Month: January 2008

I’ve been through a few versions of a higher power. The first was just the meeting I went to: whatever those folks were doing in there was obviously more powerful than anything I could come up with, since they were sober and I wasn’t. So that was a good start: turning it over meant going to the meeting and trying whatever they were doing.

Next, when I started working the Steps, my sponsor encouraged me to come up with something more specific, more personal. I went with that “inner voice” which, even in the depths of my disease, was telling me to quit pot, reminding me that I hate it. I decided then that “turning it over” meant listening to that voice. I came to think of it as tuning in the Gad Radio Channel, over all the noise and static in my head. Continue reading “Defining our Higher Power (part 2)”

I’m Paul, and I’m an addict.

I was lucky enough to live in a place where Marijuana Anonymous was pretty strong, and I plugged right in. I occasionally hit an NA meeting just for the scheduling, and I have no problem “translating.”

What I am struggling with lately is being an old-timer. Most MA meetings I go to in my hometown have only one or two people with more time than me, and it seems I hear very little about people working the Steps with a sponsor. Maybe the key is that I don’t hear it, as in I don’t listen, but it seems like if you put a bunch of new people in a room, you get a lot of “checking in” and war stories. So that’s been a frustration for me.

Continue reading “Why MA?”

Written in response to a testy, defensive newcomer online:

I didn’t meant to imply that quitting pot was easy. There’s “easy” and then there’s “simple.” What I was trying to say is that for me, thinking about the rest of my life leads to some pretty complex thinking that distracts me from the present moment. So, for me, a simpler path to sobriety is to just do it one day at a time. Sometimes, early on, I had to do it an hour at a time.

Continue reading “Simple vs. Easy”

Just shared this in an online meeting:

I am glad to see the topic of sponsors today. I went to see my family for the holidays, and there was an issue I wanted to address while I was there.

The specifics don’t matter, but I thought about it and thought about it … and then I thought about it some more.

Continue reading “A Word About Our Sponsors”