August 27 • Phoney Confession

Day 780 My phone is weighty. That is the only reason I can figure out why I do not answer it more often or initiate more calls to fellow addicts. When I was in junior high, I was known to cling to a silent receiver for up to an hour waiting for that girl on the other end to say something; I didn't want to talk because I might be interrupting something she was getting ready to say. But since then, I have not been a fan of the phone. From the numbness in my crooked elbow to the sore cartilage of my ears, I just don't enjoy spending time with a disembodied voice in the palm of my hand pressed against the side of my head. Oh, sure, hands-free devices should have changed all that somewhere in the nineties, but my habits were well entrenched by then. Are we still talking about phones, or does that also apply to my defects and addictions? Anyway, my forty-pound phone now sits silently too often; the only things that motivate me to improve my tele-habits are the stories and the requests for conversation from my fellow addicts. That's enough some days, and not enough other days. I suspect there is more to this story, especially in my new and improved life view in recovery. I probably have intimacy issues that go well past those I know about with my wife. And let's be honest: The idea of knowing more than I want to know about another person's problems is not an encouragement to me to key in someone's number or to have Siri hook me up. I don't want to tell people this, because I really do want them to be free to call me whenever they may need to do that. Seriously. This is a conflict and a contradiction for me that I'm working on, and if word gets out that I don't want to do it, then folks might leave me alone. Yes, that's what I want, but it is not what I need. And the funny part, if there is one, is that I've been making and taking more phone calls during the past year than at any time since my junior high days. That doesn't mean it's a lot or enough, but it's progress. The increasingly frequent idea of being asked to be a sponsor for someone new to recovery is what spurred these confessional words. The thought of having the responsibility to answer the phone and to make calls to a particular someone is daunting to me, and I don't know whether that means I'm not ready to do it, or I'm very ready to do it. I should probably ask my sponsor about that, but I don't want to risk tearing my rotator cuff picking up this damn phone. –JR