Balance
Living a sober life turns out to be far different for what I thought a life-without-alcohol would be. It is a whole lot more fun than I would have believed back in the early days. It contains way too many choices, positive choices, than I would ever have believed possible and it seems I still have my training wheels on for that aspect.
I believe in service-to-AA and routinely do my part to do coffee and chair each of my regular meetings during the year. Then the chance to contribute service to our local annual Women’s Day In Recovery event became a choice so I added that for the past four years. Our district lacked an Answering Service Chairperson a little over 2 years ago, so I volunteered for that. I’m Treasurer for my Home Group and I took on being “Literature” chair for a different meeting.
Bet you can see where I’m going with this. The upshot was I had no down-time left for anything spontaneous. I began to dread having to go anywhere, especially in winter, so all my AA service stopped being a joy. My internal “forgetter” works more generally than I would have guessed because I did not see that doing too much – of anything – is being out of balance.
So I rotated out of Answering Service chair, and Literature person, and Event participation all by the end of December. I’m into my second week of “normal” living and it feels odd. It feels like I’m slacking off. I’m in awe of how my alcoholic brain can twist healthy ideas into warped one.
There are many women in this group whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet in person, some whom I’ve gotten to know and value through their shares and all who teach me. If ever there were a group of sober women who understand the seesaw nature of ‘balance’ in a program of recovery, it is you.
So I ask, how do you balance all the priorities in your sober life to avoid getting tilted into harm’s way of drinking?