New toy, Fellowship & Solution

 This is the Wendy, so named after my friend who put her girliness aside and used the nasty outhouse at the Sober Float campground but expressed gratitude when someone allowed her to use the potty in his camper. Some of the places we camp are isolated with only outhouse's available, in searching for a camper one of the must was a working toilet, not just for Wendy but for everyone, yours truly included.

 If you look at the picture above and this one, you will notice a shower curtain. The bathroom has a hand held shower, so you can wrap the curtain around the bathroom and take shower to wash the dirty and grime off. I have never been in a small camper before and didn't know what the shower if any would be like. I can assure you this will come in hand.

 This is the couch and also Angle claimed it as her bed, it is wide enough for 1 person to sleep comfortabily enough on. The bit on the top folds down to make a bunk bed, if I still have the camper in years to come, Angel or Carter can sleep up there. Kitchen has a 3 burner stove/oven, double sink, there is a little fold up extension counter as well. I wasn't able to get the frig to work, I will have to check out circuit breakers and fuses. It may work off of propane but I need to replace the bottles first to check that out.

 Table folds down and cushions pull out to make a bed, big enough for 2 smaller people and just right for me. Table will come in handy for playing cards or just hanging out around/meetings, if the weather turns nasty, plus place to put food on for meals.

1980 camper, 19ft long, bought it for $1700.00. The AC works, I need to pull the awning out in the next few days to check it out, it has been too windy here to do it yet, the awning itself is worth $350.00. I bought this from a guy who was selling it for another guy as part of an estate settlement. The camper has been in a shed most of it's life, so the outside is in good condition for it's age. The propane tanks are old and need up dated, because of this I wasn't able to check out the furnace, hot water heater, stove or frig on gas. I am trusting they work because the camper was owned by an older couple and they took good care of it from what I can tell, plus I trust the farmer who sold it to me, yes blind trust. I was shocked to find an owners manual with it. I know enough about gas systems to clean and fix most problems I may have, thank you Dad. New tanks are only $20.00 and a connecting hose is $10.00. Tires will need replaced before we venue too far from home, remember I travel a lot in rural Nebraska where most of the towns are small and finding a place to fix a flat after 5:30pm is almost impossible, plus on some stretches it is 20 miles or more between towns, trailer tires are less expensive than car tires, so this isn't a big expense. I will also replace the curtains and rods, couple of the curtains were stained, tried to wash but that didn't work. Mich and J suggested new cushion covers since the current ones are a green pattern, older and less attractive pattern, not sure on this one, depends on cost, think the couch will just get a throw blanket on it. Used campers for less than $2000 are hard to come by, the ones I found on Craigslist were being snatched up within a couple of days of being posted. I wasn't able to find any close to home, I found this one in a town 125 miles away, closer to Lincoln, took off work Tuesday to check it out. Since I had the funds available I was rather obsessed with buying a camper now plus the closer to spring the hard to find and the more people would be wanting for them.

The 4 guys who traveled with me Saturday to pick it up are all part of our Happy Campers camping group. We had a good time visiting, talking recovery and thoughts on summer camping outings. J and I at least will start doing some scouting trips on Sundays to check out various camping areas, places that offer enough privacy for campfire meetings plus have things to do like swimming, hiking or canoe-ing, I found inflatable canoes on Amazon for a reasonable price so will get one about May. The nice thing about our group is not only do we enjoy fellowship we are also living in the solution via working the steps, regular meeting attendance and working with others. We have some new people who want to go camping with us this years which is great.

Awe yes living in the solution! I have been going over to my backup sponsors house on Tuesday afternoons. We are listening to the Joe and Charlie Big Book discussion, which basically is about taking the steps. I feel it is healthy for me to review steps and even take a new 4th and 5th steps. Working with C and listening to the tapes are giving me new perspectives on the Big Book, steps and recovery in general. My sponsor is a wonderful man and we went through the steps rather thoroughly, I have changed in recovery, the person I was when I was new is different than the one I am today. C and I have more in common in a lot of ways than my sponsor, so working the steps with her allows me to work through some of my challenges more closely with someone who has been there, my sponsor likes this idea, so I am not back dooring him. Yes C is a woman, mid 60's, she has gone through some of the same spiritual challenges I have, faced the same social challenges, a veteran, she has 35 years sobriety and experience to share with me and others.

One of the things we have been talking about is, fellowship verses solution. She feels sometimes there is too much emphasis placed on fellowship; dances, potluck speaker meetings, camp-outs and social events and not enough on working the steps. It is through working the steps that a spiritual awakening happens. I am a person who promotes social functions so I had to sit back and think about my prospectives on this. The group of people I hang out with attend social events but we also work the steps, use sponsors and are active in the groups we attend via helping the newcomer. I forget that others who promote social events don't always do this, so the newcomer gets the wrong message. What this brought home to me was, when I share about social events I also need to place equal emphasis on working the steps and the solution which is to find a God of ones own understanding via the steps which will remove the compulsion to drink on a daily bases.

Fellowship saved my ass the first time around, getting sober on a remote Air Force base in South Korea it was essential to be with others in recovery. The guys who helped me get sober showed me how to live without alcohol and how to basically work the steps. Later on I really didn't work the steps I just went to meetings, I went for more of a social club and not as a place for spiritual growth. In doing this I believe this created the breakdown which enable me to pick up the first drink. I have said it before I never really worked the 11th step and needed to do another 4th and 5th about my marriage. I never sat down and got totally honest with another or myself about what was going on in my marriage. I don't regret this, I am just acknowledging a flaw which lead up to picking up a drink. The desire for a drink came back, I was under pressure, I didn't have a strong enough relationship with my Higher Power, a relationship that would have stood between me and the first drink. My relapse experience has shown me how I need to continue spiritual growth.

I do a 10th step all day long and at night laying in my bed, I think about what I have done wrong and seek the awareness and strength of character not to repeat the same mistakes. I still make a load of mistakes but the awareness or God conscience grows stronger so I tend not to make them as bad, have mental reminders to keep my big mouth shut when I want to assinate someones character.

A few factors come into my wanting to rework the steps, go through the Big Book again with another person. One is the relationships I have had in recovery, mainly with T last summer and with my sister in recovery, C and I have talked a bit about both already. Another is because of the hours I work, I really don't have a good opportunity to work with others, working with others really keeps me out of my head, keeps me focused on the solution and in strong contact with people in recovery. The 1 or 2 meeting I attend each week are good but they are not enough. By seeing C each week I am getting a good dose of the medicine which helps keep me sober and sane. I need to hear what others have to say about my actions and thought, I need their input for personal reflection, reflection which allows change to happen.

So this is my current ramble. I need to take a shower, do a bit of things around the house prior to work. The new job opportunity which seem so promising fell through at the last moment, it hurt but I dusted my butt off, got back on the horse, started doing the footwork again to apply for a couple of job openings which I am qualified for. For now I am good with what I am doing, the money is good via the overtime. Nothing is permanent, some day I will have a different job, just not today.

Peace Love Light
Scott  

Another one of those lessons

I called my sponsor and another elder statesman in recovery the other night about a situation that is new to me. Below is the story and the feedback.

I started sponsoring Fred about 3 months ago, Fred is a periodic, and he doesn’t call on regular bases, only periodically. Fred is new to recovery so the periodic calling doesn’t surprise me, we have sat down and talked a few times, went through some suggested readings out of the Big Book, more or less pointed him in the right direction and figure he will call me when he needs to or is willing. I need to say that Fred has called a couple of time when something was going on he needed to talk about, so he does communicate just not as much as suggested, (suggestions are just that, a suggestion from people who have traveled the road before you and are living a good life in recovery but they are not commands and you don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to, freedom of choice). Fred called last night, he wanted to set a time to meet and talk, we decided to meet prior to the Tuesday night men’s meeting and ended up talking for little over a ½ hour. Fred was engaged to a woman named Linda; they had known each other for 3 years and been engaged/living together for about 6 months. I have known Linda for 2-1/2 years; she has been in and out of recovery, spent time in a halfway house, and spends time in and out of the mental health hospital. Linda is one of those sick people who craves attention, jumps around in relationships and cheats a lot, if she doesn’t get attention she does things to make sure she gets it and some of those things aren’t very health. She is bi-polar with manic tenancies; she goes off and on her meds depending on her moods. I don’t think she has ever had much more than 6 months of clean time since I have known her. She has a hard time getting along with sponsors because of wanting to things her way or wanting to be babied, she is compulsively dishonest too which doesn’t help her relationships with the people who try and help her. Like the elder statesmen said last night she is one of those sick and lost souls. Fred is aware of some of this but the old saying “love/lust is blind” pretty much applies to how he sees things; he is realizing some things though so the blinders are opening. Last night Fred told me about all the games Linda was playing with him. My response was to not communicate with her and remember that both of them are sick people. Both have been going to a couple of meetings a week mainly at the local meeting house and Fred is afraid of running into Linda at a meeting, I suggested going to different meetings which we are blessed to have around here.

Now here is where sponsorship and using the network of solid people in recovery comes in to play. I called the elder statesman to get his views on Fred’s honesty, Fred worked for the elder statesman for quite a while, he told me to take what Fred says with a grain of salt, o.k. so now I can hopefully weed out what Fred is saying and not buy into the exaggerations. Linda has a new AA sponsor; she also has an NA sponsor who she seems to be fairly close with and from what she says uses. The AA sponsor just happens to be my sister. This created a whole new dynamic to me sponsoring Fred. I am not overly close with my sister, in fact since she has gotten sober we have drifted further apart, she is part of the Christian sect of the local AA scene and I am not; I am very active in service work and receive quite a bit of attention from it and also from being insightful so I perceive there is a bit of jealously going down, as I have said before my ability to do service work and my insightfulness are both gifts and I down play them as much as possible. Having said all this my sister is still my sister and I want to look after her best interest. My sister doesn’t know Linda at all; she has only been to a couple of meetings with her. My sister is very naïve; she is sugary sweet, talks a lot about God and not a lot about basic Big Book recovery, she isn’t well versed in AA literature, so her recovery is based more on what her sponsor says, what she picks up in meetings and stuff from her Bible study and Christians in Recovery group. I have a feeling Linda choice my sister because she is so nice and probably subconsciously Linda feels my sister will baby her the way she likes. The things that were going through my head where; do I tell my sister what I know about Linda and maybe save her some emotional turmoil, do I let her know that I am Fred’s sponsor, just in case a hassle surfaces? While waiting for my sponsor to call me back I thought to myself “if Marilyn wasn’t my sister how would I react?” The answer was that with the exception of a couple of very close friends I wouldn’t say anything; to the close friends I would only mention to be careful. The thing with sponsorship is that as we sponsor people we learn things about ourselves, we may not be able to keep the sponsee sober but we keep ourselves sober, we get a bigger picture of our strengths and weaknesses, sponsoring has amazing highs and bitter lows but if we see these highs and lows in the right light it becomes a wonderful act of service and an opportunity for more spiritual and recovery growth. My sister has a good sponsor to talk to, she will have use the tools she has to be as effective as she can with Linda and she still may fail in helping Linda work the steps and stay sober. When I was talking to my sponsor he said that if someone is BS’ing us not being honest, eventually we figure it out. He agreed with my assessment on whether to tell Marilyn what I know about Linda, yes we want to protect our siblings but are we really protecting them when there may be a life lesson to be learn, our selfish desires shouldn’t get in the way of learning about life on life’s terms. Something else we talked about is anonymity and tradition 12; anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. I am responsible for Linda’s anonymity, what she has said in the meetings, what I have observed and heard from her are private matters. What Fred says to me is private, this is something I am very strong on, I don’t have serious conversations with the people I sponsor when others are around, I don’t share information that is told to me in confidence with others with the exception of my sponsor or trusted elders and then I don’t give the persons name. Whatever happens between Fred and Linda is in the hands of the future, if there is “my sponsor says this. Well my sponsor says this” incident which brings some kind of confrontation between my sister and myself then I will deal with at that time and hopefully have the awareness and insight to deal with it a constructive and compassionate manner. I am sure I have probably read too much into the “what if’s” in having my sister sponsor someone who is a complicated relationship with one of the guys I sponsor, but for me the best thing to do is talk it out with someone I respect, also non-action is a great help, just sitting opening the mind to what is going on and seeing all views of the story.

Don’t know if any of this makes sense but another way me to understand things is in writing them out. Grow is so important spiritually and in recovery and it is things like the above that give me a chance to grow, to see a couple of defects that need attention and once again to practice living in the moment, stop projecting and kick your expectations to the curb.