Policing The Grounds

I heard a woman in meeting today describing her relapse and said that it started weeks before she took a drink. When I was new I heard that but it didn't resonate. Probably because I was just starting to clear my head. This time it hit me. I realized that I had been heading for a relapse myself because my emotional and spiritual well being were not being well tended to by me. Since my last chip and all the hoopla, my pendulum has swung back hard and swift. My service position was handed off to the next person and the need for me to get bananas and doughnuts to the meeting every morning was no longer there. The thought that maybe I could start sleeping in a little or even miss a meeting sounded good. After all, hadn't I really worked my butt off in this last year? My family has been so supportive. Didn't they deserve to have me at home on a Sat. morning? Wanna know what was wrong with those seemingly logical ideas? They were thought up in the brain of this alcoholic. My sponsor likes to quote me things from the BB. In listening to my description of this funk he just said, "Cunning, baffling, powerful." He then added, "AND patient!" My meeting attendance is back where it was when I was new and desperate. Probably because I am a bit desperate again and it worked the first time. I also remembered service is what did it even before I was the group snack mom. The first service I started doing for my home group and the church host of our meeting was to police the grounds for all the cigarette butts as I smoked mine. I looked around the ground yesterday after the meeting and saw the evidence that I had been taking off too much time. So began my policing the grounds again. New year-old job-felt better-that simple. Moral of the story? Keep my butt clean and I will probably stay sober. ;)

God Bless,
Smoked Fish