Okay, now it’s hot.
Ever since I got back to Sacramento from Lake Tahoe, it’s been up in the 90s here. The forecast says the heat will continue for at least the next week. The solstice is next Tuesday. Summer is finally here. I find myself saying, “oh yeah, that’s right--summer is hot.” As if I somehow forgot.
I made the mistake yesterday afternoon of trying to run in the heat and only made it about half a mile before pulling back to a walk because I could barely breathe. I walked it for about a quarter mile, then started in again, but just couldn't go. I was feeling a little defeated about it. I've gotten into a good routine with my exercise and hated to miss or fall short on even one day. So I went back last night after it had cooled off and did a full mile on top of everything.
After I got home and showered, I couldn’t resist rewarding myself with a burger & shake. Too much carbs, milk, sugar, etc., and now today I feel shitty from the poor eating. Since I’ve been eating better and taking better care of myself, I notice much more intensely how my body feels when I fall off that particular wagon. Ah well, progress not perfection right?
There’s a number of things running through my mind right now. Probably part of that comes from not being up to snuff in the body. But it’s making it difficult for me to get words out in the blog today. No one thing on the brain seems like something I want to write about, or it could be that it’s all stuff that would be good to write about but I’m just not able to put any of it into words for some reason. Ah, let’s just call it a slightly off day. And hey, if the worst of my problems is that I’m at 75% in the brain instead of 100, well that’s what we call a quality problem. Guess I can still be hard on myself :) Gotta knock that shit off at some point.
I went to a newcomers meeting last night. It was pretty small, but I think it was a good meeting. I shared about how the disease isn’t about our substance abuse. If it were, then all our problems would just go away once we quit using and drinking. We read from the literature and there was a paragraph in there that really brought that point home.
Sobriety isn’t Recovery; the two are worlds apart. The disease is about our out-of-whack thinking, the way we deal with life, with other people, with ourselves. Recovery, the twelve steps, teaches us a different way of living life. Being sober is what gives us the chance to learn it. So many people start the program thinking all they have to do is quit getting loaded and all their problems will be solved. The harsh truth is that our real problem takes much longer to change.
I’m not sure how or why, but somehow I knew when I started working the program that it could teach me a new way of life, and I knew that it was something I desperately wanted. It hasn’t been easy, but the changes I’ve gone through and how my life is different now make it worth it. That was something else I shared at the meeting last night--that I wouldn’t keep doing this Recovery thing if it didn’t work.
No comments:
Post a Comment