Man I know exactly what your talking about. Every once in a while, something happens to brighten the day up.
Help never showed back up after lunch, meant we had to stay later cleaning the ground, before that, I get paid per hundred square feet of roofing,and doing the cut up section of the roof, the slow part, working towards a big open section and the boss shows up. Climbs right up and proceeds to slap shingles on- after I've done the worst of it, almost to the easy money, and there it goes. A day and a damned half stepping down valleys and almost to it. Attempt to accept it while my brains churning out the math? Less than a hundred bucks that day, because im SLOWED DOWN doing a section NO ONE else has the experience to do! Then the sumonabitch shows up and takes the last damn open section. Anger must be avoided like the plague. I wanna just lay down and roll right off the damn roof.
Then, the customer sprays at some wasps, boss comes up the ladder with a bundle of shingles, and a wasp follows him all the way up the roof before latching on to his ear! Heheeeeeee! Almost roll of the roof again!
Customer standing right next to the nest with the spray can, and they go after the boss.
Going thru 'it', it passes, I just dont look back when it does. Maybe everytime is a test, and if some how I handle 'it' a little millimeter better every time, my character will grow.

Whats an eye opener is watching folks come to work who are where I was at. So bad off manual labor is the only thing legal they can do for a paycheck. Work a day, get a draw, go back to drinking, get in trouble, head to another town, repeat.
I see myself in every one of them, still tough to work with them. Try to show one feller what he's doing wrong with the felt for the third time, a little frustrated, this son of a gun balls up right in my face "Dont get your condecending attitude with me!" Spit flying thru his teeth. This dude is fighting mad over nothin! If I slapped this asshole upside the head, he'd have an aneurism and his crystal meth teeth would probably fall out ! Thought about how bad those teeth would cut my nuckles up, then just let it go.
Decided maybe I was actually condesending. Sober 8 months, damn near perfect, I thought.
I informed the meeting of my new character defect that same night, and we looked it up in the dictionary. Now i'm grateful for him kindly pointing out something of wich I am often guilty of, and need to work on.
What were we talking about?
Ryan

Now I remember what I was talking about. Examples. The only thing i've found that really works when things suck with no way out, is to be an example to your fellow assholes, who are also going thru it, a LOT worse than you, still drinking and drugging as a way of life. It really helps. And try not to be condesending.







-- Edited by Rjs at 23:47, 2006-08-16

Hi Justin,

I'm so sorry that you are having a hard time of it lately. This really will pass, though. But, you are doing everything right by going to a meeting, talking with your sponsor and seeing your therapist. You can take comfort from knowing that you couldn't be doing it any better and that you will come through this stronger.

You mentioned not thinking of taking a drink. When I have a bad day and then look back at it, I'm constantly amazed if I didn't think of having a drink. AA and MIP is such a source of hope and inspiration to me, and so are people like you, Justin. Thank you for that.

Take care and have a GREAT day today,

Carol

Yep! It's a bumpy ride some days, but all worth it when things smoothe out, as they have a way of always doing when I don't pick up........."Just keep hanging on"  is what my sponsor tells me...................."this too shall pass".