Oh Lord it hard to be Grateful when you're entitled in every way!

So I think I found a Home Group here. I went to a CA meeting parentheses Cocaine Anonymous close parentheses really talk to text you're going to make me type it okay I'll leave it in for now anyway....

The CA meeting was irreverent and fun much like the NA meetings I enjoyed most when I first got clean. There were a few actual authentic moments. It felt good and I really needed that because I dreaded the  meetings of the other Fellowship.

The other Fellowship is what we call AA. Sometimes AA can be great but when you're going to AA in a treatment facility and it's the same people sharing the same stories over and over again... it's.... Gastly.  Somber serious glum passionless except when  hijacked by people who are frustrated storefront preachers expecting applause when they finish.  Shout-sharing their bumper-sticker sermons. Never sharing anything real just play-acting,  recovery karaoke parroting things they've heard others say.  It's Kabuki. Nobody's getting any help it's a pantomime they're dead people walking. I read a book, text friends, play with my phone, I do anything to get through that hour of misery, seething with resentment watching the clock, waiting for them to sign my form so I can leave.

Speaking of frustrated storefront preachers.... this reminds me of Paul writing to the Romans, the end of chapter 1 beginning of chapter 2.... I'll give you the cliff notes:

Paul goes on and on about how bad the Romans are all the bad stuff they're doing, a laundry list of sins misdeeds, horrors and then chapter 2 verse 1 he flips it on them, it was a setup.  He gets them feeling all righteous and indignant and then he pulls the rug out.....

Who the fuck are you to judge them?

Granted I have the New Urban translation.  But that's the sentiment. 

here's the actual verse the English Standard Version
"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things."

Who the fuck am I to judge these men and their meeting?  All they did was show up in a room just to stay sober for an hour and my elitist entitled ass doesn't like how they do it.

These men didn't invite me to the fucking meeting. But you know what they did do?  They welcomed me.  Why? Because I said I wanted help. 

I had nothing and now I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge, access to free healthcare, therapy, psychiatrists, medication (free), classes on addiction..... and 7 days a week, a short walk from my free housing, a room full of men join together for 60 Minutes and do their best to get better and help each other find a new way to live.  And I'm welcome to join them if I'd like.  They don't even ask me to put down by fucking book and show them some fucking respect.

And it gets worse several nights there is a choice of a different room full of men so if I don't like one of them I can go to the other.

Is Tony Robbins the guest speaker every night, No.

Is every meeting here an epiphany? A bright blinding light of insight into my own psyche leading me on the path to new understanding of my addiction? No.

Do I need to shut the fuck up and be grateful every minute I'm here and not in an condemned house with no running water and no electricity that smells of shit and urine and body odor and the rotting smell of a dead animal underneath waiting for someone to come back, maybe with the drugs I'd given them money for....so I can get maybe 30 minutes of reprieve from the miserable existence I put myself in?  YES!

It's hard to keep it real when you're comfy and safe.

What's the word in German for entitled douchebag? oh yeah "schweinhund"

But on the bright side the CA meeting was really cool last night. 

I'll keep coming back.

A little fun for those of you reading this blog click on the link of the word "Gastly" above for my favorite use of that word ever.  And I think the first instance of white people problems ever depicted in the movie 1958 Auntie Mame.