With the same chicken every time?

There is a funny story attributed to Teddy Roosevelt. 

When he was president, the story goes, he and the first lady visited a huge Farm.
Teddy was looking at the horses and the equipment the Mrs. was talking to the dairy maids and young women who ran the chicken coops.  The first lady was curious how many roosters in such a huge hen house? The young woman said only one rooster of course.

 Mrs. Roosevelt then asked "how often does the rooster do his rooster duties?"  "13 or 14 times a day" the woman responded, blushing. "Make sure you tell that to Mr. Roosevelt" said the first lady.

When Teddy makes it around to the chicken coop the young woman reports "The first Lady told me to tell you sir that the roster does his rooster duties 13-14 times a day"  "With the same chicken?" quipped the president?   "No, with a different one each time...""Make sure the first lady knows that."

Variety is the spice of life.  I don't think the moral of the story was serial non-monogamy.  I think it's more about if you have to do the same thing over and over again you have to keep it fresh or it becomes drudgery.

If you work out you have to constantly change up your routine.  Not just to make it exciting and thereby something you can do it again and again over the long term. But it also helps you to achieve better results.  You progress faster when you shake things up.

Recovery can be like that.   I am currently in a sober living community and we have a meeting here every night with mostly the same people. 

It can get a little incestuous with the same personalities, the same people sharing; Like recovery karaoke. What we refer to as the "good sharing motherfuckers", recycling things they've heard in other meetings or just invoking religious platitudes, sounding good being the goal.  It's a recovery thing, suspect sharing; "sharing right, living wrong."  It can be discouraging.

Right now I have no choice.  I'm required by the terms of my agreement living here to go to the meeting every evening.  Not a bad thing. I'm building the muscle of just going to meetings no matter what.  Those muscles are weak and atrophied at the moment.  Starting with a simple exercise is prudent.  Learning the skill of finding at least one thing in a meeting I need to hear regardless of the source.

It's a useful skill to develop. However, when I'm on my own and can choose whether or not to go to a meeting I have to go to lots of different meetings to keep it fresh.  A different chicken every time if you will.

I will have a home-group.  One meeting where I have made a commitment to attend every week.  So people get to know you and you get to know them.  Where you build relationships and rapport.

These are the people who have standing to guide... people who can see me, with whom I can build long-term relationships.

Overall success in 12 step recovery also requires keeping it fresh, and as your life gets better hearing the fresh pain of others.  Nothing helps you stay clean and sober like hearing someone who's just come in and how miserable depressed and broken they are.

One main chicken for continuity and then lots and lots of different chickens to keep it fresh.

I'd like to think the chicken story is real and Teddy Roosevelt did say that because that's just bad ass. And so is Teddy, who once finished a speech after having been shot.  He had a bullet in him and still finished his speech... that's a real tough guy.  And he's who the teddy bear is named after. Below is a video of a Teddy bear telling the story.  Spoiler alert in the story Teddy  hates on Mississippi.   Bonus because Mississippi sucks gay, hairy, clown ass.