"Boundaries And Bullshit"

I think when I look back on this spring what I will remember most is that the weather was beautiful and the allergies were a nightmare.

Hey there, all. Zach here. I started taking the allergy pills again. Grr. I hate taking anything and try to avoid it wherever possible, but after a meeting on the grass Friday night, working in the foothills hauling brush for my folks Saturday morning, then having a picnic in the park all Saturday afternoon, the allergies have beaten me down. I started in on the Claritin again yesterday morning and bit by bit things are coming back under control. They're not habit-forming, they're not narcotic, they're totally kosher under the program, so no worries there. Guess I just still have a hard time accepting help sometimes. However, sneezing blood got real old real fast.

Today I'm thinking about crossing lines, respecting boundaries, that sort of thing, and knowing when and where it's appropriate to call people on their bullshit.

I have some good friends in the program who I count on to call me on my shit. My sponsor is a big one. I need their perspective, their advice. I may not like it when they call me out, but I know that I need it. It keeps me out of that denial place; I can fool myself far easier than I can fool others. And I don't always realize I'm doing it. It helps me to stay in the Real, to know when I'm fucking up, because I can't always see it. That's especially true if I'm stuck inside myself, confined to my own perspective, thinking that the world revolves around me. Sometimes I need to be reminded that it isn't all about me.

That's an important aspect of sponsorship, I feel. Taking on a sponsor is admitting that our way isn't best, that we need help to deal with life. Ideally, it's someone we respect enough that we're willing to follow their suggestions even when we don't agree with them. Heh. Some might say 'particularly' when we don't agree with them. It's a speech I've given to my own sponsees before: you don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. It's part of a sponsor's job to call someone on their bullshit. The sponsee has asked for help, asked for guidance. A sponsor isn’t there to blow smoke up a sponsee's ass, but to tell them when they're fucking up.

We can do this for close friends in the program too, and as I said earlier, I depend on mine for it. Other people in the program, however, are another story.

One of my character defects is thinking that I know what's best for others. Before I got into the program, I spent a lot of time and energy letting others know exactly what was wrong with them and what they needed to do to fix it. I made it my business to tell everyone I met how they should act, think, etc. It was the great irony, really, and yet not a surprise at all. It was how I learned to be in the world. I was always at the mercy of other people telling me what to think and feel; I didn't know how to do those things for myself, but I was real good at telling others what they needed to do.

It's so indicative of the diseased way of thinking where everything is reversed. Instead of controlling what we can--ourselves--we try to control others and think we can't control ourselves. It's the exact inverse of what's real--that we aren’t responsible for others, only ourselves.

If someone is my sponsee, I have a responsibility to let them know (with love) when they're falling short. If it's just someone else in the meeting, acting all crazy, my job is to shut the fuck up. Newcomers especially. I have to remember what it was like to be new, stumbling my way through as I tried to learn this new way of life. Others showed me compassion and understanding, and it's my job to show the same courtesy. Because I can't control other people, only myself. When I try to control others, the results can be disastrous. I lose my serenity, my life becomes unmanageable, and who knows what harm I might do to the other person.

It's a fine line to walk, but a critically important one. And I have a lot of gratitude for knowing that it exists and where it is, now. It's the allowing others the freedom to be themselves that gives me the same freedom to be myself.