Big Book page 122: "...all will not be fair weather."

What an exciting day this has been! Today I had the privilege of attending the wedding of a wonderful woman in program. She was a beautiful bride, and the 114-pound weight loss of this past year just made that more apparent to the world. Everything went as planned, and those of us who attended had a delightful time.

But, "all will not be fair weather." That is for sure! I returned home from my vacation in San Francisco at 2:15 this morning. Some not-so-fair weather in Chicago made my plane late arriving in Atlanta. Hence we got home 1 hour and 40 minutes later than expected. That would have been fine, except that we were attending the wedding about 85 miles from here at noon today. Between jet lag and lack of sleep, I am NOT experiencing all fair weather today.

My vacation was a short one. We were visiting family in San Francisco. We left the morning after I returned from the Region 8 convention. I ran into some old friends in San Francisco: "resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear". (Big Book page 147).

As an old hand at OA and working the program, I let myself get too busy to really prepare for the trip. Oh, I packed warm clothing and food for the plane trip. I packed enough clothing for the 5 days, too. But I did not make all my needs known to our hosts. And THAT was a mistake that almost unglued my 15 plus years of recovery.

We were driving all day Tuesday, and my hosts do not subscribe to the same meal schedule to which I am accustomed. It was more than 8.5 hours between lunch and dinner. I am not used to eating late at night. I do not like riding in a car over mountain roads at 80 mph, and had to really work my program to keep from panicking over that.I was much too "hungry, angry, and tired" to make good judgements, and went to bed frazzled. The time difference made phone calling difficult.

We were scheduled to drive all day Wednesday as well. I called my sponsor and bemoaned my feelings and actions of the day before. Of course, it was everyone else's fault. She didn't agree, and talked to me about what I could do to make Wednesday a different and better day. It meant making my needs known to my hosts, whether they liked it or not. That is what I did, and Wednesday was a much better day.

I love the old saying, "Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but rather peace within the storm." I got another chance to practice my program, and another chance to recognize the truth of the quote, "It works -- it really does."

Your grateful sister in recovery, Janet C.

(Abstinent since 2/26/89 and maintaining a weight loss of approximately 250 pounds by the grace of God and the OA program of recovery.)