Monday 5 August 2013

Alcoholics Anonymous | August 5 | DonInLondon | Step 8 "Amends And Willing"


August 5, 2013: "the madness of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result: my landlord and repairs!" My landlord tries their best to deliver a service of repairs when repairs are due. The good news and I say it with hope; the repairs department will be open today. The bad news, all the repairs undertaken in recent times need to be done again and the mice are back! What am I going to do now?

My morning mantra includes the following, or some say morning meditations: step one, I am powerless over alcohol and if I take a drink life will get unmanageable. Step two, a return to insanity is caused by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Step three, let go and let good people do good things if they can, at the same time, good people might not be able to do good things so I need to manage my expectations as well. I'm also powerless in the sense that I cannot control other people in their attitudes and behaviour, and at the same time I might be able to influence them to be positive and helpful. And this includes the repairs department who I must contact in order to share what is required to put matters right in my flat.

I noticed that my kitchen sink was not draining away too cleverly last week, followed by an incident with the washing machine which emptied the contents, a full load of water onto the floor because of the blocked drain. And in order to mop up the water, I pulled out my refrigerator behind which the water drainage pipe is located, and found a substantial amount of mouse hair and mouse droppings. I also noticed that after putting in what looks like an industrial water pump in my shower room, water is not draining away like it used to, and sometimes it takes a few goes for the water pump to clear up the puddle when the shower is turned off. Indeed the pump will restart to have another go at it needs to. Whilst I do have expectations that repairs will work and continue to work, I have learned over the years to reduce these expectations to nearly zero, or resentments will creep in and ruin the day. So I am going to resist my desire to be angry and resentful, and know it is possible to be angry and resentful if I do not have gratitude for everything else that is working reasonably well today.

So I am convinced it is better to accept that step one is a good guide when it comes to me. Powerless over alcohol and life could be unmanageable if I were to drink. Powerless over people places and things in the moment of now? Yes I am, because they are busy doing whatever it is that they do right now, wherever it is and I'm sure things are more important to them than me in their life. Even though their job may be to offer services, the services on offer are not controlled by me, I can only access what is available and what I learn is available today. It will never be fast enough, will it? So step three is important, let go my way, and find out which way things can work today! Step six defects: pride and ego and fear of not being taken account of can manifest if I go the route of being right and pompous and the clever Dick. Better to be in a place of feeling courage, feeling faith and confidence that eventually things will come right is a better place to be than step six where life gets intolerable very quickly and makes me feel horrible.

Meanwhile: knowing how my plumbing works is really helpful, having seen not only how the recent repairs were done, I realise there are conflicting repairs, boarding up certain areas of the wall to stop the mice coming in, has now made it more difficult to get at the pipes which are blocked. And I have a floor covered with water and drain cleaner fluid which I hope as not gone through to my neighbour down below. The shower pump puddle has diminished and gone after half an hour of the pump recycling. And I have received a letter from my landlord to become part of the committee overseeing the repairs department and what it does, now that does provide me with a conundrum, because my time is more precious doing other things than being on a committee to oversee a repairs department which will not function properly in the foreseeable future. No matter what I do, my influence over how things are done, especially from a committee one step removed is futile and will not change a thing in the minds of those who have not changed anything for decades. I prefer my loose-fitting garment in recovery, to the spandex on offer on the committee which has no powers and no influence over anything to do with how my life and the repairs department could be improved.

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