Dear Diary

Recently i have been going through my old diaries because i am trying to find something in them to convince myself that they are worth saving. Mostly its a bunch of sad, waaaa-my-life-is-so-hard-you-don't-understand me, bullshit. Some of it is reflective but most of it is pathetic. i did however stumble upon this deliciously ironic little gem: [12/11/2001] 'I wish that these pages and words would erase themselves so that no one could ever see my thoughts and feelings, so that nobody could judge me or laugh at my turmoil.' A couple of things come to mind. 1.) i wrote that in 2001!? it reads like the musing of an 8th grader, 2.) why write it down if i don't want these things to be read? and Finally HOW ridiculous is it that seven years later i will decide to write shit down in a medium that explicitly opens me up to that laughter, judgment and ridicule from others; perfect strangers even, that i so desperately wanted to avoid?

Lent Watch 2008: i was irritable today, i thought that maybe i was going through alcohol withdrawals then i realized that i was just menstrual. I entertained briefly the idea of buying near-beer but that would be a waste of money and as Mr. M pointed out, we would look, never mind feel stupid purchasing fake beer.

Just for shits and giggles i researched AA online and found that its tenets to sober living are deeply flawed. A bulk of the steps rely on one turning to GOD. Which in it of itself is great if you are a Christian. But what if you are not?

Steps 1 and 2 seem like some good shit you want to do in general if you have lost control of your life. Step 3 makes an attempt to elaborate on "GOD" {as one understands him to be(insert personal faith in here)}, but from there on out it's clearly a Christian endeavour. i am not dismissing the power and potential for this program to be successful. I think that steps 8 thru 10 are pretty awesome and are things we should all do addictions notwithstanding just to be better humans in the universe. But is sobriety only found in GOD? what if someone is a Buddhist, or an atheist, does that mean that there is no hope for them?

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us
and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.
Copyright A.A. World Services, Inc.