Freedom of Choice

[MajestyJo]

The following quote from Zen says it best:


Quote:
Don't be clever, otherwise you will remain the same, you will not change. Half-techniques on the path of love and half-techniques on the path of meditation will create much confusion in you. They will not help.... But to ask for help is against the ego, so you try to compromise. This compromise will be more dangerous, it will confuse you more because, made out of confusion, it will create more confusion. So try to understand why you hanker for compromise. Sooner or later you will be able to understand that compromise is not going to help. And compromise may be a way of not going in either direction, or it may be just a repression of your confusion.


I have found this to be very true. I can come to an understanding with someone. I can see their point of view, and recognize where they are coming from and accept their rights and opinions, but I can not compromise my sobriety, my integrity, or sense of self.

Without me, I have nothing. I believe if there is true love there, options are always there, alternatives, and plan B if two people are willing to work 'together.' The man in my life will have five years clean in CA and will be celebrating on the 30th of July. He has asked me to share my story at his anniversary. He said it was my persona, my sense of self which first attracted him.

He has been a firm foundation for me over the last year, because many times due to my pain I have wanted to give up and give in, and I felt very weak and very depressed yet to him, he said all he saw was a woman of strength and courage. I am not sure I believe him :-[, but one thing I have found out about him that if there is one person more honest than me, it is him.

He has loved me unconditionally, and I am not sure I could have lived with me the past year, even if he only sees me one day a week and on weekends. All I had to do was put up with is his snoring, while he has endured listening to this woman who complained about being fat and ugly, useless and some days not the most sociable of beings, while on others, he brings the kid out in me and I have learned to play, to laugh and to enjoy life. I no longer have to control my actions and am free to express myself, be silly, dance up a storm and hang loose! Not bad for an old lady of 62, who didn't think she would live to be 40.

Last year at the AA Autumn Leaf Round-Up here in Hamilton, we danced up a storm. We are already anxiously awaiting for September to arrive so we can go again. I will be there supposing I have to stay in bed for two days before. The last time the bottom of my feet still hurt on the following Tuesday morning, but it was okay. I had just been on a CA boat cruise and that evening I had four members, two friends from NA, and my boyfriend at the table. When a gal has seven men at her table and two friends at other tables who insisted on dances, she never lacks for dance partners.

I walked in fear all my life. I feared letting myself go and making a mistake, of taking the wrong foot forward, of making a fool of myself. When I was using, I would go into the bathroom and make myself upchuck, so I could drink more, if I thought I was going to cross that line and lose control of my emotions. I can still remember the horror one night of a fellow at a house party saying, "Gee, we should get you drunk more often, you are lot of fun!" I had a feeling of total terror come over me, and it wasn't long until I left the party.

Yet recovery gives me that freedom, and when I see my son acting out in his disease, I can go into the guilt trip and beat myself up royally for being such a good teacher. In today, I know I don't have to pay for the rest of my life. I know he also has freedom of choice. I chose to get clean, and he has seen me change over the past twelve years, but he is not willing to stop. His words were, "I identified with you more when you were using mom than I do now, but I don't ever want you to go back to the way you were." He has a mother today he is beginning to know. I taught him to play pool, play darts, to play cribbage, euchre, rummy and crazy 8s. Today he loves it when he can say, "Mother the pupil has now become the teacher!" As he said, "I bought him his first 'legal' beer and asked him if he wanted an earring in his ear, and I am the one who gave him the fear of driving! I tried to teach him to drive and he just about lost my car in some bull rushes.

Why do I share? Because I care, and because I don't want anyone else to have to walk the road as long as I did. I hope that from something I share and say, you can get off that big broad highway, and follow the narrow winding road called recovery. It has it's ups and downs, it's hills and valleys, but the scenery is wonderful, the friends are awesome, and the freedom is priceless.