THIS RAIN CALLS FOR ACTION

THIS RAIN CALLS FOR ACTION

It has been raining here for the past week and the resulting gloom has cast a pall over my otherwise umbral personality. So when people ask me if something is wrong it rather perplexes me.  What has changed in my typical thunderhead personality to cause anyone to inquire if there is something new that might have darkened my otherwise charcoal mood?

But today I was pleasantly greeted by my friend Nick, who, being a snow bird, has found his way back north for the season here in New England where he originally got sober. And this month he celebrated his fifth anniversary and no matter how bleak my mood, anniversaries are something to celebrate. They represent hope - hope for the future and acknowledgment of the past.  For me, anniversaries are markers of time; Time, which is that most valuable of currencies that can only be accumulated by thoughtful application of patience, hope and kindness.

We don't fight our way to have Time. We float our way to it.  We mark it, pray our way to it, stay with the sick for it, pay it forward for it, teach for it, share for it, feed others for it and lend others a hand for it. But we certainly can't force it in any sense of the word.  And by the thoughtful application of all these graces it accumulates if we don't pay it much attention.

I recall, and this is a universal experience, that when I first got sober and queried as to how I would get some sober time under my belt and was told to do it one day at a time, my only response was ??????  Everyone has the same reaction.  How can that be?, (meaning how in the world does one do that?)  But everyone who gets the program goes through that stage of wondering, puzzlement, wonderment and wondrous disbelief that there must be a power at work here beyond oneself that can make the miracle of "time", "sober time", happen.

Marty seemed to shrug and sum much of this miracle up by saying that "insight doesn't change a thing.  I spent ten years with a shrink and had tons of insight but it didn't make me get any closer to my parents. Insight without action doesn't' change a thing.  Understanding helps very little without acting.  That's why there is a chapter in the Big Book called "Into Action" not "Into Thinking" because thinking gets you nowhere."  And even though I've heard Marty say this hundreds of times before today, this time the thought had particular salience.

For I recalled that I spent decades in therapy myself but it didn't do me any good either in understanding where my depression began if I couldn't or wouldn't act to change my life.  And the only way that I could do that was the only way that I had previously refused to act.

But by refusing to stop drinking and admit that I drank alcoholically in reaction to my life growing up  I just compounded my depression. The real cure for the depression was to stop the drinking and let my brain normalize. Then as my brain chemistry returned to its native state could I reassess my relations with the world and not before then.

It was a very maturing step, frightening and lonely but one in which I could rely upon with the help of some close friends and my AA fellowship to guide me through some of the darkest periods so of my life. I stepped into the terrifying unknown of sobriety and onto the equally terrifying road to sane behavior.

But today those words, into action, seemed to ring because it may be that I have not sprung into action for a while now and am in need of a recharge in that department. 

Much new food for thought on this glum day. And with some interviews coming up soon, representing some work or new prospects, I am loathe to light a candle of hope for myself.  But perhaps now it is time to read a chapter from Marty's book and step out into a brave new world and 'act' again.

© res 5/24/2012