This morning I woke up late and didn't have time for much prayer.
Today I was terse with my wife several times.
At the park I was rude to a guy who let his dog loose and scared my kid. He apologized but I was still rude. I also got so angry I could barely talk.
At the noon meeting I was judgemental about a guy's sharing.

These were my shortcomings today and I ask God to take them from me and show what corrective measures I should take.

I need to wake up on time tomorrow and pray.
I must apologize and tell my wife I love and appreciate her.
I will watch for the guy at the park and apologize to him if I ever see him.
I must keep my concern for sharing to my own and just do the best job I can.

Today at te noon meeting we read the last pages of the personal story "Jim’s Story". Before I got to the meeting I remembered what I had been thinking lately about keeping it simple when it comes to my sharing. I was able to focus in on two things the way that his actions matched those of an insane person and how the obsession was removed from him rather than him working on staying sober and how this came about from identification with another alcoholic.

I thought some more about the story I read in the grapevine today when my friend shared in the meeting.

"The writer spoke about getting into irritability and discontent and then spoke about having a realization of recovery and a perspective shift. But there was no talk of specific steps just the sort of anecdotal insight that he heard in fellowship. There is something to get from this."

Well what I got from this is what I often hear about people's experience in the program. People will often talk about some event that happened in their life and about how it was resolved "thanks to this program". But what they will refer to is some anecdotal insight or perspective shift that they heard or thought of. This is fine except that it isn't the program and therefore people who haven't worked the program develop an expectation that these epiphenies are the solution.

I experience these too but the real boon is the re-formation that comes from working specific steps and getting connected to a higher power that makes this possible.

I need to meditate on this more.

I was unnerved today by many tasks that I had to leave incomplete at work.

I got to play with the kids in the yard and neighborhood and ride bikes today.
I got to talk to my brother in Christ who lives in a different city today.