Monday, April 23, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Key Points from the GSR meeting on Saturday April 14, 2012
LOS ANGELES AREA DISTRICT 1
VERY IMPORTANT: MEETING CHANGE
Thursday’s meeting is moving back to the NCJW starting this Thursday 4/19 at 7pm
***CMALA Convention sent us $374.67 from the 7th tradition collected during the convention – THANK YOU CMALA
***Public Info and Out Reach – committee meeting 4/21 2pm at Dale G’s house, 530 N. Alta Vista Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
*** P&I is a part of the SHARE RECOVERY CONVENTION, we have been invited to be a part of two speaker meetings – very exciting stuff.
I WILL SEND OUT MORE INFORMATION NEXT WEEK
***Our June District Meeting will be in Long Beach – let’s spread the word! We will be having a BBQ at Dan and Gina’s after the meeting!
The next GSR meeting is on May 12, 2012
VERY IMPORTANT: MEETING CHANGE
Thursday’s meeting is moving back to the NCJW starting this Thursday 4/19 at 7pm
***CMALA Convention sent us $374.67 from the 7th tradition collected during the convention – THANK YOU CMALA
***Public Info and Out Reach – committee meeting 4/21 2pm at Dale G’s house, 530 N. Alta Vista Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
*** P&I is a part of the SHARE RECOVERY CONVENTION, we have been invited to be a part of two speaker meetings – very exciting stuff.
I WILL SEND OUT MORE INFORMATION NEXT WEEK
***Our June District Meeting will be in Long Beach – let’s spread the word! We will be having a BBQ at Dan and Gina’s after the meeting!
The next GSR meeting is on May 12, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
What Does Sex Mean to You?
When I do the post-mortem of a relapse with someone in CMA, their saga invariably starts with: “Well, I got on the computer...” The inability of many of us to find our way to a healthy relationship with sex seems to present by far the greatest challenges to maintaining sobriety.
What I notice most when talking to guys struggling with issues of sex is their difficulty in seeing the forest for the trees. For example, I have a friend who has related basically the same story to me as least three times: he “finally” meets a “nice” guy who seems “together,” and over a series of texts or initial encounters my friend finds himself thinking incessantly about this guy. Invariably there are miscues, unreturned phone calls, an ambivalent text. Sometimes why it doesn’t work out remains a mystery, simply because there wasn’t enough of a relationship to justify a conversation about why they didn’t have a relationship. It’s one repeating pattern, but every time this happens, my friend presents the scenario to me as if it’s specific to this man.
We’ve all been there. The embarrassing recognition that you went from zero to sixty in less than a week, that 90% of what you thought passed between you and him was all in your own head; a mixture of anticipation, expectation and projection. If you’re honest about it, you barely knew the guy. And yet you’re in mourning over him.
The hard-to-swallow reality is this: in these cart-before-the-horse flingettes, it’s never about the guy, it’s always about you. Your abiding belief, deep in your core, that someone else is required to make you whole. Don’t feel bad--you’re in good company. There’s a reason “Jerry Maguire” gets quoted so often. “You had me at hello” appeals to the fantasy of skipping right to instant intimacy with a stranger--no annoying getting-to-know-you process. “You complete me” manifests the cultural myth that there’s a soulmate for everyone and if we could just find him, we’d be fine. For most addicts, these potent illusions feel completely real when crystal meth floods the brain. No wonder we kept doing it -- those are some very seductive illusions.
I’m not preaching abstinence or celibacy--one or the other isn’t the problem or the solution. But I am suggesting you take a close look at what sex means to you.
Many addicts might not even be aware that they’ve attached a great deal of of meaning to sex--how much they have, who they have it with, who wants to have it with them. But the truth is, in and of itself, sex doesn’t mean anything. It has no intrinsic spiritual truth, no more than eating or walking or playing the piano. It only has the meaning you bring to it, and plenty of us bury it under so much baggage it can’t begin to bear the weight.
Of course we need contact, affection, interaction. We are social animals, and if the sole purpose of sex was procreation, human beings wouldn’t have evolved such a capacity to enjoy it. Depriving oneself of physical connection (see: sexual anorexia) can be just as toxic as seeking it out obsessively. But as those who have made a decision to lead an examined life via the 12 steps, it is incumbent on us to attempt to inquire into every facet of our lives with rigorous honesty.
For example, what beliefs are you holding on to about sex that aren’t serving you? Do you feel you are “less than” if you aren’t in a relationship? Can a cruise (or indifference) from a stranger make or break your day? Do you allow your perception of how others perceive you to determine your sense of self-worth? Does “intimacy” for you only mean sexual intimacy? Can you give a “free” compliment detached from any expectation of return?
Too many of us end up so buffeted about by our emotions around sex and love that we seek relief in picking up, acting out or shutting down. But perhaps we don’t find right-sizedness around sex because we don’t even know what that would look like. What, for example, if we imagined bringing God with us into the bedroom and leaving shame outside instead? What if we asked of our relationships to be exactly the way they are instead of how we think they should be? What if we saw our sexual health as contingent on our spiritual health, instead of the other way around?
I don’t know all of the answers. I only know that since I’ve started asking the questions, I’ve found a degree of serenity in this area I never thought possible.
Mark O.
What I notice most when talking to guys struggling with issues of sex is their difficulty in seeing the forest for the trees. For example, I have a friend who has related basically the same story to me as least three times: he “finally” meets a “nice” guy who seems “together,” and over a series of texts or initial encounters my friend finds himself thinking incessantly about this guy. Invariably there are miscues, unreturned phone calls, an ambivalent text. Sometimes why it doesn’t work out remains a mystery, simply because there wasn’t enough of a relationship to justify a conversation about why they didn’t have a relationship. It’s one repeating pattern, but every time this happens, my friend presents the scenario to me as if it’s specific to this man.
We’ve all been there. The embarrassing recognition that you went from zero to sixty in less than a week, that 90% of what you thought passed between you and him was all in your own head; a mixture of anticipation, expectation and projection. If you’re honest about it, you barely knew the guy. And yet you’re in mourning over him.
The hard-to-swallow reality is this: in these cart-before-the-horse flingettes, it’s never about the guy, it’s always about you. Your abiding belief, deep in your core, that someone else is required to make you whole. Don’t feel bad--you’re in good company. There’s a reason “Jerry Maguire” gets quoted so often. “You had me at hello” appeals to the fantasy of skipping right to instant intimacy with a stranger--no annoying getting-to-know-you process. “You complete me” manifests the cultural myth that there’s a soulmate for everyone and if we could just find him, we’d be fine. For most addicts, these potent illusions feel completely real when crystal meth floods the brain. No wonder we kept doing it -- those are some very seductive illusions.
I’m not preaching abstinence or celibacy--one or the other isn’t the problem or the solution. But I am suggesting you take a close look at what sex means to you.
Many addicts might not even be aware that they’ve attached a great deal of of meaning to sex--how much they have, who they have it with, who wants to have it with them. But the truth is, in and of itself, sex doesn’t mean anything. It has no intrinsic spiritual truth, no more than eating or walking or playing the piano. It only has the meaning you bring to it, and plenty of us bury it under so much baggage it can’t begin to bear the weight.
Of course we need contact, affection, interaction. We are social animals, and if the sole purpose of sex was procreation, human beings wouldn’t have evolved such a capacity to enjoy it. Depriving oneself of physical connection (see: sexual anorexia) can be just as toxic as seeking it out obsessively. But as those who have made a decision to lead an examined life via the 12 steps, it is incumbent on us to attempt to inquire into every facet of our lives with rigorous honesty.
For example, what beliefs are you holding on to about sex that aren’t serving you? Do you feel you are “less than” if you aren’t in a relationship? Can a cruise (or indifference) from a stranger make or break your day? Do you allow your perception of how others perceive you to determine your sense of self-worth? Does “intimacy” for you only mean sexual intimacy? Can you give a “free” compliment detached from any expectation of return?
Too many of us end up so buffeted about by our emotions around sex and love that we seek relief in picking up, acting out or shutting down. But perhaps we don’t find right-sizedness around sex because we don’t even know what that would look like. What, for example, if we imagined bringing God with us into the bedroom and leaving shame outside instead? What if we asked of our relationships to be exactly the way they are instead of how we think they should be? What if we saw our sexual health as contingent on our spiritual health, instead of the other way around?
I don’t know all of the answers. I only know that since I’ve started asking the questions, I’ve found a degree of serenity in this area I never thought possible.
Mark O.
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