12oz Hammer

My names ………….. and I’m an alcoholic.
Living and learning is what we do. We look after our Granddaughter on a Wednesday. And she loves doing, and she loves learning, and she loves looking at books and playing. She’s not yet 2.
Change and choices and chances are called life. It’s what we do.
And in my life, I’ve had lots of each. Some I’ve dismissed as stupid, but later regretted. Some I’ve embraced later to wish I hadn’t, and others I’ve been persuaded to do, against my better judgment and found them to be amazing.
It’s all a learning curve. It’s called life.
A life upon which I’ve grown, sometimes I’ve understood and occasionally I’ve regretted.
Had I gone to college as I’d planned to, maybe I’d have got an education.
But I didn’t even have the honesty to call and say I wouldn’t be turning up. Maybe if I’d have listened and acted responsibly, life would have been different.
Advice was my biggest downfall. Why because if I got any, I wouldn’t take it.
But to be more honest, I didn’t actually get any.
Yes, there was lots around, but my inability to at least listen, made any useful advice worthless.
I often just did the opposite anyway.
If door slams shut, leave it shut. If a door opens, go through it.
But to me, these two were like a boy whistling in the dark.
Because I ignored or dismissed any constructive suggestions.
And I ran from the good and gravitated towards what was in my head. Usually, the bad.
It would have been a simpler life had I jumped into a river of Puranas fish.
Unfortunately, I would have only got resentful in the river, telling the killer fish, ‘I will get you one day’.
Or even ‘Do you know who you’re dealing with’.
Normal people would have got out as fast as possible.
But I won’t take no for an answer.
Maddeningly true, but also ridiculous. I would stay and fight. Even if it meant id have got eaten alive and then died.
I can be my own worst enemy at times.
I have been my own worst enemy lots of times.
In the trade I’m in now, we use tools.
Because I had no academic education, my labour was all I had to sell.
And it was the building trade where I ended up.
Unsurprisingly all self-taught. In this trade, our tools may look the same, but all differ immensely.
Hammers, screwdrivers, and tape measures are all sold in different types and weights and sizes. Each to suit the trade, and the size and strength of the person using each of them. To the untrained eye, a hammer is a hammer. To a tradesman, it’s not. There are so many different hammers.
Tape measures have small markings on them, which, to the trained eye, tell us where, for instance, we set our joists out. And Hammers are always sold by weight, to be comfortable to use by the builder.
As I get older, and my arms get weaker, I may go from a 12 oz hammer to a ten oz. Etc.
Just like musicians will gravitate to better quality instruments, as they progress through their career.
Whist to my untrained ear, most instruments all sound the same.
In the building trade, I just can’t work with the wrong weight of hammer.
And that’s very much like my recovery.
When I first got sober, everyone I met in AA seemed sober and amazing.
But as time progresses, my knowledge of who had, and who hadn’t worked the steps, grew, until even their quality of people’s sobriety was evident. And so, I gravitated to meetings that covered the type of AA that suited me and the people who worked the program that I admired.
Not that any AA is superior or inferior. But just like buying a Hammer, the type and weight was what I was after. And in AA it was the ones that suited me and my personality.
That’s the beauty of having such a wonderful fellowship where we live.
All different types of AA, different ways of working the program, and styles of sponsorship.
And off course, the variety of meetings I can choose from.
Sponsorship is very much a chosen relationship.
There are as many different sponsors are there are ways of sponsorship.
There’s quiet and calm, strict with tight boundaries, easy going but fair. Some might suit me. Some not.
But any sponsorship is amazing.
I sponsor everyone differently.
There is no hard and fast rule.
All different, depending on their place in the world, their needs, their wants and their personality.
I can be calm, or I can be quite vocal as needs must.
I’ve been sponsored all the way throughout my recovery.
And just like choosing a hammers weight, I make choices on sponsorship. I choose the person who’s going to guide me through this next important part of my life, who I feel comfortable to work with, and with who I can be honest and straight with.
We were always told to have respect for your sponsor. For its with people that I respect, that I will listen to and take actions.
My sponsor doesn’t wield a 12oz hammer.
He’s not that type of person.
He ambles along quietly and without any fuss.
If I needed a sponsor with a weighted hammer, I’d have looked for one.
My sponsors meeting was strict but fair.
My grand sponsor, who was in the same meeting was even stricter.
Her meeting was packed. Everyn one flocked there. Therre was standing room only if you didn’t arrive early.
Because for some of us, good orderly direction meant, understanding and undergoing some really tough love.
And tough love and good manageability undoubtedly saved my life.
I know what it’s like to have been shown the way in recovery, by being led quietly and without any fan fair.
And I also know what it’s like to be led with purpose and with no room for deviation..
I don’t regret either. And I’m sober because of both.
And today I have the experience to pass onto others, that when I need to be vocal I can. As I can also be laid back and softly spoken.
The difference today, is I know when I should use each one.
If I think your endangering your sobriety or I think your likely to drink, I will go to my spiritual tool box and get out what ever tool is necessary to save your life.
It may be something small like a suggestion. Or it might be something big and life changing like a step 4.
You have been warned. 

Anon