I've been busy running recovery meetings and trying to get a third one started. Trying to get the word out on a very limited budjet has been interesting too!
Hey Carson! Drop on by if you want to, we can finally meet and you never know, you might learn something from the "Dark Side" of the non AA world. Our first lesson, "Science can work too! No, really...it can so!" lol!
My first SMART meeting that I'm hosting is on April 8th and I have two more locations in the works. Thanks to my helpers at the 51st and 16th District Courts, and the Nativity Church SOS Group!
On Wednesday, Feb 25th, I'll be going to the Providence Mission Health Facility in Livonia, MI at 3:30 PM with my co-Meeting Facilitator to sign the lease papers for the use their conference room to hold, get this... the first ever combined SOS/SMART Recovery meetings in the history or either organization! Taraaa! Taa-Raaa!
Pretty exciting stuff, eh?
We'll be finding out then when we can actually hold our first meeting in March, but I'm going to insist on a start time of 7:30, cause that's what the SOS group is used to. Thursday is looking like it's going to be a lock but a second day of the week is still to be decided. We would have liked Tuesday, but that's when our brothers and sisters in AA are already meeting, so we will have to pick another of the other available days.
This has been an almost 2 month effort to get just the "right spot" at a convenient and modern facility that is in close proximity to the Interstate and convenient to places to eat, get gas, etc.
Now I just hope some people will show up! Ha-ha! Seriously, I have a small group that will act as a sort of "seed group" and hopefully once the word gets out, we'll have more.
Now you know what I've been doing with so much of my time...heh-heh-heh!
I was talking to some friends just now about how tough my life has suddenly become, and here's what they told me;
Michael: You're still pretty lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Graham:What Luxury! We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for a couple of bucks a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
Terry: Well, we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for four bucks every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
Eric: Right... (steels himself) I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
Michael: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
Just got back from the doctor's office... How is it that for the past 5 years, while I was drinking, not eating right, forgetting to take my meds, not getting enough exercise, etc., my Diabetes was under control, but now that I've quit drinking and have been taking better care of myself, it's "out of control" and I have to start sticking myself with needles in the belly? AND I have to start chronic pain management in 2 weeks too!
I think it's official now, 2009 has gotten off to one of the worse starts since my Ex went back to England, taking my only child with her.
Dunno whether to be pissed off or depressed...can't even take my car out for a drive to mellow out on a sunny Winter day, cause it's back in the shop again. Sheesh!
Guess there's only one thing I can do...get busy doing what the Doc says I have to do, learn how to use the auto-injector, start logging my glucose levels again (oh boy! More needles!), start exercising more, and generally get my game face on to start fighting this.
What? What did you think I was gonna say? Give up and drink myself to a quick and painless death? That would be the easy way out, wouldn't it? Just give in and tell myself that my quality of life is sinking so low that I might as well just give in to my AV and make an end to it all...
Wait...damn! I have way too much living still to do...guess I won't be doing that "giving up and giving in" thing just yet, I never was one to take the easy way and at my age, I'm too old and too stubborn to change the way I've lived all of these years.
Ever see the movie, "Rocky Balboa"? Sly was in his early 60's when he made that. Did you see "Gran Torino"? Clint is in his mid-seventies.
Just call me Rocky Eastwood...
Thanks for letting me rant, have as good a day as possible, my fellow Spacers...
calm
