2 years, 716 posts

It was 2 years today that I started this blog. I started it to have a conversation with someone who was bugging me on my other blog - I knew he was an AA member, and I didn't want to identify as such on the blog with my full name and picture - anonymity, you know. I posted occasionally for a couple of months and didn't really see the point because I was getting no indication that the blog had any use at all.

On November 28, 2005, Ms. Trudge found my blog and put a link to it on hers. It was oh so exciting to visit my blog one afternoon and find that there were SEVEN comments on my most recent post! I couldn't believe it! People were reading my blog! It was so exciting. I came to know people through their blogs and I felt that my sobriety had been enriched profoundly.

Since then, many of the people who were part of my daily blog life have stopped blogging. Some of them are drinking or using. Some of them have gotten more healthy and moved from "virtual" sobriety to the real thing - real sponsors, real meetings, real recovery. Some of them have just lost interest in blogging I guess. And that would make the sober blogging community much like the AA community out there, people come and go.

I am not a come-and-go kind of gal. I was when I was drinking. When I got sober, I jumped into AA with both feet, and never looked back. I have been consistently IN AA for a little over 23 years, and sober all that time. I do not "move on" in my life and stop doing the things that have saved my life. I just keep plugging along, because I know from years of watching people, what happens when you start to think you have graduated to a higher plane of recovery and now you just give advice, provide support, or occasionally bestow your blessings on the unwashed masses at an AA meeting. I am an alcoholic every single day of my life, I am just as much of an alcoholic today - 23 years out from my last drink- as I was in 1984 in my first year of sobriety. God has greatly blessed me with a life today that I could not have dreamed when I was new, but I am clear that left to my own devices, I am a drunk!

I had considered discontinuing this blog. The lack of comments was very disconcerting to me. I have made some friends through blogging and even if I stopped blogging, I know I would continue to visit their blogs and keep up with them by e-mail. But as far as every single day spending hours writing this thing and keeping up with you all, I really questioned whether it was something of value or not.

I posted about this the other day. I was hesitant to do it because I didn't want to seem like someone saying "if you don't give me what I want I will go away and you will never see me again - you'll be sorry!" But then again, I didn't just want to disappear, I don't behave like that anymore. It did elicit comments from "lurkers" and for that I am truly grateful. I also got comments from my regular readers and I am grateful for that too. I also got comments about "not needing validation." oh, poooh.

If I was just writing for me, I could write in a journal. I don't need to put it out for all to see. Since I put it out here for all to see, I would like to know, in a general way, who is looking at it. When you have posted every day for 2 years, your blog will come up in a search for just about anything. I have written about lasagna falling apart when you slice it (and people search for info about that, really, really, they do), apple pie, key lime pie, lemon meringue pie, dead snowmen, running in every kind of weather phenomena, having my son in Iraq, having him return from Iraq, shopping for shoes, back to school shopping for kids, having a summer romance, having a summer romance fall apart, etc., etc., etc. I have also written about staying sober one day at a time for "x" number of years, having a wonderful sponsor, being a (wonderful?) sponsor, going to every kind of AA meeting, AA picnics, AA potlucks, AA conventions, and AA funerals.

I do not need the validation of you liking what I write, or your approval of what I write. I just wanted to know if I was just standing in the middle a busy highway intersection talking to myself. I think I have found out that I am not talking to myself. There are those who are listening. I appreciate you, I truly do. You don't have to comment every day - I would LOVE it if you did though - but I do need to know that I am not just talking to myself. You also don't have to agree with me. I pretty much stick to my own experience, strength, and hope - nothing to argue about there - but I do, on occasion foray into the landmine of opinion. I would also like to say that I find it disconcerting that people who are "new" in AA have somehow gotten the impression that they have nothing to offer an "oldtimer" like me. Puh-Lease! AA is the great democracy... it is not a hierarchy. We all help each other.

So, thanks to everyone. I will keep at this blogging. When I am sharing in an AA meeting, I always end by saying "Thanks for listening." At one of my very first meetings, a man was talking about what a miracle it is that in a room full of alcoholics, we share - one person at a time - and the whole room listens. It truly is a miracle when we listen to each other. As a person who grew up, the youngest of 5 children, in an alcoholic family - I was always told to be quiet, calm down, you don't have to shout, stop talking... when I got to AA, for the first time in my life, I really felt that I was being listened to, and this is quite an honor. Thank you.

"In any meeting, anywhere, AAs share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics. Modem-to-modem or face-to-face, AAs speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity." -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. xxiv