Recapping my Sunday: the pups came back from the vet safe and sound, but Jez had been sick all over the car seat. Her carsickness pills ( horrendously expensive) do not work. The vet praised the puppies’ glossy coats and lively affectionate ways, and they managed to corner a giant rotweiler in the waiting room and terrorize the poor creature.
Charlotte came around for lunch and admitted she is secretly a cat lover after Jez threw up on her foot. We made plans for reaching more people with the local soup kitchen — people are squatting deep in the bushes on the mountainside, afraid of xenophobic attacks and we must find a way to get in there and make contact. A friend called me from Harare and told me nearly four thousand people may have died of cholera in Zimbabwe — all preventable deaths. The average life expectancy up there is now 26 years of age. It was not a good time for me, I went through the usual obstacle course of frustrated rage and helplessness.
But a friend from AA rang me in the evening and talked about how this last year has been for him, how he has stayed sober one day at a time. I absorbed everything he said like a sponge soaking up that honesty and humility. Over and over again it has been my experience that most people in AA don’t tell you how you should do anything, they just tell you what worked for them.
In the evening, we watched the Bobby Sands film Hunger, brilliant but excoriating. To recover from that we then watched the puppies dancing on tip-toes (up on their hind legs), doing their doggy jitterbug to amuse us. They must have circus poodle in them somewhere.
And just as we were yawning and thinking about sleep, in came some old Scottish expatriate friends bellowing about it being Burns’ Night and reciting ‘Wee cowering tim’rous beastie” etc, bringing along a steaming portion of haggis in a covered dish. No neeps or tatties to my relief. So the night ended sitting out under the new moon in the garden telling ghost stories about mysterious seal women and will o’ the wisp sightings near Scottish lochs, croft women with second sight and talking horses. Toasting the poet Robert Burns with mugs of cocoa.
Thank you so much Texan Daave and Heather for more Lemonade awards! I am so grateful to the blogging community for just being themselves, staying sober and taking it one day at a time.
I’m finally well enough to be able to focus, read blogs, make comments, and enjoy it all.
The main reason I try to refrain from telling people what to do in AA is ’cause us alcoholics don’t like to be told much. It is, as they say, usually attraction – not promotion. It worked best that way for me.
My heart breaks for the people dying in Zimbabwe. My prayers go to them and you.
It’s good to know some people are doing whatever they can, one person at a time, in Zimbabwe. Life expectancy of 26..hard to even fathom.
It is such a tragedy that preventable diseases are still doing their slash and burn business with impunity. There is a book just out, called, I believe, “The Big Business”. It talks about the complete lack of sanitation, sewers etc. in too many places.
To have waste systems in place and used properly would have an enormous impact on global health.
Oneprayergirl is spot on! And I’m getting a curious craving for Haggis, a dish I liked as a young girl in Scotland….
But off to have visions and chase ghosts from the corners!
It’s hard for me to fathom that cholera is still running rampant. I recently watched the movie The Painted Veil, and it was gut wrenching to see so much of it could have been prevented by clean water availability.
I’m glad you are having positive experiences with AAers telling you what has worked for them rather than what you should be doing. That is not always the case, as I have run in to quite a lot of long time people in AA who are very precise on how they think others should do their AA program and what AA should be. I’m not overly fond of that attitude and I think it scares a lot of tentative people away from getting help.
I think sharing experience (strength & hope) is the most effective way to help others. Leading by example usually works pretty good on me too. I’m afraid I’m like one of those PrayerGirl mentioned – bristling when told what to do. I also like to question everything, feel things out with my heart. It comes from years of merely accepting my parents’ truths only to discover they didn’t necessarily know what my best interests were when they conflicted with their own desires. I think recovery is a learning process that gets integrated into who I am, and to do that I don’t simply do as I am told.
But that is how it is for me.
Mary, I’m here, late? Who is late? In fact, Who is Sylvia? -grin
Always a reading pleasure is your blog, and today is one more. Bless you. Your “stuff” is in the mail. guy said it wold take two weeks! I could just swim over there quicker…
{{{Mary}}} (hugs!)
Steve E.