Who are my truly good friends?

[MajestyJo]

Friday, February 21, 2014

You are reading from the book Today's Gift

We cannot do all things.
—Virgil

We are each limited in terms of time and energy. If we try to do too much, we do everything half-rate. How much better it is to clearly sort out what is really important to us, and then give ourselves to those things or people wholeheartedly.

Famous writers have written about the difficulty of having more than one or two really good friends. That number seems so unimpressive if we equate popularity with the number of friends we have. If we want quality, we must accept our limitations. In this way we avoid wasting energy on unimportant tasks, on friends who aren't true or close, on goals which aren't what we really want. We can only commit ourselves wholeheartedly to a limited number of tasks and a limited number of people.

Who are my truly good friends?

A really good friend is someone who has empathy, compassion, understanding, and loves you in spite of yourself.

I have friend who have several years more time in recovery than I do, but I wouldn't take their program in a lucky bag.

Had people who I considered friend, but because of their own denial, tended to jeopardize my recovery. I had to look at my spiritual condition in the day as to whether it was good to have them in my life in the day. I had to learn to watch body language, listen to the voice and the tone of their words, they often project their 'stuff' onto me, and I had to learn to recognize it as such (not always done intentionally), so I wouldn't take it on. So many people do not understand the nature of our disease.

As I was told several years ago, "If you are looking for a good friend, be one!"

When I went to treatment, three of us who graduated stayed clean and sober for a year, then the other two relapsed. It as difficult, I went through major grief, because they had been a big part of the reason that I had stayed sober. I had to detach from them. That didn't mean I didn't talk to them when I saw them, but I couldn't stay in their company. One is still out there panhandling for her disease, the other one is sober, but not clean and doesn't go out to meetings. She came back in and I spoke for her AA anniversary, but found it wasn't good for me to be around her, although I did try, by sharing my apartment with her for a while. It just didn't work out, one of the biggest issues was her smoking. She would smoke on the balcony, but the smoke was on her clothes and I started coughing and reacting to it. I am allergic to all kinds of smoke. I can't be around bonfires, fireplaces, smoke that make the fire alarm go off, and second hand smoke, because of my C.O.P.D. which was caused by my cigarette smoking.

I also had to set boundaries because I have asthma too. I still can crave cigarettes, especially when I smell them second hand. I did not want to give them up, yet for me to pick them up in today, I know they will kill me. I choose to continue to live.

[Michael Rose]

Good stuff there MJ...