Entries Tagged 'fellowship' ↓

Although I am not making plans I am thinking of the future.  My work in the USA is not as crucial as it was and this fall I am seeing a real possibility of moving here to Greece for a short time, maybe a year.  A full year on the island will show me what I need to do.  I am lucky that I have an ‘in’ with some of the locals via the AA network.  This is a gift of sobriety, as I see it, as long as I do not abuse the connection.

The meeting this week was good in at least two ways.  The first is the obvious: a meeting.  The second is that I was able to learn both ho to live and how not to live soberly here on a small island.   I can leave the old resentments behind and dispel the angers that others have.  Thank God I am working my program and not that of someone else.  I m alright if I stick to my program.

I have been reading Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’.  It is amazing what the old Emperor had to say about how to live in a world of chaos.  For him the best that one could do was to shoulder the load of a day’ work with honesty, dignity and a sense that this is only for today.  Sound familiar?  It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere along the live Bill W, Bob or their predecessors in other programs had read ‘Meditations’ and gleaned some solid common sense form the words of a philosopher who was stuck with the job of ruler of the known world-and I thought I had tough situations!

I have now been to meetings in Italy-Florence and Rome.  My scope i widening and as it does it is reassuring to hear the same stories in the room wherever I go.  I am not unique, not hopeless and not alone.

Johnnyboy

There is a popular conception in Europe of Americans as barbarians.  We sit like slobs in our seats, legs outstretched, blocking the aisles, demanding out tickets (food, drink, etc…)in loud American English.  Sad to say this seems a truism.  I have been very aware of the Americans in my little ban this time and try as often as possible to not act like them.  The sad fact is that at their age I did act like them, and maybe worse.  Not all of the other student act this way, but many do.  They disregard notices on museum to abstain from photography and they sit, stand and loaf in the above mentioned manner.  Some of them have been revealed as hardcore wanna-be drinkers, going so far as to try to keep their boozing a secret by drinking when all the others have gone to bed.  It is easy for me to pinpoint the real alcoholics from the potentials because the real deal do not need the alcohol to act like it.  Their ego-driven self will is out there for all to see and a lack of alcohol just makes it more obvious.  When drinking they can almost blend into the crowd.

There is nothing I can do except stay out of their way.  The can bulldoze all they want through this term and I am keeping myself clear of their chaos, and there will be chaos, especially when we reach the island.  I doubt these kids will get much work done.  That being said I am the once who needs to get my work done, be selfish with my time and resources.  I can also set a few ground rules with them regarding the dark room and what that means.  There is only one I need to talk to and all he needs to know that there is no place for drunkenness or goofing off in the dark room with his buddies after a long night drinking.  This can be said with candor, honesty and, I hope, a sense of man-to-man straightforwardness.

Regarding my own program of action:  I will be attending the Tuesday night meetings on the island and, possibly, the Monday night group as well.  The second group is Greek-speaking, but it is easy enough to have translator for the bi-lingual angle.  This, on top of my mp3 speakers, phone calls and Skyping once on a while can keep me sober, sane, happy, joyous and free.

I will be in Rome tomorrow and I have the addresses for the meetings there.  They are a short, but uphill, walk from the hotel.  I will be grateful to be able to hit two–Monday and Tuesday evening.

Regarding the behavior of others…What I learned from last year is a gift from the Al-Anon program:  I didn’t cause it, can’t cure it and can’t control it.  What a relief that is!  Once again this is  a one-day-at-a-time formula for living that insures my own emotional sobriety.

More will be revealed…Johnnyboy

For some reason I am now able to log on to this blog, something I was unable to do while overseas last spring, and the spring before that.  I am lucky in that way and since I am sober and working the 12 Steps to the best of my ability I am lucky at life, or at least in a state of acceptance and reasonableness.

I am in Italy.  Next week I’ll be in Greece.  I have attended a couple of meetings in Florence (noon and evening) but not since the beginning of the month.  This can be a dangerous predicament, but so far, so good. I have remained in contact with God all the while-hitting my knees, asking for help, minding my own business, being calm…so I del pretty good.  Today started off early, so I’ll have to watch for being tired this afternoon.  I will be in Rome for a couple of days next week so I will try to get to a meeting while I am there.  It seems that even the intent to go to meetings is a good start to keeping spiritually fit.  I was listening to a speaker last night on my laptop and he reminded me that attendance at a few meetings is alright, but no substitute for working the Steps.

When I am back in Greece I have the Parthenon Group while I am in Athens and then the small group on the island while I am on Paros.  I can make the Tuesday night meeting this time since I do not have the commitment to the art history lecture that I have had before.  This brings up the topic of me, my future and what that means.  I have no idea.  That’s the long and short of it.  I really must let God take these things in hand. True, I can do all the footwork, but sometimes even that is unclear.  Suit up and show up–and sometimes sit down and shut up.

Does my life include a larger role on Paros?  Am I successfully, if slowly, removing myself from the caregiving role I have had for so long?  I am still being asked to micro-manage some pooches from afar, but that’s alright as long as these actions do not become to consuming of my time and energies.  More will be revealed…

Johnnyboy

I am off to Europe (Italy and Greece) in less than 4 weeks and I am getting my sober shit together.  I have been downloading lots of speakers onto my iPod and my new MacBookPro, which is funny, because I cannot load the new stuff of the MacBook onto the iPod because it will erase all the stuff from the iMac–bad system and probably has to do with copyright and sharing.  So I will have different speakers on each unit with little overlap.

Anyway…I have also sent out an email blast to my worldwide AA friends about having some Skype get-togethers while I am away and on the island. So far two responses–one from Australia and the other from Serbia.  This will be a good start.  It really is up to me to stay sober and sane and if I want it bad enough, I’ll go to any lengths.  To that aim I have made a decision to go to the Tuesday night meeting in Marpissa and skip the art history lecture.  I have been through that lecture already so I won’t miss anything.

I am wary about what the Italian experience will be.  I am certainly not going to be stand-offish, but I have to remember my place as an adult in a group of much younger adults than I, some of whom have never experienced the world outside America.  I must be the quiet guide to their questions and wondering eyes. I must also not be their teacher.  As a sober man I must be the upstanding example of sobriety and not some nut-job.

So I begin the packing…More long pants for this trip, lighter sweaters, neater wear as opposed to the island fashion that Paros demands.  August 29th approaches…

More to come…Johnnyboy

I have been practicing some good acceptance lately.  Essentially I am not God so I have no control over anyone, anything or any situation.  I can influence these aspects of life, usually badly, but I cannot actually change them.  They will be what they are.

I have been in contact with the AA folks in Italy, primarily Florence, and they at least know that I am coming at the end of August.  I can go to a couple of meetings before I head to Pistoia, where the school will stay for a few weeks.  There are no contacts in Pistoia, so it will be me, the telephone and God for a while.  I will practice acceptance and keep my nose out of other people’s business!  That’s a good start.

I have been invited to go bowling this weekend with a gay bowling league in a nearby town.  I haven’t bowled in a while so it will be interesting, plus the added queer dimension should be fun.  Why do I have a feeling I am going to run into someone from my past, and I mean longtime-ago-past?  It’s not a “sober” bunch, but neither are they drunks, just normal humans.  I am looking forward to the chance to socialize with some new faces and who knows what may happen.  If I keep walking through the open doors I will experience more and more of life.  It is still strange to think that when I came out over ten years ago, bowling and real social activity was not part of the scene for me. Drinking, tom-catting and acting snarky and cynical were de rigueur–all very unhealthy, especially he tom-catting.  I acted pretty slutty to get what I wanted from whomever I picked up in the bar.  At least I played safe.

Hotter than the hinges of hell (as my mama would say) here in Somewheresville.  No rain predicted, just more hazy, hothothot and humid.  Pray for rain…

Johnnyboy

“I am returning to the Aegean Center in a few weeks for the fall term, which may be my last as a student.  I do not expect any sort of position to be offered, nor do they need anyone to work for them.  My future is very uncertain these days and I feel very much at sea.  This is an uncomfortable feeling but perhaps I should accept that this is where I am at right now, let it go, and take what life has to give me.  I am grateful to be where I am, doing what I do and surrounded with support that I have not asked for.  My actions should be my gratitude and I will work on that.  In the past few months I have become very aware of how much a one-day-at-a-time this program is, especially when it comes to character defects.  I can only be the best sober person I can be today, not tomorrow.  The world is an open book and what I have to do is remember that certain pages, or even chapters, do not represent the whole of my story.  To use a metaphor I like, I am steering my small vessel through, if not uncharted waters, then at least oceans I have not yet sailed.  My compass is not spinning wildly but I have lost sight of the safety of the shoreline which for any sailor is a chance-filled situation.  I have maps and charts to guide me, gifts from others who have come before.  I need only maintain my heading, weather storms, doldrums and smooth sailing as part of the journey and make landfall when I see it.  In short I am making a journey that all people must make yet to me my course is unique.  What I sometimes fail to recognize is that there are other small boats in this same shipping lane.  From high above it is really an armada, all of us tacking back and forth, trying to find the best wind to fill our sails.  Older sea-charts have blank spaces on them which read “here there be monsters” but these bogeymen are only the manifestations of my own character defects and not real.  If I truly have faith in God then I should not worry, but rather pay attention to the compass, hold the rudder in a firm hand and stick to the heading.  It is only at the end that I will be able to look back and see from whence I have come.”

I wrote this in an email to a friend this afternoon.  Since that time I have gained a level of acceptance for my future, my life and my being that I have rarely felt.  I have been able to let go of much fear in the past few days. I feel the root of this ‘letting go’ began when I decided that it was time to leave the care-giving of my mother to the caregivers and slip into a healthy stream of life.  At a meeting tonight an AA friend told me he is moving to Albany to re-energize a gay activist group he was a big part of in the 1980s.  The time has come again for this group to act.  This has inspired me to think, “Why not Albany?  Why not an urban center with a large community?”   If I were to try to predict my path for the next few years, or set a goal of life along predetermined lines, I would be selling myself short.  I wish to be happy, joyous and free, with the emphasis on ‘free. This is what I will practice, one day at a time.

Johnnyboy

For some reason I cannot log in to this dashboard from overseas, so I have been lax in updating.  My apologies.  Much has occured and passed into the pages of history. In all reality these are minor blips on the radar screen but I have gleaned some sober wisdom from these experiences nonetheless.

My time in Greece was wonderful, productive and exhausting.  It tested my emotional sobriety to the breaking point when at last all I had to keep me sober was my Higher Power and the ability to go to bed early.  In many ways it is my fault, but, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.  It all begins with drinking, of course, but not my own, thank God.  I’ll make the tale brief if I can.

Halfway through the term the weather changed from cloudy, wet and cool to sunny and dry.  This allowed the younger students to stay out late and party.  Let’s face it, they are all very young, away from home for the first time in a country with a very lax drinking age.  For a solid week they began coming back to their apartments at 3, 4 or 5AM, making a huge amount of noise and waking the neighbors, of whom I was one.  So I complained.  I made waves.  In doing so I separated myself from the majority by underscoring my own sobriety (or really the fact that I do not drink) and becoming a wet blanket to their international fun,  just like the AA Big Book says.  I had not been to a meeting in quite a few weeks and was feeling the disconnect from reality. In my emotional state I turned to another student who I had become friends with over the course of the previous year.  I turned to her for advice, a way to vent instead of going crazy and, I hoped, a little solidarity.  Yes, we agreed on many things: that the school’s reputation was being hurt by this behavior; that something must be done; that there was little unity among the student body, etc…So something was done to stop it, and the noise ended.  I had opened up a huge can of worms, however, in confiding to this student In thanks for her friendship and a way to say ‘good luck’ on her future I gave her a gift, a small piece of sea-buffed marble set as a necklace.  Remember that this was out of friendship, a fact she actually acknowledged.

The end result is that she blew up at me, told me to stay away from her and in a very cold and callous way ended our friendship surgically and without anesthetic.  I was left feeling like my guts had been torn out with a dull spoon, but in the end the only thing I had done wrong was dump too much of my emotional needs on her young shoulders.  I have since made amends for that and am able to slowly let the event and her go into the mists behind me.  I really do have more important things to do.  My last month was lonely and angry, feeling paranoid and wronged.  I do feel she handled it badly, but I give her credit for being so cold and cruel.  That kind of action takes a lot and is not often found in someone so young.  She was obviously frightened of me because she continued to distance herself and even moved to a different apartment, the location of which she lied to me about-as if I was going to come visit her.  I have a feeling she felt that I was stalking her.  (Nasty business.  I even consulted my attorney at one point.) Of course I was not.

The fate of the necklace is truthfully unknown, but I suspect she gave it to one of the other students, a sullen and negative young woman from New Jersey.

There were a small handful of students who really worked and created art of beauty and charm–these I applaud.  Many were stuck in the Culture of Death that permeates the USA.

So what have I learned?

Do not rely on anyone except God or an adult older than I for emotional guidance in times of stress.

I return in the fall.  My goal is to build friendships with the locals in preparation of a possible move.  I will also stick closer to Program in any way that I can.  That was my first and biggest mistake and it could have led me back to the bottle and deat.

Johnnyboy

I am feeling the stress of pre-travel.  There seems to be too much to do, but if I break it down into tasks, there really isn’t.  It seems to be a matter of use of energy more that actual work.  Here is what I am doing before I leave in March…

1. Finish my editing work for the new magazine.

2. Ready work for one, but possibly three shows to be hung before and during my absence.

3. File two sets of taxes.

4. Pack a large box of clothes and gear for the trip, to be sent on ahead of my arrival.

5. Arrange my finances for the 3 1/2 month absence.

6. Have a staff meeting here at the house and make sure all the tasks are delegated.

7. Let go, let go, let go….

What it comes down to is my happiness.  How happy do I want to be today or am I so stubborn that I need to be right all the time?

Johnnyboy

I have been becoming increasingly maddened (not angered–there is a difference) by the lack of enthusiasm from my home group.  Our treasurer, although she has the same amount of time as I, knows nothing of the 12 Traditions and when asked a simple and reasonable question from a member of the group regarding the treasury, reacts with hostility, fear and arrogance.  Not good for someone with 8 years of sobriety.  The members with some of the longest sobriety (20,22 and 17 years) have little or no concept of why the 12 Traditions are important, why they work and their history.  Shocking.  It really is.  As the former GSR I have tried to help them when they came to me for answers regarding the Traditions and my answers suite them when thy wanted, but when they wish to do anything willful, they always cite the 4th Tradition and autonomy, as if this gives them freedom to act as they wish.  What it gives them is the freedom to be wrong.  Read the 4th–it’s what it says.  So I have a choice.  I can stay, and continue to be disappointed in a group that pays little or no respect to the program that has saved their lives or find another home group.

Recently a young woman sent a comment to the old address of this blog, when it was on Blogspot.  It has been a while and she said so.  It’s a strange comment and although her blog seems to be real, it smacks of Spamminess.  She also, like many young people in AA, have violated the 11th Tradition by posting her picture and hometown on the ‘About/Contact’ page.  Granted, no last name, but how many Lydia’s from Wilkes-Barre in AA are there?  I have emailed her thanking her for the comment and redirecting her to the newer site. I also reminded her about the 11th Tradition and about how GSO has concluded that this now applies to electronic media as well.  Whatever.  Newcomers.  I was that excited too, and naive.  Still, there is probably more hope for her than the members of my home group who cannot see that by selling Hazelton literature we are aligning and supporting an outside institution, thus in conflict with the 6th Tradition.  They voted that one in…

Johnnyboy

I am having a tough time trying not to control things here at the house.  Not that they are out of control, but I want them to run shinier, faster–more efficiently.  In reality they are running very smoothly indeed and I need not worry or push, but that’s how I can be sometimes.  Mom is doing well, the caregivers are wonderful, my own work is moving along (at a snail’s pace which is OK) and I am due for some travel time in about 2 1/2 months.  Yes–back to Greece.

It is December and it is pissing rain outside.  I want snow–lots of snow. A local newspaper ran an article last week regarding a small literature and arts magazine I have become involved with and in my opinion, the article fell short.  We gave the reporter much more and better information than she printed.  At least they got my name right.  The information was correct, and the article will help us publish, but…whatever.  I should just be grateful and leave it at that.  8 years ago I wouldn’t even have been a part of this project and incapable of this kind of life.  Let’s due a quick “its-2-days before my 8th Anniversary-countdown” and see where I am in my new sober life:

1. I am sober, working the 12 Steps with a sponsor and I have sponsees.  I am active in AA General Service and I am part of a home group that welcomes me.

2. I have regained the trust of my family and relationships that I once thought were lost are being rebuilt on fresh foundations.  Although the relationships with my sisters has shifted in the past few months, I have been able to not play the Finger-Pointing Game they both have done for years.  This also counts towards my father, with whom I have taken sides against my family members in the past.  Shameful, but no more.

3. I have graduated from university and am working towards a post-graduate degree in the arts.  Much of this has to do with my traveling, because if I hadn’t gone to Greece for the AA Convention in Ermioni in 2005 then I wouldn’t have met Jeanne Joy who introduced me to the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts on Paros.  I have also used all the tools in AA for a successful college career: I have shown up, asked for help, and done the work to the best of my ability.  As a result I have a 3.98 GPA–high enough to be considered for European post-grad programs if I choose to go that way.

4. As a result of sobriety and putting myself into the public eye I have become involved with an area arts co-op.   This has allowed me to put my photography work into the mix.  The experience has challenged all of my self-belief systems and I feel that if I had tried to predict the outcomes I will have sold myself short.

5. If you told me 8 years ago where I would be today, what I would be doing, etc…I would have told you that you were crazy and to stay away.  8 years ago today I was cowering in a darkened apartment, the shades drawn, hearing voices coming down the hall, whisperings through the walls.  I was terrified of life and what I had become.  Indeed, the monster under the bed and in the shadows, lurking around the corner–that was me.  I had created myself and it was not good.

Everything is very different today-many 24 hours later and a whole lotta pain and love.

Johnnyboy