Recovery Goes on Vacation

Well, of course recovery never really goes on vacation but recovering people do. Going to meetings while vacationing is one of the smartest things we can do. It’s not just that we stay sober longer and better but vacations get better the longer we are sober.

One plus of vacation recovery is that we learn to stress less about the “stuff” of travel. One of the best pieces of vacation advice I ever received from a sponsor is that “The trip begins when you are packed.” I used to be so miserable all through the process of getting to the place where I was going to be vacationing that the car ride and the airport and the taxi rides were awful—for me and everyone around me. I wanted to get to the vacation place cause then the vacation would begin. When I shifted my attitude—and it wasn’t easy at first—to say to myself, “This too is part of the vacation adventure”, then sure enough it was…and then I could look for the good parts of the delayed plane and the weird taxi driver and the odd meal.

But the other reason that vacations get better with longer recovery is that I discovered that those of us in 12 step programs have an amazing resource that other travelers do not: we have contacts in every city and town in the world.

There is something so fun and so smart about asking a 12 step group for suggestions about where to eat, what to do, the best way to drive to the next city etc. I’ve been tipped off to bargain shopping, fabulous inexpensive restaurants, and we don’t need a guidebook to tell us where the locals eat or shop—we have local “family” that we can ask. This is where AA and AAA meet up and it is such a bonus to travelers.

Kindle Your Recovery

I’m just back from a wonderful trip to Bermuda. Sunshine, a perfect and permanent 78 degrees each day. Beautiful hotel and seafood after seafood after toffee pie dinners.

But no AA meetings. Oh, they were there but never in the town we were in. So what to do? Kindle!

I keep the Big Book and The Language of Letting Go, daily meditations by Melody Beatty on my Kindle reader. I also added “The Spirituality of Recovery” and Geneen Roth’s books about women food and money recovery on there too.

So each day away I had both conference-approved and non-approved (but saved my life) literature with me, so I gave myself prayer, meditation and reading time every day. It works.

Holiday Airports or How to Test Your Recovery

We are home. A three day holiday trip to the Mom-in-Law became 8 days. Delay, cancellation, stand by. By now you know what happened in the Northeast and consequently what happened to airplanes and airports everywhere.

In addition to no clothes, no phones, no makeup, no internet and no fruit –in Florida! I did get a great experience and test of my recovery.

Here is the bad news and the good news:

In the first day –or two—I saw my almost physical resistance to acceptance. “They do not mean our plane? Not our plane; not my plane?” (You would have thought I owned the plane). Even when the very patient airline staff member explained that Yes it was Florida and no there was no snow here but there were also no airplanes here either—I had this visceral insistence that it could not be. Then as I accepted that we’d spend the extra night, God laughed. It was explained that we’d spend at least four more nights. (It turned out to be five).

That first day I felt very unrecovered. Then I also watched myself be very nice to complete strangers but a cranky, unsettled wife to my husband. What does it say in the Big Book about how the people we love get hit the hardest?

The other not-so-recovered part of me that I got to witness for days was the shopping addiction. This was totally weird. I did not drink, smoke or take any drugs. I also did not binge on sugar or pizza or holiday goodies but I shopped at airport newsstands and at CVS like it was Saks: “Oh, look pink nail polish, I must have some; and those plastic barrettes adorable! and nude colored peds—amazing! This went on for days.

The other less than recovered part of me was my thinking—mostly about work. I called my boss who was very gracious but I could not shake the worry—“what will people think?” “I’m going to be in trouble.” “I’m such a bad employee”, etcetera etcetera etcetera. All those paperback self-help books in the airport newsstand did come in handy. New word: rumination. New list for my therapist: What the…?

But there is also good in this unexpected holiday inventory:

My first instinct was to pray. And to pray for acceptance. Even though the results were not great I did keep praying. And I kept saying, “This is what it is and this is what is happening”.

I also started a gratitude list. I was sober and stayed sober, I just bought 18-hour mascara, my manicure was the new varnish kind that lasts two weeks; I had eight days with my husband in small spaces and some of those days with his mother who sometimes called my by his ex-wife’s name—and I laughed! And I and we kept laughing.

Also on my list: not traveling with an infant—several families were; Not blind—a couple near us were BOTH blind; no one screaming at me—a husband behind us in the long wait lines kept screaming at his wife. And no drinking—we saw lots and lots of drunken people in airport bars.

But here’s the best and what I want to hold on to: In all these days all my comforts and defenses were removed from me: privacy, control, looking good, attractiveness, work—I could not please or impress or even create and I found out that even with all of that removed—I still exist.

San Antonio and Back

I am back from San Antonio and the 2010 International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went prepared for masses of people and extreme heat and good AA, and I got good AA, very decent weather—high’s in the 80s thanks to hurricane Alex which cooled things down and masses of wonderful sober people. The convention was so extraordinarily well planned, managed and produced that I am now a San Antonio fan!

The unofficial count of participants at the convention was 52,000 to 54,000 people. Fifty countries were represented. The count is unofficial because it includes AA members, Al-Anon and Alateen members, and family and friends of 12-step folks. Still this is under the all time high of 55,000 people who came together in Toronto in 2005.

So, yes, AA people everywhere. Hotels, restaurants, tourist sites, on the River Walk, at plays and concerts and uh huh, in meetings. And on buses. The transportation alone was a stunning achievement. We never waited more than three minutes for a ride. And San Antonio is such a great walking city that we walked to and from the convention center, Alamodome, restaurants, museums and markets.

I heard great things in the marathon meetings and in the special topic conferences and wonderful things on the bus, at dinner and just eavesdropping—one of my favorite hobbies. With 50,000 sober people around you just hear amazing things all day long and I noted how many of them included, “And then my sponsor told me…”

In the next few days I’ll include some of my highlights here but let me offer you this right now. If you have never been to an AA International Convention do consider attending one. They are every five years so there is plenty of time to plan and to save up. It is not expensive: there are great hotel and airfare deals and AA makes sure there are options for every budget. When a host city agrees to entertain upwards of 50,000 people there are great prices and services.

The next convention is 2015 and it will be in Atlanta Georgia. June 30 to July 4. Mark your calendar and make a plan with your AA friends. Yeah, we do this thing one day at a time but on the side?-- I’m planning to be sober and in Atlanta in 2015.

Better Than the Verizon Network

Last day at the Cape and feeling so grateful for this week. A wonderful part has been making new friends in AA here. A daily meeting speeds up the process and a 6:30 am meeting makes it very real. I’m reminded that being part of AA has the additional benefit of providing travel advice and assistance that is so much better then AAA. I can go to any AA meeting in the world and ask where to eat, what to see, how to get tickets, what areas to avoid and I’ll often get offers of rides, meals, coffee and companionship if I want that. Wherever we go we have this huge family of relatively sane people available to us. It’s like that commercial for the Verizon network except that the group of people goes on for miles and miles.