A.A. is and you need to stand up and say something." His sponsor didn't say anything about helping him up if he gets punched in the nose.
My A.A. experience right now is not a good one. I certainly have gone through periods of time where the recovery rooms I frequent have annoyed me but I've never found myself in this spot. There's a guy I know who takes some time off A.A. every now and then. I didn't think this was a very good idea, even taking into account his 40+ years of sobriety, so I asked him about it once. He said that sometimes the routine of attending meetings prevents him from taking up other tasks and activities that might be helpful - it becomes a mindless routine. Willie and I talked about the political creep into A.A. - he's seeing it in the upper Midwest, too. We wonder if picking up some other recovery activity might be a helpful substitution - a yoga class or a more formal period of meditation.
Never thought I'd see the day.
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