I still have the capacity for self sabotage- or so it appears...

      Yesterday was a great day. In this group- maybe noticed by three of us- but highly significant for me.

      I am a believer in "The Butterfly Effect". How a small but significant change can lead to greater things.

      For me it was a significant change in my ability to trust.

      I went for a drive to the top of the mountain- where I used to work. It is up 1,100 metres and helps clear my ears. I spent 20 mins with an old farmer and we did some boy talk.

Latterly I painted the hull of an old battered canoe... and stationed it up the lake. I was a bit wonky in the wind, first try. I wear a life jacket- of course! Not so much to fish- but place to hang out. And I felt confident out there yesterday.

But last night I felt disturbed and woke in the small hours.

Today i have a self-soothing technique- which worked. But i had an awful time for 20 or 30 minutes.

I had a dream which was like a rampant hand washing dream...

...which tells me that ah aint flushed all of my demons out!

Our service member in our Steps meeting told me last week- that Alanon is a gradual programme, not a graduate programme. She must have sense where I was at. Still seeking perfection, perhaps...

...I do have a Step 12 plan- which is ambitious.

I have taken steps to implement this plan. Last night I saw this set-back as a challenge for me.

It is impossible to hide our body language, or even the way we speak- inflection and nuance. Being at face to face meetings- week in and week out softens the lines of anxiety. A safe place.

Here too- though it does take a bit of extra imagination... to picture our other members here...

Many of my old friends were junkies- smack addicts... which are just street words for heroin. They resorted to addictive drinking too- as a back-up.

I am always aware of the stored trauma in people lives that drive them to such desperate measures. I am aware of it in my primary qualifier- even though he is long gone.

But more so in myself. How i suffer, and still suffer.

My therapist tells me that i have no permanent damage. I know she has the capacity to clear a lot of my historic trauma. I am working on the situation from my end. There is no magic bullet.

It is not for the faint-hearted.

My survivor friends had done well- the ones that lived. One I have know since she was 11. She and her sister were street kids Weekend street kids, really with a mother to get home to. Well- that was until they hooked up with our crowd.  ...

In recent times D. trained to be a councillor. She had to learn literacy first to tackle the course- but she managed. She does do voluntary work, as well, for rape crisis.

Low income she still lives in a slum- with members of the usual client group as her neighbours.

I wanted to help provide her with peer support- and I am back on the same theme.

Getting myself right. 

Pure and simple.

The first time she came south- so spend time with her mum and her daughter- she just wept and wept- as old memories surfaced for her. I wept and wept with her... ...what else could i do...?

The last time was over lock-down and I spent time with both her, and her mum... this was calmer and nicer...

...my next venturing out is also ambitious... taking the message of hope... taking other people exactly as they are...

...I need peers like myself- who have suffered heaps... who have survived... and who are actively seeking solutions.

These are awesome spaces to share with people. Humbling and healing.

I have my own book to write......I am setting my sights differently.

I never had this guidance, as a kid.

I have to find a way of giving this guidance to myself.

it is a package really- and it also reverberates, for me- in the people department.

Being an insider I am a witness to some extraordinary things...

...because of where we all have been- we have the sensitivity to see, hear and fell this.

It is healing- it offers hope. 

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