The Flatlands

Have you ever been in the Australian outback? It’s a wonderful experience and I really recommend it. There’s nowhere else on earth like it. The remoteness is unimaginable to all but a few. The colours are brighter than anywhere else on earth, and contrast with each other in a raw primeval way, even as they blend together into one another to form strangely beautiful new hues like green gold, red-blue, and silver-cream.

Of course all this can be observed fairly early on in one’s journey, and, since journeys through the Australian outback take hours.....and hours....and hours on end, the novelty can wear off, or at least become drowned out by the car-sickness, boredom, drowsiness, and other more familiar, if less pleasant, sensations we associate with road trips.


I feel that my recovery is in a bit of an outback spot at the moment. I’m travelling along a flat road, neither improving nor deteriorating...at least the landscape around me isn’t deteriorating. It’s been the same for the past couple of months. But I am deteriorating. My recovery is going backwards. Recovery is a mountain, not a plane. I haven’t been climbing it. I’ve been content to coast along and hope things improve. I was so excited by my progress, that I just let things slip. This program requires so much dedication and perseverance. Sometimes we can be deceived by the beautiful country of wellness that we are entering, into thinking that we have left our disease behind for good. The moment we forget our first step, we are bound to slip. I keep forgetting my first step.

I think part of the reason is that I don’t like the second and third steps, and the first step makes them necessary. If I can’t manage my own life then I have to let someone else manage it. It’s hard not to admit I cant’ manage my own life. Just the other day my mother said to me “We’ve tried so many things to make you happy, and you’re never happy. You need to spend a long time with God.” I knew the first part was true. I didn’t like what she deduced from it. But that second part was true too. I need something outside myself to manage my life. If nothing else that means the program. I need the program, and I need to be devoted to achieving recovery through spiritual renewal. To get that spiritual renewal I need to work the steps and use the tools. Even if I don’t want to. Well at least I’m writing here now.

The biggest problem for me at the moment is in the relationship department. I finally laid stuff on the line to my boyfriend over a month ago. The way he treats me would be totally unacceptable under almost any circumstances. (I don't mean he hits me or anything like that). But our circumstances are very unusual, and he is going through a LOT at the moment. I said I would stick by him through this hard time, but I still feel taken for granted and besides, what's so great about this relationship anyway? We don't really have that much in common to be honest.

Anways, I layed things on the line. I was sure that was God's will. But I was angry and resentful in the way that I spoke to him. That was not God's will. And I wasn't honest. I blamed him for our problems, and ignored my own part in them. Moreover, I was insecure and distressed. I said in the email I sent him that "I don't suppose you'll even bother to answer" but the fact was I really hoped he would. He didn't, and I felt so rejected and alone and lost. So, about a week or two after that, when I hadn't heard from him, I sent him another email, saying I was so sorry for being so mean to him in his hour of need, and would he take me back. (Can anyone say "coward"?) Now I'm back where I started....thinking I'm in a relationship that isn't God's will but not trusting God to get me out of it and take care of me...after all I tried that. Oh yeah...my boyfriend replied to the second email, and we talked, but I haven't heard from him since. (can anyone say Jerk?)