Restraint of tongue: Freedom From Bondage. I

Every Heart has its secret sorrows
Which the world knows not,
Oftentimes we call a man cold
When he is only sad.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The above quote is one of my all time favorites. When someone is distant of bitchy this sometimes come to mind, but not as much as it should.

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Those of you who know me, know that I am very sensitive and I pay the price for letting those feelings overwhelm me. I am working on it, but sometimes I lose. But it is much better than it used to be.

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So that brings me to tonight's post. Last night I went to the Wednesday night Al-anon meeting at Lambda. This is an al-anon meeting with an outreach to the recovering alcoholic. I have several friends that attend this meeting. Last night after collecting hugs, and a little bit of fellowship prior to the meeting I went into the big room and sat down. Just before the meeting started I felt a tap on my shoulder and this little bitty lesbian said, My you sure are a big man. I am moving over here so I can see, just keep your seat, but I need to move, you are so big. I felt like she was on a fucking megaphone and I was just flabbergasted and absolutely humiliated. Yes I am a BIG man. Now in the old days I would have told this ugly little dike that Yes I am big, I can also choose to be smaller, but you my dear are an ugly little dike and have no option" which would have been followed by a slap that would have made her ancestors roll in their graves and her whole living family to hurt. However, I just did not respond except to say I'm sorry you had to move. And then I just sat there and seethed. Now she did not say this in a low voice, but I'm sure it was not as loud as it seemed to me. I was also embarrassed and then thought how absolutely thoughtless the bitch was. Now why she could not just have moved and let it know. It wasn't like I was wearing a big hat or big hair (I'm bald) that could be removed or adjusted. Now this just played over and over and over and over. KFUK was just running with this like Glen Beck with untruths. I finally settled down but when the meeting was over I left and fumed all the way home.

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I prayed about it last night, and asked for the damned bitch to be blessed and I sure as hell did not mean it, but I will do it for 13 more days. I cannot afford to have this resentment take hold of me and eat me alive. (It would be stuffed) Now this prayer is from page 552 in the Big Book and is from the story Freedom from Bondage. If you have a resent you want to be free o, if you will pray for the person or the ting that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

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This has worked for me many times in the past and I am sure it will work again. The Big Book, the first 164 pages, and the stories have so much wisdom in them and I am proud to practice what I have read and what has become almost second nature to me over the years. Now this is a blessing and all I had to do was to quit drinking, find a new way of living and follow it. I just will not get any better than that. AA Rocks!

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Tonight I am Grateful for:

• God, my Higher Power
• My Sobriety
• Mamie, my schnauzer
• My Sponsor who had his knee surgery and got a new knee on Tuesday and is doing well. He will probably go home on Saturday.
• Restraint of tongue and hand.
• Miracles
• All y'all

Y'all be pretty now, ya heah.