My Point, and I Should Have One...

So what's my point in this journey, other than to stroke my ego in having my own blog?

For one thing, I think I have a pretty unique perspective. I realize that I am far from the only gay man in recovery in New York. I am, however, the only unpretty gay man I know in recovery in New York. Now, before you roll your eyes at the impromptu pity party, allow me to elaborate.

I used to be fat. Really fat. In the past year or so, I've dropped almost 100 pounds. So in a suit I look pretty good. Take off my shirt, however, and it looks like a heaping bowl of tapioca pudding drying in the sun. Not sexy. Not attractive. Certainly not up to the exacting abdominal standards of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Skinny Jeans.

As a result, sometimes I feel like a man without a country. Too gay to feel at home in "regular" home groups. Not pretty and fabulous enough to be welcomed in gay groups. Caught in the middle. To be fair, this is my resentment, so it's what I need to work through, not on AA, or straight home groups or gay home groups. In situations such as this, my sponsor likes to direct me to page 417 of the Big Book...

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concen- trate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God. 

This actually does help a bit. This passage describes one of my biggest character defects to a T. I know better than anybody. If only things were set up the way I think they should be, the world would be so much better and everyone would be so much happier. Except that plans for world domination aren't usually hatched nude on a filthy mattress surrounded by empty gin bottles and beer cans... Unless Kim Jong Il and I had the same decorator.

So I get it. It's on me to adapt to the world if I want to find happiness, not the other way around. It's just that sometimes it seems like no matter how much I twist and contort myself, I never fit in. All my life I've felt like the outcast pressing his grubby little face against the window, watching the cool kids with envy and shame. Even in AA, sometimes, it feels like there's an unspoken agreement to put me on a lower tier. There isn't. I know that. I know that this is a disease of perception, that feelings aren't facts.

But I hurt right now. I think I will get through this. I've gotten through worse in sobriety. It just doesn't feel that way at the moment.