My first and last name initials are A.D. Many used to say that they stood for “Always Dramatic” because I made the biggest deal about everything that happened in my life. I’ve been working a lot to shed this former image over the last year of my recovery and just this past weekend, it was put to the test on my visit to Old Silver Beach in Falmouth, MA.
One of the coolest things that happens in the New England recovery community during the summer are when AA meetings are held on the beach as dusk begins to occur. Old Silver Beach is just one of those locations where these beach meetings happen and it’s held every Saturday night at 7pm usually between the months of June and September. While I had been in attendance in previous summers to a few of the meetings there, my friends who coordinate it gave me the opportunity this year to be the main speaker at this past Saturday night’s meeting.
Unfortunately, as soon as I left my house early Saturday afternoon to head down to the beach, I noticed the air pressure light was on in my car again having just been lit up over a week ago. A quick stop over to NTB showed I had a slow leak on one of my tires. After being told it would be a few hours to get it looked at and fixed, I just decided to have air placed back in it and promised myself a return visit there later in the week when it was less busy.
As I got on the highway from there to head South towards the beach, I immediately hit a wall of traffic. Oddly enough, I didn’t really care and just spent the extra time reciting mantras in the car that I’ve been doing lately to be a more positive and healthy based person. Further into my drive after the roads had opened up for awhile, I saw a sign that said there was a backup near the bridge I was coming up to. I quickly did a search on my GPS and saw a back road that I could take to bypass the congestion, which ended up being a nice detour along a very stunning lake.
By the time I arrived at the beach it was much past the original time I had intended on being there, as I had wanted to spend a good portion of the day just relaxing before the meeting. I discovered through a quick phone call to the friend who coordinated me speaking there that night, that most everyone had already left for the day and were returning that evening for the meeting. I was fine with that because I actually enjoy being alone at the beach as much as I do with other people. But upon arriving at the location I had been told I could park at for free, it was being guarded by security who said I couldn’t leave my car there. As I headed further down the road to where the main parking lots were for the beach, there was a backup of cars waiting to get a spot and a big sign that said the price was $20, which was all I head left in my wallet. I calmly called my friend again and asked her for alternatives and she coordinated to have me go back to this restaurant not too far away and leave my car. A short bit later, I and another few friends were picked up by her and we all headed back down to the beach where she was able to park for free with the beach sticker on her vehicle.
During the few hours that I got to enjoy my beach time, the canvas bag that my new chair was held in disappeared, the large umbrella I had gotten only last summer completely broke, and I discovered upon heading to go use the bathroom that it had been locked at 5pm for the rest of the night. Ironically, none of it phased me and I was able to let it all go.
The beach remained extremely crowded right up until the start time of the meeting, which was rather unusual for that time of the night there, so we migrated the meeting away from everyone and ended up starting it fifteen minutes late. What was great about that was that everyone who had come for the meeting but was running late, actually arrived on time. But even better, as the meeting came to a close, we all got to see the sun set on a completely clear horizon over the ocean.
After the meeting ended, a few of us went back to my friend’s house who did a small cookout and a fire in the backyard of her home. It was an amazing way to end the day and as I sat there and toasted some marshmallows, I felt grateful that none of what had transpired throughout the day had bothered me in the slightest bit. So not even a small air leak in a tire, heavy traffic, difficult parking situations, lost and broke items at the beach, or large numbers of people there, could derail the sense of peace I experienced throughout the day. I attribute all of that to the work I’ve been doing to grow a deeper relationship with God in my recovery.
Looking back, I have a lot of gratitude for that day as not too long ago any of what happened to me along the way would have turned me into a complete dramatic mess. I’m thankful that in a nutshell, I finally had a day where I didn’t sweat any of the small stuff.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
