where i am today

at our meeting last night, we went over the 9th step, which has to do with making amends:

Step 9. - Made direct amends to such people, wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

however, step 9 really is almost out of context without a glimpse at step 8:

Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

with all the confidence in the world, i told a friend last night that my drinking hadn't really hurt anyone but myself and i would have a difficult time with step 9, "in all honesty."

my friend very gently told me: "you're not there, yet," and further explained that a good 9th step is really even better if you've done a good 4th step:

Step 4: "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

ahh. okay. penni isn't exactly ready to do the list yet. oh, i carry it with me. i have it where ever i travel and look at it every now and again. as a practicing Catholic, i have been to confession on a regular basis and have confessed just about everything my 4th step would cover -- but not in great detail. hey, i am not there to have to priest come out of the booth and light up a smoke. i am there to generally confess my gravest sins (oh, and they have a lot of gravity, i can assure you) and receive my penance and absolution. only once has a priest recommended amends that were viable - aside from the prayers that are assigned, he gave me something to do that was actually demonstrative and it worked for me.

however, my detailed list? uh, no. only a certain few know of my gravest of graves and i am no longer in touch with them, thank you very much.

however.

i ran into a friend of mine from high school at my morning meeting yesterday. he was kind enough to tell me i "needed this program 20 years ago, the amount of getting high you did under the boardwalk." i felt like one of those t.v. shots where the camera zooms in on the character at the speed of light and focuses intently on his or her face, and in my head, heard the sound of air escaping from a balloon. i said, "well, i am here now..."

this is scattered.

my thoughts are scattered as i had a bit of a disturbing dream last night. i read marc's response prior to retiring for the night to my "very fine house" post about needing a good foundation...in my dream, i was excitedly going to the site where my house was to be built and when i got there, was disappointed to find the excavation had only begun and the only things that were there, aside from bare roots from trees that had yet to be cleared, were pilings. about 8 pilings. if i were a dream analyzer, i would surmise those pilings represented one week of sobriety for each piling. as someone who desperately wants to be further along that she actually is, i awoke with a feeling of being disheartened.

i have so far to go.