annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks I like to write but I don't always know what to write about so I've decided to try and write about things I feel grateful for. So today I feel grateful for having Whatsapp and sometimes messaging back and forth with mi amiga simeons-twin in Chile, or sometimes in El Salvador, swish swish halfway round the world, chit chat, nothing major just bits of this and that, often Bowie-related, keeping our friendship alive despite the miles. Today I received a clip of some wild birds outside the cabin where she's staying overnight - chirruping and tweeting away, fucking brilliant. I'm grateful that we are friends - we're decades apart in age but it doesn't seem to matter and she has enriched my life no end. I also feel grateful today to my daughter for pushing me into going to an Al Anon meeting. I'm not close to anyone who's a using addict so I wasn't sure what the benefit would be and I'm still not entirely clear. Long time readers of this blog will know that my two surviving children are both in the 12 step fellowship and as far as I know their father is still an alcoholic of the bingeing variety, in a loop that's been going for at least forty years of his drinking building up till he commits some act of violence while pissed out of his mind. Appalled, he'll stop but after a week or two he'll have a beer, just one, and having proved he can have just one, the next day he'll have two and it's usually about a month till he's back. I should say he was like that - no idea what he's like now really. Anyway, I went to the meeting and mainly just listened as other people shared where they were at this morning. No one suggested in any way that it wasn't an appropriate place for me. There was a woman there I've known for thirty years, not consistently but with odd moments of closeness, so that was brilliant and reassuring that this was a sensible place to be. We went for a coffee afterwards and have emailed this afternoon. The word is to go to six meetings before deciding if it's for you. I went to one in about 1983, when I was still living with my drinking ex-husband, but back then it wasn't about the 12 steps, just a bunch of people moaning about the pissheads they were married to and I didn't see the point of it. Now, this group at least do the 12 steps,though maybe not all do as all groups are independent. Before I decide I'm going to speak to my therapist as it may not be compatible with therapy. But if it is I probably will give it six meetings. Who knows? 11:31 p.m. - 25.02.23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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