Taking a Year Off . . . Huh.

 A friend of mine in The Program and I have been chatting electronically while I've been on this trip.  He's a really good guy, really bright, vigorous in his love of life.  Out of nowhere he mentioned that a mentor of his strongly suggested that he take a year off from Alcoholics Anonymous.  My buddy has been sober for four or five years.  Hmmmmm.

I understand that official, organized meetings are time-consuming.  I get that there are some people who live in meetings when they should be working more diligently on themselves or taking care of life situations.  If you break your arm you need to go to the hospital, not a clubhouse.  If you don't have any money you should spend some time looking for a job instead of going to five meetings.  Sometimes it can be easier to hide out in a meeting than doing the hard work of getting on with the business of life.  Still . . . this hiatus from group recovery has always seemed to be a bit extreme to me.  How about cutting your meeting attendance in half or just going twice a week? 

I pondered, I considered, I mused, and then sent along a note kindly wondering about his decision.  He did not, after all, ask me what I thought of this plan before he made a decision so I didn't do this lightly.  I'm assuming that he didn't do this because he didn't . . . you know  . . .  WANT my opinion.  Which is just fine with me.  I have no IDEA what's good for anyone else.  Sometimes people will do something that I would have advised against and it works out well for them and sometimes people's decisions are disastrous and blow up in their face and that's exactly what they needed - to suffer a setback, some pain, so that they could move on to the next appropriate phase of their lives.  I don't know what I should do half the time so I sure as shit don't know what YOU should do ANY of the time.

Ignoring me when making a decision is groovy. I'm good with that.  The more sinister reason for not involving me may certainly be that he didn't want any blowback from someone else, some judgement, some opinionated bloviation.  I was a master of telling you what you were doing wrong (the log versus speck thing again) when I was drinking and still today I'm prone to passing judgment on other people.  I work hard on this character defect, I really do, and I'm better but not great.  Just . . . better.

Looking forward to hearing from him.  That is, of course, if he replies at all.  It's up to him.