Staying inside yourself

Its so easy to stray from your core self, your core values. I have dipped away from AA meetings a little bit of late and I have found myself just feeling weird, doing weird things, just like - not feeling it. Not digging it. I don't really know why that is but I'm saying it out loud now to drive it home and I think thats the reason. Its crazy. i do one meeting and all of a sudden I feel like I'm back. I was on a meeting last night and there were not one, but two people who had like 10 and 40 years sobriety, respectively, and get this: each of their drinking careers had lasted for THREE years. Thats it. The one who has 40 years sobriety drank from the ages of 15-18...I mean JFC. That is ridic. It must have almost killed her, the poor woman. In any event why am I mentioning this. Every single time, and I mean every single GD time I dial into a meeting I leave with a really important takeaway or observation. Last night, when i heard this, I was reminded of just how fcking dangerous substances like alcohol and drugs can be for people. This poor old woman was probably (I dont know if this is 100% true, but I would bet that it is) almost killed by alcohol the time she quit drinking. Its a pretty GD good reminder of how powerful of an addiction it is. And although there are probably thousands of gradients of grey on the spectrum of alcoholism, and she is probably further out on the spectrum than I am, its just so, so important to remember and to remind myself daily. How did I get away from doing this daily or weekly practice - oh I know. Work. But what kind of work (life?) do I have without my sobriety? Answer: not much. Just me getting bombed every night and passing out feeling like shit the next day and being a waste of nervous agita/anxiety. Ugh. Gross when I think about it. Self love...self love......right. OK. This was me, this legit happened to me. I was the one and it was there and I was with it and it and I are the same being. So yeah. Bring it back home. Stay in yourself. Remember that above all else. Stay. in. yourself.