Simultaneous Acceptance

February 8

Simultaneous Acceptance

Being typical is a difficult thing to live with, but I am typical.  Being extraordinary is a challenging thing to live up to, but this is also mine to bear, you see I am a typical alcoholic after all.  Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough. I must simultaneously accept both my common commonality and my lottery winner uniqueness if I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power.  If I don’t integrate this double reality, allow it to imprint my thoughts the way it is tattooed in my DNA I can not possibly take the biggest step of all and drop my judgment of these things so that humility can dwell within.  You see there is not enough room in the vortex of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict and the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility. I can’t chase humility I have had to face that, but I can remove the impediments to its residence.

Have some compassion for your wounds

*

READY

Ready or not here it comes.
Life on terms of its own.
Bracing for the onslaught of gravity
I grip too well the implements of past days.

Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave,
The ground having been scooped out by my own hand.
Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark,
Reducing to coagulated futility, loosing my life in anticipation of death.

Attempts at being less, as means of protection,
Less is not a solution.
Fading does not make life more livable
It makes me unavailable.

Readiness is my responsibility, it is momentary, momentary is sufficient.
Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant
I need go no further,
Whole solutions are not my department.

Showing up,

dressed and washed,

ball and bat in hand if possible,

Just making it to the lineup is my full-time job.
Even if I never swing

It is better than being buried in the field

You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Game Playing

August 1

GAME PLAYING

My Higher Power doesn’t play me like a board game, doesn’t monopolize my time or put me in jeopardy.  My trouble is my own.  I pursue trivia at my discretion.  I take or reject risk at will.  I scrabble my thoughts and am sorry when I make mistakes but don’t expect to live in a candyland.  When I stick my hand in the mouse trap, or fall down the shoots and need to climb the ladders, I know the game may not be over, but it is far too late to play let’s make a deal.

Keep a game with you.

*

Porcellano

Some days I feel like a porcelain doll;

hard head, hard hands, hard feet

and everywhere else is soft, gormless.

I feel useless and act out my feelings,

stumbling through a day of pointless inactivity.

I know that I belong on a shelf

or propped upon the pillows of a bed,

not fine enough for curio or collection,

merely someone of marginal decorative value.

I have gotten away from the meaning of me,

the thrum of God’s intentions

and am trapped in this world of elaboration;

everything is embellished and nothing is real.

It is time to put my foot down.

To feel the earth solid and right;

to catch my mind and take it out

of its greasy spin from what is descent.

I am not a China doll

and it is time to walk away

from these purloined thoughts

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

The Team

February 21

THE TEAM

The dream sobriety I envision, the fantasy recovery I mentally construct, blows out to sea as so much mist in the face of actual life.  Setting out sports teams, which don’t exist, is playful and entertaining.  Trying to rebuild the principals of the program is a delusion I can drink over.  Finessing my network, and pretending I can put together my team on a basis of specialized talents instead of ground level willingness, is like designing a plane without regard to physics, playing only to aesthetics.  Anytime I am redesigning I must realize I am no longer participating.  If I keep my head in the game, I can stay away from statistics and stop planning outcomes.

Shade your life from undo exposure.

*

Word Comprehension

There were scads and scores of words

that I had at my command.

I could command them that was a fact;

comprehend them that was an illusion.

My sponsor had every confidence in me

and started my word comprehension lessons

with the tough ones first:

“No,” she would ask,

“What don’t you understand the Nnnnnn part

or the OHhhhhh part?”

Took me sometime to catch on to words deep as that.

Serenity that I learned through living Braille.

Learned it like any hungry child, by taste.

Learned it like learning the ocean as you swim in it.

Serenity is my ballast and my bail,

As for peace, all I can say is:

No comprehension, no peace;

know comprehension, know peace.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

The Landscape of Words

July 22

The Landscape of Words

Paint takes time to dry; I work with words.  I say azure and you are there with me, even if I am far from this mortal coil, my pigments stay fresh as long as you know blue, as long as you can hear me, read me, see me.  I paint 6X8 cell and we are imprisoned together, trapped, til I tell you of the key I slipped into your shoe.  I love the flow of watercolor, adore the mushy paste of oil, but nothing beats the world we paint and repaint here on this page.

Explain why frogs don’t have wings

*

GAME PLAYING

My Higher Power doesn’t play me like a board game.

Doesn’t monopolize my time or put me in jeopardy.

My trouble is my own.

I pursue trivia at my discretion.

I take or reject risk at will.

I scrabble my thoughts and am sorry when I make mistakes

.

But don’t expect to live in a candy land.

When I stick my hand in a mouse trap

Or fall down shoots and need to climb up ladders.

I know the game may not be over

But it is far too late to play let’s make a deal.

You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Bells

October 4

BELLS

The bells are ringing but no one sings.  There are no peals of laughter and that’s just fine, for pleasure is not the only response to sound.  Shock and distain are other options, too.  I have what I want in relationship to the buzz in my ear, equal opportunity attitude, pro and con.  Some songs bring joy when they end.  I have to lower my expectation of pleasure and value my distaste for tinkling sounds or any other preordained sweetness.

See through your problems.

*

Jeopardy

Today I tore down the isolation booth.

I didn’t live in there exactly;

sometimes I stuffed God in there

and went out for a ride.

I left that shack stand for far, too long;

a testimony to ill conceived,

ham-handed, control freaks everywhere.

I said all I wanted was some peace,

but a vacuum is not tranquility

and escape won’t substitute either.

Since the live studio audience has gone home

and the house lights are dimmed,

I feel pretty foolish for playing

round after round on my own.

This game was never any fun

and the sponsors were death merchants and scavengers

whose interest lay in destruction and nothing else.

I must not cast aspersions, I didn’t care

that the contest was merely an upright pit

with a lethal pendulum, I used it as a hideout and a lair,

A place whose walls

I could keep between me and my Higher Power

and an activity I could depend on

to keep me free from living a life.

It all came to the ground today;

I walk over the splinters and shards,

I know there has to be a better game

and I’m ready to play.

Game Playing

August 1

GAME PLAYING

My Higher Power doesn’t play me like a board game, doesn’t monopolize my time or put me in jeopardy.  My trouble is my own.  I pursue trivia at my discretion.  I take or reject risk at will.  I scrabble my thoughts and am sorry when I make mistakes but don’t expect to live in a candyland.  When I stick my hand in the mouse trap, or fall down the shoots and need to climb the ladders, I know the game may not be over, but it is far too late to play let’s make a deal.

Keep a game with you.

*

Porcellano

Some days I feel like a porcelain doll;

hard head, hard hands, hard feet

and everywhere else is soft, gormless.

I feel useless and act out my feelings,

stumbling through a day of pointless inactivity.

I know that I belong on a shelf

or propped upon the pillows of a bed,

not fine enough for curio or collection,

merely someone of marginal decorative value.

I have gotten away from the meaning of me,

the thrum of God’s intentions

and am trapped in this world of elaboration;

everything is embellished and nothing is real.

It is time to put my foot down.

To feel the earth solid and right;

to catch my mind and take it out

of its greasy spin from what is descent.

I am not a China doll

and it is time to walk away

from these purloined thoughts

The Landscape of Words

July 22

The Landscape of Words

Paint takes time to dry; I work with words. I say azure and you are there with me, even if I am far from this mortal coil, my pigments stay fresh as long as you know blue, as long as you can hear me, read me, see me. I paint 6X8 cell and we are imprisoned together, trapped, til I tell you of the key I slipped into your shoe. I love the flow of watercolor, adore the mushy paste of oil, but nothing beats the world we paint and repaint here on this page.

Explain why frogs don’t have wings

*

GAME PLAYING

My Higher Power doesn’t play me like a board game.

Doesn’t monopolize my time or put me in jeopardy.

My trouble is my own.

I pursue trivia at my discretion.

I take or reject risk at will.

I scrabble my thoughts and am sorry when I make mistakes

.

But don’t expect to live in a candy land.

When I stick my hand in a mouse trap

Or fall down shoots and need to climb up ladders.

I know the game may not be over

But it is far too late to play let’s make a deal.