three days since my last blog. wow. dear readers, had you given up on me?

this morning, I wrote a very long blog about the last three days and just as I got to the very last, I lost all of it. I don’t know what I did, but page after page of me pouring out my little life onto the computer screen all went away and I can’t retrieve it.

The ironic thing is that I had mostly written about my search for serenity in the AA sense of that word (think: serenity prayer) and then I lost the post and lost my serenity.

God can be such a prankster.

So, here’s the short version …

You may recall that a couple of weekends ago, I spent Saturday night restlessly going from one bar to another, one band to another, looking for something I didn’t find.

It was another wakeup call to me that I’m too far from my AA program.

I was “restless, irritable and discontent.”

That is a huge and major signal that I’m skating too close to drinking, even though I didn’t come close during that weekend to having a drink. Nevertheless, it’s my disease working on me.

Unchecked, that attitude will lead me to a place where I have no defense against the first drink and then I’ll be off and running.

My alcoholism is desperate right now because I’ve dedicated myself since the New Year to return to those things that helped me so much nearly 11 years ago when I first stopped drinking.

I’ve dedicated myself to 2 AA meetings a week this year. I’m actually doing that.

The second Friday in April, I’ve accepted a request for me to speak to an open meeting at the Western Club.

I’m going back to the basics and trying to work all 12 steps fresh, anew, and with the same dedication and desperation that I had when I first started.

Part of the motivation for that is that last year, I let romance and finance ruin my sobriety and serenity. No, I didn’t drink, but I’d let lots of my drinking behaviors creep back into my life. I was in the problem and not the solution. I spent too much time in that dangerous place between my ears. I let a dangerous resentment over my lovelife work me over and make me miserable. I let my own procrastination and perfectionism destroy my ability to work productively.

I’m trying to change that.

I’m trying to get more calm in my life. I’m trying to get back to my “center”.

I’m eating out far less often.

I’m dedicating myself to doing a minimum of productive work every day. Sunday, for example, I spent most of the day producing documents that were necessary for court hearings yesterday afternoon. As a result, when I went into court yesterday afternoon, everything was calm, I knew what was going to happen, I was prepared and my tendency to be afraid of the unknown was dispelled.

Last night, I stayed home and listened to music and read James Lee Burke’s “The Moon of Red Ponies.”

Saturday, I did things around the house and ran errands and tried to make my life better in small ways.

I refuse to spend my time seeking dates, sex and relationships. I’m very open to the women in my life and new women as well, but I’m trying to focus on friendship and emotional openness. It’s served me well in the sense that I’ve spent some time with some special women and I was able to enjoy them without making myself crazy about trying to date or bed them.

I wanted to become a domestic terrorist over my political discontent with the anniversary of the Iraq invasion and instead I prayed for the safety of my son in law and for my daughter’s strength.

I have a friend who has recently annoyed the hell out of me and instead of blasting him, I’ve decided to go to him in private and ask how I can be of help.

I’m seeking to identify the self destructive behaviors in my life and to substitute reading, writing and painting and other behaviors that enrich my life.

I spent an hour on the phone this weekend with an AA friend talking about the friend’s failed romance and the emotional upset that follows such failures. I suppose I got the call because I have so much experience with failed romances. (I’m laughing at myself there, folks, so laugh with me, OK?) Often, the teacher learns more than the student and I was able to use that conversation to examine my own behaviors, understand them and see through the friend to my own mistakes and shortfalls. I’ll never know if that conversation helped my friend, but I’m sure it helped me.

Somehow, in the crazy world that’s between my ears, the counterintuitive always seems the better choice. By thinking of someone else and their troubles, my own troubles seem to disappear.

So, what did I do since I last blogged?

No much. Pretty quiet, really.

A lot. I wrestled with my disease by surrendering to it and seeking calm and to be of help to others.

I looked for solutions rather than keeping the focus on the problems.

I gave up my expectations and avoided the resentments that inevitably follow.

By expecting nothing, I was showered with blessings.

I stopped striving and was given accomplishments.

God bless us everyone, Tiny Tim.

Peace.