AA Afloat

May 2, 2010

Today is day two. We came to Pt Townsend from Seattle yesterday. It turned out to be a nice trip. No rain, sunshine beginning to peak out by mid trip and lovely though windy in PT. The thing that struck me was how this seemed like a short uneventful trip but not too long ago sailing to PT was a big deal. Now we just saw it as a short hop and a chance to rest from all the preparations and excitement.
The day started early when family and friends came to our home slip at Shilshole Bay Marina for an emotional good bye, Throwing off the lines as everyone waved and snapped pictures felt like a day that must belong to someone else.
The highlight of my day was when I opened some mail that had arrived for me at Moms house just the day before. It was my packet of introduction from LIM (Loners internationalists Meeting.) I had learned about Loners from my sponsor when she told me she had been a member while she was in Korea several years ago. I had never even heard of LIM.
I tried to sign up in preparation for our departure but it took a little to find my place in what I hope will be a cornerstone of my AA at sea. When I first signed up I ended up on the LIM email group. Which would be great for most people but from day one I recieved dozens of emails each day. Sounds great right? All those conntacts! But what it really did was fill my inbox in no time. Unfortunatly first, I will have sporadic access to my email in ports of size that may or may not have WIFI. The email we have for at sea is a great tool but we pay for it by the byte which means opening an email with days or even weeks of daily posts just wouldnt work for us.
After some correspondence I found my own glass slipper in the realm of LIM. Turns out that they have a print version that is mailed every other month. This is actualy the way LIM got started. Good old snail mail. Most of the LIM activity today it seems takes place by email but there is a small group still writing through GSO.
The news letters will be sent to mom who will send them on to me whenever we know of a specific destination and a mail drop that she can forward them to. It wont be fast or terriby efficient but it is do-able.
The small packet I recieved included a letter of introduction from the LIM coordinator, a box 459 newsletter from GSO, a confidential "2009 Loners-Internationalists & Homers Directory and a Jan/Feb AND a March/April LIM newsletter "An AA meeting for loners, internationalists and other AA's who cannot attend regular AA meetings."
The three folded pages included our Preamble followed by notes and letters written by 24+ members of our fellowship, a "sad to report" listing of LIM AA's who have passed on, a list of who participated in the meeting and their emails or addresses, a list of new loners, new homers and new internationalists and a list of port contacts. I was so excited by the meeting in print "Just for ME!" that i had to force myself to leave one of the two editions for another day. I can only inagine that I will be opening furute packages from my mom with great anticipation.
Inside the packet was the directory which lists confidential contact info for Loners, Internationalists and Homers in the US, in Canada and around the world. Plus Port contacts in both the US and abroad. There were contacts in 25 states and 26 countries. A listing of phone meetings and online meetings were included.
My "real" meetings will be few and far between but there is a solution. I already wrote a letter of introduction to LIM for inclusion in a future newsletter! Wrote it yesterday, still underway!Between my home contacts, LIM, meetings I find along the way and my AA flag well, the possibilities are endless. Aint Life Grand?

Thanks for being a part of my AA afloat and I look forward to the next time we can talk. Kat R. Seattle,Wa

Almost gone

AA Remote and Afloat

May 1, 2010
It is 530 in the morning and I have been awake for the better part of an hour. In a few hours we will be untying the dock lines and stepping into a new life. Everything is stowed and most of the loose ends are tied. The oddest feeling came from looking down at my key ring and realizing there isn’t a single key on it. No car, no mail box, no key to my moms or Bills car. Everything we own in the world is now confined in 44feet of floating life.
This I hope will be a corner stone of my new AA program. And it has never been more important in my recovery than now to have a program of my own. But how exactly will this work? I haven’t the foggiest but I am about to find out. From my first meeting in 1983 I have always had the quiet luxury of being surrounded with hundreds if not thousands of meeting everyday. AA went with me from Federal way to Tacoma to Covington/Black Diamond and then into “the city.” Whenever I couldn’t pull it together to have a strong program of my own I could always borrow yours. Through the love and sharing I have always found what I needed in AA.
So how is it going to work when there isn’t a meeting within hours? HOW: honesty with myself. Especially an honest acceptance that what I am feeling is OK. Excitement, happiness, grief, loss, sad mad or temporarily lost. Open mindedness: open to all those feelings and open to the program that my faith tells me will unfold around me as we travel on. Willingness: to reach out and accept a new way…until it becomes the right way.
You are going to become a part of that. Please write back when and if you can. I plan on adding my thoughts to this blog regularly but will likely only open this blog when we are near civilization. Which means my posts will likely go out in bunches and spurts. Also please pass this on to anyone you know in AA who might be interested in being part of my recovery.
In order to keep being a part of- I have a sense that I need a plan of some kind and the best I can think of is to actively work through the steps again in some kind of orderly fashion. April was Step 1.
We were supposed to leave April 1st so I have had a full month of admitting I am powerless of (fill in the blanks) and my life is unmanageable. Nothing could have been more unmanageable than this last month. Refrigerator panels more than a month late, more projects on a list we could not possibly get through, a boat that was filthy inside and out from the projects and construction all coupled with my combined emotions of excitement and grief. I lived step one this last month. My plan is to focus a step each month so today, May 1st I am diving right in to “came to believe.” I am going to need to hold on to the faith of the program: that God will restore me to sanity, that you are a power greater than me and that neither has disappeared just because I have left the dock. My recovery will never be the same…….but isn’t that astonishingly wonderful?

Kat, aboard S/v Island Bound