Sometimes I find the saying "progress not perfection" is a life saver especially on days like today. I realised today on a soul level that all I can really ever do is my best and some days my best is just gunna be crap , it's just that simple you know. I had a part of old bad me come straight back from my past today and inhabit my thoughts my words and my actions.
When I drank I was a chronic drunk driver I probably would have driven 80% of the times I drank and thats alot of drunk driving. I only ever got arrested the once over it but had many many "incidents". One of my main offender behaviours was crashing into the cars of other citizens who happened to have innocently parked in the same carpark as a lunatic alcoholic driver out for a nights liquoring up. Usually it would be from reversing , and totally forgetting to look in the rear mirror due to such high levels of intoxication ( I've smashed up alot of drivers side doors). Heres the choker, I never stopped one time to leave a note ever in any of these accidents. It was like my mind suddenly saturated with adrenalin from the fear would become instantaneoulsy sober and then say " OKAY , JAMIE GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE THIS COULD MEAN JAIL AND YOU DON'T NEED THAT **** GO GO GO".
Today I had virtually exactly the same thing happen except stone cold sober so I can't even hide behind the alcohol. I was at the paint shop picking up some materials for the boss, it's not a shop we frequent and the carpark was rediculously tight. My first intutive thought ( should have listened) was reverse all the way out, you'll get a sore neck becasue it's a long drive way but it's the safer option . But NO Jamie had one of his bright ideas , I'll do a 20 point turn in a tiny car park . When I thought I had cleared the other vehicles parked there I started to turn the wheel towards the driveway entrance all of a sudden there was the sound of screeching metal as I clipped the end of this other guys truck . An old couple seemed to just APPEAR out of nowhere and were all shocked at the sounds and sight of it all. So what does a sober member of AA who considers himself to have a good program do ????
Gets flushed with adrenalin and in a fear based state Says to himself " GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE WHILE THE OLDER COUPLE ARE GAZING AT THE DAMAGE TO THE OTHER TRUCK BEFORE THEY GET YOUR LICENCE PLATE, GO GO GO". Driving off the rationalisations came thick and heavy , err umm umm , it was minor damage....yeah yeah minor, and... and ..... it's happen to me before what goes around comes around. Just unacceptable immature irrational thoughts.
I couldn't believe it, it was like the old bad me was right there calling the shots all over again. My program just melted away to nothing. When I got back to the work site I was swamped with guilt and had a sudden urge to go back to to the paint store and own up but I knew the guy would have been gone and in all honesty I don't know how serious my thoughts of returning were.
I really just wanted to post some ego deflating stuff about what a crap person I can still be , because it's my home group tonight and I'm gunna spill this all over the tables there too and really just wanted to admit to myself and others that I did the wrong thing.
Oh yes, see my post on dry drunk. I actually did that self same thing a couple years ago tho' clipped a car in a car park and drove off and left it, no note no nuthin.
Then of course, what goes around comes around. Days later, the local kids were snowballing and put two of my windows in. Only now do I see the justice in this. I crease some guy's car and days later I get teh hassle of repairing two spanes of glass in 10 below snowstorm.
Wonder what you'll get? Some minor inconvenienvce I'll bet but at the time, you'll not need it and sometime later you'll see that what goes around comes around.
Good to read this because I'm now thinking regards my ex wife, she's hurt me bad but all I need to do is protect myself, because she'll get hers but not from my hand. What goes around comes around.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
Honesty ,the antidote to our diseased thinking!! Share it Jamie,continue to allow God to work in your life,cause the things we used to do ,now sting where they would'nt have before......We will stumble and fall,but we pick ourselves up,dust ourselves off,find the lesson to be learned and move forward.Thanks for sharing your heart this morning.I will remain ever vigilante today also,knowing that the illness is always lurking waitng for me to show just a little complacency!I put on the armor of God and head out in the world.....
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Thank you Jamie for posting this. About a month ago, I was pulling out of the parking lot at the alano club from a 9am meeting and I did the same thing. my 94 ford backed into the door of a 2010 Tahoe and out the parking lot I go, just like the old days, feeling the same things you described. I drove for home but had to drive around the block, go back to the club, and rat on my self. It felt good to own it, and still pissed at my self for cutting and running. Still havent payed for the damage yet, but the woman who's truck it is knows it was me, and I have to give her $ 400 this week for a $ 100 job. That pissed me off, but I keep asking my self... How much is my sobriety worth?...How manny things have you gotton away with and didnt have to pay for?... So I will just fork over the cash, and and know I did the right thing regardless of how I felt. Its the actions that count in this deal, not the feelings. when my actions are good ,I feel good. Maybe the owner of the store you were at knows who's truck you hit, and there is still time to set it right.
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Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
Thanks everyone for the love and support. It's a case of one extreme to the other strikes again. I have been working hard on my recovery lately, too hard really trying to force recovery to move at my pace instead of God pace and I faced a backlash as a result, total program to no program in no time at all.
@ Bill , just wanted to state for the record I don't believe in the term "dry drunk" to me it creates the impression of some mysterious alcoholic condition that I can fall victim to and use as an excuse. I knew I should have stopped and cleaned this mess up, and I did the wrong thing. To me alcoholism is what happens when I drink and the obsession I had to overcome in early recovery. I can't blame alcoholism for this it's just a case of poor human conduct. I can't hide behind the disease model.
Thanks to all who chose to answer this post , because I was "expecting" judgement and what I got was understanding an love .
I felt grateful and humbled after reading your story and I thank you for that. What I learned from this encounter, which I do believe others should as well, is not only your willingness to persevere through this difficult ordeal but to remain honest despite the circumstances. Thanks...
Couple of years ago I went to a meeting stressing about money, I owned my own business and business was SLOW, I was in trouble so of course I step up my meetings, as I was leaving I back up and hear this horrific screech/crunch/tinkle, the meeting is held in a VERY wealthy town, so I hop out and look behind my car, and I have hit a brand new Porsche Boxter, they had JUST come out, and I have f***ed this one up...OMG OMG I gotta GO....no WAY will I ever be able to afford it and I think I only had liability insurance if someone hit me (I was wrong but I was panicing) so I drove away....I made it about 3 blocks and couldn't do it....with every fiber of my being shrieking I drove back...and left a note on the car...
The next day I get the call, it turns out it's from a friend of mine, a movie producer I know from the program, in his english accent I hear "Yes, you left a note on my car saying you struck it..."
I tell him everything, I didn't have the money to repair it blah blah and he says in that GREAT Oxford accent "right, cheerio, I JUST replaced that bumper, and it was 3,000 dollars, and there's a great scratch in the hood"...so somehow we come up with the idea of taking it to another friend of ours in the program who is able to cover the ding/hole with the license plate and buff out the scratch...and my friend is totally content with that....
it worked out....thing is I learned when I am true to myself everything always does work out, like when Bill talks about his Karma story, it goes the other way too, when I work my program, when I actually DO "turn my will and my life over to the care of God" by doing the next right thing, God comes through and actually...like...cares for me
It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, but I couldn't -not- do it..during the drive back to the parking lot I felt an overwhelming sense of relief and wanted to throw up all at the same time....
You get a chance to make amends for this, I don't know what it will look like, but you'll get a chance to do this again, and make it right this time, I know exactly how you felt having been in the same position as you, and so while you will get no judgment, I will pass on what was passed onto me
we ARE our actions, and like it or not you are now a REPRESENTATIVE of AA and how the program works, and we don't get relief by confessing our sins but making restitution for them, admitting is a good start, but how will you make amends for this? Can you try to find this person?
Now once again, been there and done that, and it wasn't me that made me go back and leave that note, and faced with the same situation again I can't say with perfect honesty that I'd be a good little boy scout or a good little christian and do the same thing again, but if I brought this stuff to my support group they'd put me on the path of restitution, not confession
Engaging in "old behavior" and then telling on myself is not really changing, because It's not "old behavior" if I keep doing it, As Bill puts it in step 9:
We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, Dont see anything the matter here, Ma. Aint it grand the wind stopped blowin?
Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry wont fill the bill at all.
-- Edited by LinBaba on Thursday 28th of April 2011 02:38:13 AM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
No, your not hiding behind your alcoholism......but your not using your tools either. Its making you feel bad. Use your tools that you have learned in the 12 steps. You know what to do and its not as hard as your think. Peace! (isnt that what your looking for?)
@ Susie your so right su, thankyou for the support and love. And your right it is peace I'm looking for and I do have the tools. Thanks for the reminder.
