Forgiveness is a dish best served reheated at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

When it's broken and you think it can be fixed, but you don't know how, and you can't locate the manual because your chaos exceeds the legal limit, you have to go to experts for solutions.

I want to be perfect. I want to know it all. I'm still not sure why this is a prevalent aspect of the disease of alcoholism, and I am sure that it isn't exclusive to that condition. But I have been hitting various levels of bottom this past week, and I’ve been told it's a good thing. It doesn’t feel anything like a good thing…but okay. I’m listening.

Do we fuck up just so we can learn? Do those of us who have a certain intelligence and consciousness actually get to a point where we don’t make the same mistakes more than, say, a maximum of 10 or 20 times over the course of a lifetime? And why do we beat ourselves up so badly for being human? Or, sometimes, extrahuman? Hyperhuman? It isn't always "fucking up." It's just life, messy and imperfect. An educational process for which we must stay awake. A class through which we musn't sleep. If we do, we'll have to take the course again. Damn.

I made two especially good calls yesterday: healer extraordinaire Jeremiah, who promises me I have great things in store, and who lovingly gives me the best ingredients and most effective tools to take me there. And my beloved Hej friend, who unwittingly sent me to a meeting yesterday when I called her from deep in the abyss. She reminded me (confounding – after 12.7 years, I still have to be reminded) that I used to drink and smoke pot to get through what I’m going through now. Which prompted me to remember my first home meeting, Women-to-Women in West Hollywood, Wednesdays at 12:30. I jumped off the phone, got dressed and arrived 15 minutes late, but just in time to hear most of the speaker’s talk. The speaker was Lee, who had been in the room when dear friend Cool and I walked into our first meeting. Like two nervous little girls, hand-in-hand, on the first day of kindergarten. And Lee was there, with her years and years of sobriety and serious – intimidating – bearing. I thought of her on my way to WeHo yesterday, almost willed her to be there. Not just in the room, but sharing her experience (so much like mine), strength (so much like I’m told mine is) and hope (so much like I want mine to be).

I don’t have a sponsor, now, and I want to go through the steps again. Cheap, available, valuable, no bullshit therapy. It’s that last element that is the key to my emotional evolution. After Lee spoke, and all of us shared, I had the thought: she’s the one. I can tell her everything and she won’t blink. It’s what we all crave: understanding without judgment. When I asked her after the meeting, she hesitated – I know she’s terribly busy in her successful career, I know she must have a gazillion sponsees, I knew not to take it personally. I said, look, I’m going to be a low-maintenance case, I just want to go through the steps. She got it. We traded numbers. I’m looking forward to moving forward.

It’s hard to show up. But it’s the only thing we have to do. Even if we’re insincere, even if we’re terrified, even if they’re coming after us and we’re hiding in our rooms so we can’t be found. If we’re intelligent and conscious, we have no choice.

It's not so much about getting others' forgiveness. It's about forgiving ourselves. Myself.