"Continued to take personal inventory and when wrong promply admitted it".

The last week was a week full of personal discovery for me.

I had been registering my own concerns with the manner of communcation "Break-downs", that I was seeing on this Board, and was told that this a Board is  where all commications are allowed, not an AA Meeting. Told to just ignore all the attacking going on.

So, I continued doing what I was doing, attempting to work with the new people when they came in, trying to ignore all the consternation going on, not reading any of it helped.

But when I came under personal attack, with someone telling me, in rather rough laungage, I need to grow "some Balls", and knock off the "Sugar Coated BS", I was doing, and to get a Program.  Get a Program??? I have been in this Program for over 16 years.???????

It was not the words really, but the resulting hurt I felt, when being publicly  demeaned and humiated by someone on this Board.  Thought about leaving the Board, is Silence, but because the attack had been public, I made a decision to publicly fire back.  Name calling, putting that person down, attempting to hurt back, to tell the truth.

All of my Buttoms had been Pushed, and this decision came from that place of hurt.

Took a few days to stop and  take reflection on my actions, old Family of Origin stuff, to suffer the humilation in silence.  Cannot and will not do that today, part of my own mental health.  This Board had turned into an Unsafe Place for this Alcoholic. One of my rules in own life is to get and stay away from anyone that can still push  these buttons.  Picking up a drink is the very last part of a slip in Recovery.

We are more or less stuck with our own Preceptions, and because I came into these rooms, had been Spiritually Bankrupt my entire life.  And when my Surrender to God, which came before AA took place, when I walked into these rooms to learn a different way of living , I was a broken, paralyzed person in fear.  My first six months of sitting in the chairs of AA, felt just like ICU, more than AA.  Just listened for most of the first year, without anyone telling me to do so, I was defrosting from the frozen fear of returning to Alcohol. And did Come to Believe in that first year, that by sitting in a meeting every day ,just listening,   there was now Hope for me as well. For the first time in my life I could see others and identify with them.  No more isolation.

When anyone new comes into this site, or comes into the meetings I go to, I am stuck with thinking that they are coming with that same frozen fear, that I surely will never forget, and what I offer to that person, is kindness, a lot of gentleness, and my deepest compassion for their fear.

Sugarcoated? If that is what any one choses to call compassion, thats not my stuff.

I surely do not need to defend my position, I am just me, doing the best I can do. 

But is was the "firing back", with all my Buttons "red hot", that was the distrubing part, my part, and need to make amends to all of the people on this Board, that were offended, I am sure.

I do apologize for my behavior, this is a Program, where there are no "excuses" really, bad behavior is bad behavior. I am apologizing for my own bad behavior.

This Board has been a God Send to me,  helped me get back on track with my meetings in a new area, and also helped through a very rough period of Grieving, over the deep personal loss of a very Beloved Pet.  And to this Board i will always be grateful for that.

I feel like a newcomer today, and that is a good thing,  I am very Teachable when feeling like this, and what happened, happened, and I will gain and grow from this experience.

An opportunity to humble myself to that first Step l again, powerless over Alcohol, and also SO Powerless over other People, Places and Things.

My Love to all on the Road of Recovery that we are walking, sometimes stumbling,  getting up and continuing to Walk this Journey, together,  we are all together.  And yes, John, giving up the Debating,  breathing and walking forward, using the 12 Steps as the Guide through all this new territory. It is always new territory. Have to remember that.

Love and Hugs, Toni