I still have trouble opening the mail, or answering the phone when it rings. Early in the program, my sponsor would have me pick up the phone and call three women a day. Call them on the phone. Like, how totally painful and unnecessary. This was her solution for almost everything. “Hey Susan, I’m feeling really down today and my Mom doesn’t understand me and I hate living at her house.” She replies, “Great, who have you called today?”
The point was to get out of my own head. To stop thinking about myself. So I called Jenny or Geney or Cathy on the list of lady's numbers. The rule was that I wasn’t allowed to talk about myself. If they ask about me I’m to politely turn the conversation back over to them. “Oh, I’m fine, thank you. Did I hear you just got out of the hospital?” It worked every damn time, too. And I resented that.
After making the calls I did feel less inside myself, less concerned with me. The issues I had that felt so great and overwhelming were reduced to champagne problems and non-issues. So I hated living at my Mom’s house? My Mom’s house was also three blocks from the beach, three stories high with gorgeous views, and I had a cozy bed and a stocked kitchen. It was far better than living in NY on a single coach I shared with my then-boyfriend smoking weed and cigarettes and not paying the rent. Barely…
