Blog entry for:

i can treat my sponsor with respect. he is human and has feelings, too. in fact all the men who have sponsored me over the course of my recovery have given me more gifts than i could show my appreciation for. i did call and chat with my sponsor yesterday, and as time goes by, i am learning to be less demanding and show more respect and concern for him. with that brief thought i can close this and move on.
what is going on with me these days is learning to tolerate my character defects. the one that is popping up the most lately is my tendency to be judgmental and hence self-righteous. i understand that making judgments is part of living, and necessary for my survival, so being judgmental is not necessarily a bad thing. when it warped into self-righteous and indignation, it is however something that needs to be looked at. that is what has been happening lately. i find it happening especially at meetings, and the last time it was active, was last night. i went to a meeting that i am not a frequent visitor at, my motives were to allow one of the men i sponsor the chance to see me outside of my normal beaten track. he was there and we did chat, in fact someone i knew from my not to distant pas was in attendance also, so i got the chance to give him my phone number and let him know that i was willing to be available for him. all in all, a successful meeting as far as that goes. HOWEVER there were two members in attendance who i would have rather not seen. what i felt when i saw them was disgust, and when they shared all i heard was fluff, nothing of any substance, and that fed my feelings of disgust, and built my judgmentalness into a real emotional feeding frenzy. my sponsor, in all his wisdom, has me focus on what i am feeling and how it applies to my fears. well part of what i was feeling was what a piece of sh*t i was for feeling that way about these members. yes, i know a thing or two about them and i have some history with them. and yes, like all human beings their behaviors are less than perfect, and yet i find myself focusing on the less than perfect manner in which they act, instead of the behaviors that are spiritual and in line with my own moral standards. i am well enough to understand, that when i feel that way, the last thing i need to do is open my mouth, and for some strange reason, more and more of these kind of people, those of whom i do not approve based on their past or current behaviors, seem to be popping up in my life. recently, i have not been very good about keeping my mouth closed, and yes i have a bit of damage to clean-up. so what was good about last night? well i kept quiet and ran through my feelings as part of my daily inventory. what i found was that i am challenged by their presence because i want to tell them what i think, and i want to behave in the same manner, BUT doing so would reduce the opinion others have of me in a similar manner. so it goes, i want to be a sh*t, the part of me i call my disease wants me to be a sh*t, and my moral values and the part of me i call my conscience does not want me to be a sh*t, hence i internalize my feelings, and create anger towards those other members, which i disguise as disgust. and working through that has made me feel a bit better about myself this morning.
i am okay now, and having a clue or two is always a good thing, so i guess i can go forward into my day secure in the knowledge that i am still quite human and will still have feelings and emotions and reactions that are not spiritual. life is better than it was and i have FAITH i will continue to grow into the man i have always wanted to be, character defects notwithstanding. so let me see if this save s correctly or my little epiphany flows into the bit bucket.

∞ DT ∞