I went to my usual Step meeting last night and received the answers I need to my problems at hand. I also spent most of the day with my sponsor, which was great, considering he assigned me some new spiritual tasks to further my growth.
Of course, I don’t want to do anything he told me to do. That would be a positive change for me. The first was to get more exercise. He wants me to try some cardio-aerobic activity every day. Walking for 35-45 minutes is fine, he says. I don’t need to go to the gym or anything. The problem is that I’m lazy and the weather sucks. Neither of these are ‘reasons’ to not get out there and move my ass around for a few minutes each day.
The second task is to not only take the spiritual baby-steps of AA, but to reach out to the spiritual community in the real world. He reminded me that he was not telling me to join a cult, but rather to investigate other avenues of spiritual growth. Both of these tasks will help me in beginning to make amends to myself over the past and break out of much of my isolation and loneliness (did I say that? Am I really lonely…?).
So I’ll start the reaching-out with either the Quakers or the Unitarians. I couldn’t find the Quakers listed in the yellow pages under ‘Churches’, so I’ll ask around. There is also a pretty big Buddhist community around where I live, so I also have that option. All of this will help me to forgive myself, which, in turn, will help me to get over the people-pleasing need/fear of worrying about what other people are thinking/saying about me. I hope.
The exercise I’ll start this afternoon, rain or shine, after I come home from lunch with my sponsee. This brings me to my next subject: Lying.
My sponsee (let’s call him Bob) has many mental health issues on top of his alcoholism. He has a long history of psychiatric incarceration, homelessness, and dysfunction. To say that he may be scared living in the real world is to be light about the subject. As his sponsor I treat what he says to me with strict confidence. His host-family, on the other hand is something else. This household is very sober, and accustomed to having people like him live with them. They currently have 2 other boarders under their roof. Everyone is on medication of some sort. The stories I hear from Bob are not the same as the updates I receive from his host. His is a tale of misunderstanding, bitchiness, and cruelty. Theirs is a story of his stealing his meds, lack of hygiene, and lying, especially about his smoking. He is supposed to quit smoking as part of his out-patient program with the state. I caught him a few days ago talking about “sneaking a cigarette so ‘she’ wouldn’t know”. I put the kabosh on that kind of stealth activity, seeing it as just another way to lie, cheat, and steal, his way through life. It now turns out that he is also wearing ‘the patch’. I had asked him a few weeks ago if he was, and he said “no”, so I didn’t think about it. Now I learn that he is, and still smoking. I even gave him a cigarette the other night! His host ‘mother’ also found a pack of smokes in his jacket last week. Yet he continues to lie.
So he lies to me. This is fear, I know it. Because I’ve been there.
We are having lunch together in a couple of hours where I will address this lying of his. If we are to maintain an honest program he must know that he doesn’t need to lie to me. The truth will not have him thrown out of my car, sponsorship, etc…
I wonder if he knows that he is lying, or even cares? Maybe the fiction in his mind is the truth that he sees and lives. He is a tough soul, and has been through a lot. This character defect is probably one of the strongest weapons he had out there on the street. It will be difficult and sticky to de-fuse.
So I’m off to the showers, and then out to lunch. I’ll update this saga tomorrow.
Johnnyboy