Something that came up in the drive home from a meeting tonight, and I thought I'd get some thoughts on it.
I was talking to a newer member about how I'd spent my life looking for something to fill the void I had in my soul. Drugs, drink, woman, etc. Whatever would get me away from me I'd do to excess, but now with AA that void has been filled and I no longer feel that I have to chase anything to feel... complete? real? alive? pick your word.
This sorta led onto talking about geographicals, and I realised that for the first time in my life I don't have itchy feet. I travelled and moved around so much in my life. I didn't stay anywhere long enough to put down roots, and the grass was always greener in the next paddock.
So I was wondering if anyone else here has noticed the same thing? Did you need to re-invent yourself every so often, and if so has the urge to look over the next hill left you now? Is this an unconcious acceptance of what is that I have now?
Anything that you think is relevent would be appreciated.
Yes, I moved every year for 10 or so years - It got harder after buying a house. We still did it though. Now I wish I lived closer to family, but it's different... I have my AA family now : )
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
I did 1 geographical and, of course, brought all my problems with me. Aside from that, I've reinvented myself in AA to a version that I am content with. I don't consider moving at all or changing careers. I do constantly consider changing jobs, working with different populations, doing different things to stay in shape, challenging my fitness in new ways. Hence, that desire to reinvent myself is still there, but I have to make sure it's coming out in healthy, or at least, less harmful ways.
Thanks Frodo :) Good topic.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
During the height of my drinking, I constantly wanted to move and romanticized the idea of living anywhere but where I was. I used to think to myself that if only I could live in Germany... or England... or Hawaii... or California... etc. I would be happy. Since I was living in a nightmare, I think, I consistently felt like if I could escape, I would be happy. I eventually found the chance to go to Scotland for a short period and imagined it would be blissful because it was nothing I had ever done before. Being so far away from home made me more miserable than ever once I got there and found out that all of my problems were still with me. Most of them got worse and so I started drinking even more. Then, I started romanticizing home and thought that if only I could back home, I would be happy. That didn't happen either.
I've never thought about this topic before, but it is really interesting. Now that I am pulling my life together I don't have the desire to move, and I'm no longer romanticizing faraway places. I guess it is all part of the process of learning that the bulk of our happiness does in fact come from within. That's a really common statement, of course, but it certainly seems to be true in this context.
Thanks for the topic!
-Adam
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When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
I think part of our becoming satisfied with our present location along our journeys is partly a natural process ... a process that is interrupted by our alcohol addiction ... meaning, we are told that our maturity goes on 'hold' for the time we actively drink, then picks up where it left off when we stop drinking ... so, I think each of us experience that 'filling of the gap' in our own time ...
Today, I don't get 'itchy' feet so much as I find a way to be happy with, and grateful for, where I am ... I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter where I am, as long as my search for God has been successful, and my 'spiritual' condition is right, I'm at home ... my search is ended ... so my condition is maintained by staying fit spiritually ...
I think one gets itchy feet when they aren't sure they have what they're looking for ... the words 'irritable, restless, and discontent' come to mind ...
Pappy
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
I always felt that if I could just live in the castle in the middle of Disneyworld, everything would be fine. Then those bastards at Disney said no. I finally got used to where I am living, and I was probably better off with that being the case. Tom
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
I liked being different places and that was possible because I always knew I could come back home. I was born and raised on an island...feature the center of a cup with the walls being the pacific ocean. I do best in familiarity and had my worse times when I either was taken of the island when I didn't want to or stayed away too long for the wrong reasons. I've done both. Island to island is intriguing because all are Hawaii and each have their own spirits. In life I use to walks fence tops above and between the pastures rarely ever making decisions about into which one I would land...when I did make that decision is was about coming home where my spirit was created and the atmosphere it grew in. When I got back home I was told that the spirit of where I had lived for so long was gone and that I had to leave...go to a more culturaly established island and I did that. I am now on Moku Keawe...the big island and have been back home 19 years only off shore people have flooded my home and brought their evasive cultures with them. When and where we use to be still, peaceful and quiet it is now busy and noisey and politics and police insist on subduing the remaining mana (spirit). Our national condition is being compared to Los Angeles and the East. I ask Akua (God...the God of my understanding and creation) to intervene and then also do my part which just about a year ago got me assaulted and thrown in jail...The cop inventoried my possessions and when he handled my 33 year sobriety medallion didn't understand, identify or care...I do and Ia ka Akua (my God) does also. I am a sober Hawaiian National and my side of the pasture is ka moku `o Keawe. I came back home because Akua sent me back...this is where I and my spirit were created and this is where my kinolau (body) will remain after my mana (spirit) departs it. My feet are where my head and heart are. (((hugs)))
Thanks for the replies. Yet again I see that now matter how different we are on the surface we are very similar underneath.
'S funny but I'm right in the middle of a training course for a whole bunch of construction and plant machinery tickets, which will more than likely see me moving around the country on road construction work. A couple of years ago I would have thought that a wonderful thing - I could wear out my welcome in many different places and always have it in the back of my mind that no matter how miserable I was making myself next week would be different and better because I'd be in a different and better place.
Now... now I see it as a means to an end. I'll enjoy seeing different places and working with different people, but I'll be doing it because that's what I want to do so that I can have a better quality of life when I'm home. If life takes me somewhere and it means I have a look at what is over the next hill, then that's nice, but I don't have that urge or necessity to do it because I have convinced myself that what is over that hill is better than what I have here. I'll be happy wherever I am because I'm happy being me.
One of the most (IMHO) under-rated things that this program gives us is the ability to be. To just to exist in an unremarkable moment and enjoy it for what it is rather than be melancholy for what it isn't. Sometimes the simple things in life are also the very best.
Yes, Pappy: 'Irritable, restless, and discontent' is what it was, and I'm very pleased to say that today - right now - those words do not resemble anything that lives inside me.
Thanks Frodo. I really identify with both what it was like and what it's like now on this. Helpful perspective and a reminder too bottles were but a symbol and alcohol was but a symptom, and that the program treats the underlying malady.
