I FEEL GOOD!!!!
I feel good: spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally.... just all around feel good... The time is about 9:50P. I feel incredibly calm, grateful and just good... It's a nice feeling... I am gonna hold onto it...
Here is the chain of events that has lead to this... My completing most of the 8th step last week and realizing that I am not as big of an a**hole as I thought I was. I certainly owe some amends to some people and places, but nothing earth-shattering and can't be made right... There is a great sense of relief from that...
Since then... I did another Basic I HIV training to another set of 11 participants. It was not the funnest one, but certainly a learning experience. I got through it and felt the effervescent feeling of having been of maximum service. I know I am meant to be a teacher! I love being with people and participating in a group!
I went on a job interview that was incredibly brief… I still don’t know what to make of it. I am just going to leave it alone and trust that God will place me where I need to be… I need only place recovery first and move forward with that and enjoy life as it comes.
This past weekend, I got to spend some time with a couple of friends... We went shopping at Ikea up in Burbank. I got to look at stuff and get some great ideas from my friends as to how to redecorate and redesign my home. It doesn't have to be the way it is now. Apparently, I have a great home with a lot of potential to play with into making a great little pad for people to hang out in!
On Sunday, I got to suit up and show up to a memorial service for yet another friend who died from the disease of alchoholism, addiction and depression. This man was my first sponsor’s partner in life. I met him when I was but a couple weeks sober; HIV positive, 105 lbs, paranoid, insane, broke, unemployed, homeless and broken spirited. He was such a shining example of hope for me... He stood a black man, HIV positive, 2+ years clean and sober, incredibly fit and good looking, going to UCLA for literature on a full scholarship and going for realizing his dreams… His boyfriend was my sponsor who is extremely handsome, white, fit, and HIV negative… I got to spend time with him on shopping trips to Costco and to eat at restaurants and to just spend time in their home and to go to speak at panels together…
A few months back this man of inspiration succumb to depression which led him down to relapse and his subsequent death from this insidious disease of addiction. I got to see the family of my first sponsor and the family of my sponsor’s dead partner in life… I got to see the pain and grief his death had caused. I felt the rooms of sobriety diminish from the loss of this incredibly beautiful spirit. I remember his share about his favorite chapter in the Big Book.. “There is a Solution.” He shared how he couldn’t get enough of that chapter. There is indeed a solution to sobriety and recovery. There also is a solution to jails, institution and ultimately death. I got to live vicariously through the painful experience of the sister of this man who stood before us crying and sharing stories of her dead brother… I couldn’t help but think about a memorial very much like this should I ever go and relapse and die… It was a sobering experience to say the least.
I spent the afternoon decompressing from the experience… I heard some amazing things and really felt how precious and brief my life is… I am still in shock about his not being here…. I was expecting him to walk in anytime during the memorial to just say what are you all doing? Here I am! He didn’t… The fact that he is dead has not sunk in yet.
Ironically, that very evening, I got to go to a friends birthday party… We ate vegetarian food and vegan food and one Kansas dish that had meat in it! It was a very enjoyable experience. Then I rode back home with my friend… I mucked around the computer some more and turned in for the evening.
This morning, I woke up feeling well rested, but very very lazy with the hazy and cool weather. It was perfect weather to snuggle in bed… Snuggle I did til the very last minute… I considered calling in sick, but dragged my butt up and went to work… I was incredibly calm feeling… I took a few co-workers out on lunch… I put in some work and left work to go to my regular meeting in Beverly Hills…
Throughout all these days, I have filled the days with meetings, recovery, reaching out to other people and staying in gratitude, and in prayer and being mindful of God's love.
My drive home was when I realize how incredibly good I felt… I was singing to the music… I was breathing easily and feeling incredibly healthy… No problems with my tummy, my skin, or anything for that matter… My head was incredibly clear… I felt ok not having been picked to share…
If I was picked here is what I would’ve shared about: thanking the speaker for his share and how I identified with asking why is it me out of all the people who get to live and have a 2nd chance at life. The answer is because you have a child that needs your love, a wife that needs your support, a room full of people who need your experience, strength and hope, who need an opportunity to give and receive love and support from you. Very much the same way, I am able to remember this for myself. I remember a good friend of mine would remind me, utilize, don’t analyze… don’t compare, stay teachable. This past weekend, I got to suit up and show up for a friend who died from this disease. I got a real reminder of how progressive and fatal this disease is. I wanted to share about why I feel so good… It coincidentally, coincides with my having completed a lot of my 8th step and not having to repeat these things that created the wreckage of my past and present. In working the steps when I was new, I had tools but didn’t know how to use them to live life… I was muddling around in the dark… Sex, work… etc.. just clueless… I was just doing things blind… As I continued working the step, I am able to shed light on the very things I have done… I get to open my eyes and see the unhealthy behaviors that I thought was ok and acceptable or was baffling to me when I was new. I am able to literally see the ugly and unattractive people I was willing to f*ck around with and now with the light of sobriety see how unappetizing my behavior and actions were and are. Today, I get to pick and choose from my basket of solutions for death or solutions for life. I choose life today… Thank you for letting me share.
As someone I deeply in recovery shared... Don't tell your God how big your storm is... Tell your storm how big your God is!
There is so much more going on in my life… Above is a summary of what has happened in just the last week.. I am still dying to get this website updated and appealing for people to read and most importantly enjoy the many pictures I am taking on a daily basis of my life.
Thanks for continuing to view this site and supporting me!
Hugs,
Quoc
QUOCLAM@GMAIL.COM
Hey folks... Just want to let you know that this website is undergoing some updates. My quoc@quoclam.com e-mail is no longer valid. Please e-mail me at quoclam@gmail.com until further notice.
I am swamped with work... There is a lot going on... I will certainly stop to blog this weekend... As soon as the website is updated and functional, I will hopefully be able to post pictures etc...
Thank you for your continued prayers... I shared with someone that I was going through it; she responded by reminding me to "grow through it." There is a reason why I am going through whatever it is that I am going through. There is a lesson to be learned. In learning I grow... So GROW THROUGH IT!
Cheers,
Quoc
BROKEN DREAMS...
I haven’t blogged because I have needed the therapeutic value of putting pen to paper doing some written journalizing... I hope this stuff gets transferred into the net one day as those moments when I write are the real juicy stuff of my life... (sample is a journal entry I wrote about having a dream of my setting things in order before I got executed or was going to die). I have been going through the wringer to say the least lately. I have just been a ball of emotions… I have been up and down, up and down… like a yo-yo or better analogy like the Goliath ride… December 2006 through beginning of January 2007 was like riding on the first part of Goliath where there is that 200 foot drop!!! I just kept going down, down, down and circumstances just built up and stacked against me to the point of my bursting into tears about 2 weeks ago in a meeting sharing about my frustration of not being able to let go of these negative feelings, forcing gratitude, forcing myself to go to meetings, forcing myself to get up and go to work, forcing myself to just push through the day, and definitely acting alcoholically by treating my loneliness with isolation…
Thankfully, since my share and opening myself to receiving love and support from others, I have gotten better. I have been saying yes to every opportunity granted me to hang out with friends and get to know them better and let them into my life, my head and my heart. I have allowed myself to be much more vulnerable…. I am saying yes to life and letting things happen…
There indeed is a learning curve as I have been going through ups and downs… Again, this is progress as I shared that prior to this, it has been all down hill and being a bottom feeder of feelings…
The main thing I can’t get over is seeing other people promote and get paid comfortable wages and I am still living cautiously and counting my pennies. I really want to go to Hawaii at the end of February for the AA convention. I want to go to New York in the spring or fall of this year. I want to be able to do all this while having enough money saved up to cover me for emergency rent for a few months. With the current way I am living right now, these very few goals I have will not come to fruition.
My sponsor help remind me that I am earning more money than ninety percent of the rest of the world annually. I am living comfortably compared to the majority of the world. He tried to bring gratitude into my attitude. I am grateful, but I am told so many things about me being great and marketable. My fear is that there is only a window of opportunity where I can capitalize on that before I get too old. Sigh…
Today, I had a very very very difficult time waking up to go to work. There is this dreaded annual report I have to complete for one of the programs. It is an incredible challenge to get it done as the data is not correct and accurate and the mechanism by which the data is being mined and collected is very inefficient and tedious. I wanted to call in sick and avoid the report for at least a day. At some point during the morning, I popped up from the thought that tomorrow will only bring worse news as the report will still be there and yet another day late. I need only work on it and continue chipping away at the report and get it done!!! It is going to be quite a task and project to get an efficient system in place for future reporting of this information. I have an idea of how it should looks; it is implementation that I don’t know how… I guess I get to learn by asking questions, offering proposals and learning what I can and cannot do. I am proud of myself for having buckled down and going to work.
I worked quite late… I was the last person in the office… The maintenance crew had even come in to clean the office while I worked. That was a sign for me to leave. I had a prior engagement to hang out with a friend out in Pasadena… I went over to her home and hung out with her family… I chatted a little, enjoyed some dinner at the table with her family. It was nice to be pampered and taken care of by a parent and enjoy some home cooking… I found the experience very eerie and emotional… I missed this feeling very much…
Of course I was the perfect guest. I have been trained well. I spent the rest of the evening watching American Idol with my friend and her sis... We got some good laughs. I then went into my friends bedroom and we chatted some more about life… It was nice to get to share and commiserate and just have a heart to heart with a friend. I feel safe with her. I have amazing friends that love me and want to hang out with me and spend time with me and want to be a part of my life and want me to be a part of theirs… It was nice to experience the feeling of belonging, wanted, welcome, and needed. I stayed for about 3-4 hours and left just before 11:30P; after all the two of us have to work the next morning.
It is half past midnight.. I need to shower, brush and get to bed… Perhaps read a little bit of a self-improvement book before sleeping… I need to get up early and get to work and focus on getting the report completed to the best of my ability so that we may move forward with the matters that matter now! I need to focus on the moment and get back to basics and put one foot in front of the other and take care of one thing at a time and not future trip too much on ALL the things I have to do such as facilitating a training next week, going to a training the week after and facilitating a training, as well as try to balance it out with my current responsibilities managing my programs. I also am thinking about how I am going to balance job searching, head hunter searching, decluttering and redesigning my home so that I may invite guests to come over and enjoy. I am thinking of how I am going to complete my 8th step quickly so that I may reap the benefits of getting to look the world squarely in the eye as I make amends to myself and to others and get to carry the message and sponsor other people. I am thinking of exercise and tackling my issues with not knowing how to establish intimacy…
Speaking of intimacy… I don’t know when and how to broach the subject with someone I want to be romantically or sexually involved with that I am attracted to… when the underlying foundation is friendship… When would it be weird to talk about dating and sex when I face the possibility of being shot down and rejected and consequently making that friendship weird… My gut is telling me to just enjoy each moment I get with this new friend and get to know him and say yes to those opportunities and moments that come up for romance and sex… Perhaps I will move beyond this initial infatuation stage and like him as a friend as time passes… I don’t know…. It’s so darn complicated. Truth be told, I would absolutely love to have no strings attached sex and maintain a friendship with him… But the truth is that there is a deeper attraction for this man… I am not really feeling confident and giving myself permission to bring this subject up as the crazy drunken monkey in my head is telling me that I am too fat, asian, short, and unsexy to be with a guy of this caliber… I am a very picky person when it comes to attraction of both the mind, body and spirit… Thusfar, my sense is that I really am attracted to all three that this man has… What to do… What to do…
My prayer is for God to help re-spark some sense of excitement and motivation for my job; whether it be the current job I am in or for the job that God has in store for me… My prayer is for God to help me wake up with eyes wide open and an attitude of great appreciation for another day I get to create beauty in the world for myself and others!!! I want to be able to express my creativity and my talents and get paid for it financially, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically…
I want motivation to
1) be excited and suit up and show up for my job that I am being paid to do!!!
2) continue to take the steps to apply for other positions that I am well qualified for and are well qualified for me, financially and gives me an opportunity to spread my wings and really shine and love what I do!!!
3) exercise and do it consistently and not continue to donate money to the fitness club I am a member at without utilizing it… It’s a waste of my money.
4) be motivated, excited and find time and use the time to complete my stepwork so that I may experience the freedom that has been given to sooo many who have “thoroughly followed the path” towards conscious spiritual contact with God and being able to have fruitful relationships with his fellow human.
5) create the home that I want to live in and would be proud to invite and entertain guests vs. a recreation of the home I grew up in and lived in for over 27 years.
6) be patient with myself and see the perfection of my progress and celebrate those moments when I move forward just by my intentions and definitely any incremental action step I take in realizing the goals and dreams I have for myself.
7) walk with pride and confidence with the people that come into and through my life for the opportunity to be intimate platonically, romantically, or carnally... Be able to say yes and remember that my feeling and being ok is NOT contingent upon my relationship with you or your opinions of me… I can be ok with myself and love myself and appreciate myself and validate myself without being affected by what you say or think of me and our relationship…
Quoc
INTO THE LIGHT...
I was going to name the title of this blog "Out of the Dark," but to stay in the spirit of positive affirmation, I definitely wanted to reframe it as my life moves into the light again...
As my sponsor shares with me, with anything, there is a beginning, middle and end. I certainly went through one of the most challenging times of my new sobriety in the past 1 1/2 month. I am happy to hear that I have not only seen the light at the end of the tunnel, but I am certainly emerging out of the tunnel into the light again.
It was done with:
1) Reaching out and asking for help...
2) Sharing honestly about where I am; being brave enough to share at a group level when I was feeling weak, vulnerable, and F.I.N.E. = F*cked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.
3) Staying clean and sober.
4) Making mistake by trying it my way a little bit by treating my loneliness with isolation.
5) Receiving the love and support that was offered by those that love me.
6) Taking actions that moved me forward and slowly into the light...
7) Trusting my past experience that this too did pass, and this too shall pass...
The highlight of my day, on this MLK B-day:
I got to spend it with my family, Chin, Judy & Micol... We got to go out to lunch and catch up. I find myself needing to connect with my nuclear family on a regular basis... Goodness knows that I haven't seen them in over a month! It was nice to share a meal with them... I got to take my baby sis home to her school.
Too exhausted... I have to continue later...
Quoc
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BRAD!!!
(sings...)
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday dear Brad...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!
I love you Brad... May all your birthday wishes come true...
Hope all continues going well in Chicago!!!
Muah!
Quoc
A NEW YEAR… A NEW DAY…
December 2006 in review… (NOTE: GIVEN THE FACT THAT I AM NOT IN THE MOST POSITIVE AND OPTIMISTIC FRAME OF MIND)
Positive:
- learned a lot
- paid a REAL 12 step call to a friend
- made a wonderful friend in the rooms (quickly becoming a best friend)
- turned 6 months clean & sober
- no sex with anyone for a couple months!
- Reached out and asked for help! And shared at meetings…
- Lots of fun and laughs
- Great opportunities to learn to set boundaries and say no and be a good manager and friend… etc…
Negative:
- went through hell with Director of my workplace
- deceived by Interim Director on Training Manager job offer… influenced by a few of core management team at my workplace…
- shortchanged my sobriety by placing work first and it didn’t pay off!!!
- No sex with anyone for over a couple months!
- Grieved lack of parents for the holidays
- Felt sad and abandoned by sisters for holidays
- Frustrated with living paycheck to paycheck
- Frustration for having romantic feelings toward people I shouldn't be having feelings toward... Thankfully, I have not acted on them. That action states my intention. I am proud of self.
- Frustration for having a sofa that is too big for my studio
- Frustration with having such a messy place!
- Frustration for my apathy and procrastination and sleeping too much without feeling like I am rested!
- Frustration thinking I have acute depression from circumstances around me.
- Frustration for this lengthy period of time where I am in emotional turmoil and pain.
- Saddened and disappointed that I barely have enough for minimal savings let alone any trip to Hawaii or anywhere else… ?
- I tipped 154 lbs and feel every ounce of my overweight body!
YEAR IN REVIEW:
- Dad passing away
- Relapsing
- Still stalling and delaying my stepwork
- Challenges of new manager position that is very very challenging!
- STD scare and legitimate STD dx and tx
- Grieving over the holidays
- Feeling abandoned during holidays
- Challenges in December with abusive Boss at work
- Disappointment of not getting training manager position
- Disappointment of not getting a raise!
- Frustrations with finances… having what I need, but wanting some desires met…
- Losing my commitment on AALA committee
- Putting people at direct risk for being exposed/infected with HIV
- My focus is clearly on the downfalls and sadness and challenges in 2006 vs. seeing the accomplishments…
- Promoted from PCRS Manager to ATS/MWC Program Manager
- Coming back from relapsing and staying
- Being a great manager
- Not beating self up for mistakes made
- Really getting honest with my feelings
- Living life that recovery has given me… and having fun making friends with Aaron and going out and enjoying self…
- Moving to my own place...
These are a few highlights of the past year... I know there are a lot more... Thought I would take a moment and highlight some of them!
Quoc
FLAT BROKE... BUT NOT BROKEN...
Let this be the first and last day that I live in deep negativity… in the lacking… and absolve, resolve and affirm and take action to ascertain and seize, wealth, abundance financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
As of today, my total accumulated savings in cash (in the bank, in my wallet) equals negative forty four cents. Yes, all bills are paid and everything that needs to be paid is taken care of… and yes, I don’t have the luxury of doing simple fun activities such as going to a musical, going to the movies, going on a nice dinner, and just spending some fun money… I AM TIRED OF LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK, BEING MINDFUL OF EVERY PENNY THAT ENTERS AND LEAVES MY POCKET...
I spent all day at home… I have been spending a lot of time in bed since hearing about the news about the status of the Training Manager’s position on Friday, December 29, 2006. Yes, the position was NOT offered to me. This was the last bad news for the month of December and for 2006!!! May 2007 bring in a different energy!!! This week, I have been on vacation. I haven’t really been neglected. I have been counting on the kindness of my friends and my baby sister to help out with expenditures to enjoy my time off. Otherwise, I would be stuck at home for the full week. This is not to say that I haven’t spent a lot of this past week sleeping… I believe I am experiencing acute circumstantial depression…
This is why I haven’t really taken a moment to blog… The new year brought me to my sponsor’s party at his home… I got some good news and rejuvenating news that I just don’t know what is in store for me. That whatever is happening right now is truly not by mistake. That there is a bigger scope to this story than I am seeing… It’s like me driving at night with my headlights on… All I am seeing is about 30 feet in front of me. There is a lot more down the path. I just don’t see it… What I get to do is trust that God is taking care of me.
Here are some pictures to share with you… I need to figure out a better way to share pictures with you… There are great and fun memories… This has been quite a year, quite a week, quite a day…
I pray that I get over this hump I am in… I pray that I walk through the doors that are open and continue to say yes to life and seize and ingest every bit of potential that I have to be successful… Right now, I am getting over hurting, being sad, frustrated, angry, disappointed and relieved that I get to feel all these things without getting high and without committing an act that is other or self sabotaging.
I can’t…. We can…
Quoc
