After what feels like winter’s hibernation, though we're officially two months away, I can feel the stirrings of spring, which, for me, can show up as a certain restlessness.  I noted to my sponsor that I was feeling bored with my usual weekend routine. She reminded me, lovingly of course, that “if you’re bored, you’re boring.” Ouch! Her words caused just enough defensiveness to look a little deeper and realize that I’ve not been bored, I’ve been lonely. With the differences in work schedules in our home, I spend a fair amount of time alone. Weekends have tended to be a mad dash to cram in together time, meetings, chores, errands, time with daughter, and a dash of healthy solitude, with friend time a distant priority. What I’ve done, with the re-awareness that I function best with balance (hello Libra!) is: picked up an additional meeting during the week and made a couple of movie dates with friends, with muddy hikes on the horizon. Ahhh - connection!  This isn’t an unfamiliar place - more of a cycle. Winter is a natural time for going within, coziness with a cup of tea and a good book. With garden plants budding and the wee bit of increased daylight, I find myself craving more activity. Too empty a schedule can feel like a sedative. Too full can = what I call “tuning fork energy.” Our literature points out that on-going self-evaluation is a recovery tool. This isn’t just when we’ve done something “wrong” and promptly admitted it, but also when I feel myself a bit off. A gift of long term recovery is that I rarely get too far off the beam without recognizing it. Talking with someone, pen to paper, prayer and meditation, all lead back to the still, small voice of wisdom.

Another aspect of connection I’ve been aware of lately is connection to those who have walked this path before - the old-timers who welcomed me when I first entered recovery, and the few family members who were sober. My cousin’s paternal grandmother was an alcoholic who got sober in 1975. Not being my grandma, she was merely an occasional presence while I was growing up - just another old person on the couch. But, a few years ago, I was gifted with her AA literature - her Big Book (2^nd Edition) and a daily reader, The AA Way of Life, precursor to As Bill Sees It. I’ve enjoyed seeing her notes in the margins, and what she underlined as important. I can almost feel her sitting with her sponsor, remarking on the Grace of God. Her son, my uncle, was also a long term member - he has a “sobriety stone” in the little memorial garden at the Yellow House in Seaside. I enjoy saying, “Hello Uncle Bob” when I’m there. 

When my mom passed, I came across items from my father’s sobriety journey - an old plastic lotion bottle from Holladay Park Hospital (remember, we don't throw anything away) where he went for detox and had shock treatments (under the mistaken notion that curing his depression would stop the drinking - I think they had it backwards). There is also an AA schedule from 1978 (though he quit drinking in 1968) and a Twenty-Four Hours a Day book, with a note from a woman named LaVeeda, saying "I hope you will read this each day as a reminder of what we are & always will be." There are phones numbers in the back, whether from his treatment program (the old Raleigh Hills aversion method) or the few AA meetings he attended, I'll never know. One of the great regrets of my life is wishing I'd had a sober conversation with my Dad. I was about 5 years from hitting bottom when he died. When I pick up these little mementos, and read the very few notes he wrote, I can feel connected through the years. I can trust that if there is any kind of existence after this human experience, Dad knows that I'm sober, and feels the love that crosses time and space.

I've also got the Big Book I was given in treatment, a 3rd edition (back when if you said "page 449!" people knew exactly what you were referring to). This volume is full of notes and signatures, addresses and phone numbers, like a yearbook. "Jeanine, You've just taken the biggest step in your life!" from Debbie D.  "The pain you are experiencing will lessen - talk, talk, talk!" by K.J. And from my good friend, Cyd, who I'm still in contact with, "Hang in there. It gets rough, but then it gets better." Yes, it does. 

It's always thrilling to be in a meeting with someone who knew Bill W or Dr. Bob, or Lois and Ann, their wives. Those people are dying off. Soon there will be no one alive with that direct, first hand experience. That reminds me of the importance of our oral histories - the stories we share in meetings, from the podium, one-on-one with another alcoholic, and the history that we're reminded of via scratchings on the pages of our own books, our own phone lists that might show up from the bottom of a drawer. 

Sometimes the connections come when we see someone in a meeting that we remember from our early days, or when we quote one of the old timers we used to know. Sometimes it is unexpected - like the time my friends and I walked into a meeting in Beijing, China, to see a fellow we recognized from home in the chairperson's seat. That sense of belonging to something bigger than myself can come with the nod in the grocery store from a fellow member, a call from someone I once gave my number to, the quiet comfort in seeing the same folks in the same seats in my home groups.

Alcoholism and addiction are diseases of isolation - when we're actively drinking, and years later. Reminding myself of the "we" goes a long way in maintaining my peace of mind.  What are the connections that mean the most to you? Is there someone you want to reach out to this week?