change

Back To Basics

/ Tim / 1 Comment
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I’ve been in recovery for a good number of years, twelve to be exact. I know I have grown and changed in that time. I am not the same person that started the journey, thank heaven. And I am very grateful for how far I have come. I had tried everything I could think of before I started a twelve-step program, except start one. That was until I couldn’t come up with any more of the options that I thought ‘might’ work for me, but hadn’t. I certainly didn’t want things to stay the same as they were, and I knew I couldn’t stop on my own. So I gave it a go.

One of the first surprises after my first meeting was getting an invitation to return; I wasn’t getting many invitations at the time. And I realized that I had a lot of misconceptions about the program that I could put aside. I’m grateful that I was still open minded enough to listen. I soon started to try the suggestions I heard from other members and the literature. To my great surprise, they worked! It didn’t take long for me to understand I had finally found my ‘tribe’.

In the ensuing years I have been privileged to work with a lot of other folks in the program as well as participate in the day to day running of our local group, serving on the group executive for much of my time. I have learned a lot about myself, my relationship to others and to a Higher Power. However, as with many things, I began to tire a bit of the program. About a year ago I stepped back from the group work and took a deserved and probably needed break. I still kept up with meetings and the daily stuff like reading and meditation to maintain my sobriety, but I was sort of coasting along, enjoying life.

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Then I heard someone at a meeting a couple of months back say, “If you’re coasting, you’re going down hill.”

And, I had to ask myself the question. Am I really coasting? Am ‘I’ going down hill?

The honest answer was a resounding “Yes!”

In sobriety I am granted a daily reprieve by my Higher Power, based upon my spiritual condition. And I believe that it’s not enough to just maintain the status quo, I have to work to make sure that apathy and self-satisfaction don’t take hold. Addiction is the disease that tries to tell you that you don’t have a disease. We have a saying that while you’re in a meeting, your disease is in the parking lot doing push-ups. I have to keep myself strong too. I know from working the program over the years that it has a great deal of depth and here I was just sort of swimming on the surface and not exploring its breadth and wealth.

SO

I set my alarm clock a half an hour earlier again and started doing an early morning meditation followed by some journal writing.

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Since I’m not in the same country as my sponsor right now, I figured I could use a fellow up here that I could do some more work with. I talked with a good friend who’s known me as long as I’ve been in the program and asked him to suggest someone for me. He matched me up with a great guy who is full of enthusiasm and is willing to share some time with me in discovering more about our program and how we can not just ‘do’ the steps, but ‘live’ them each and every day of our lives.

I am so enjoying the process. We’re doing a ‘back to basics’ kind of approach, focusing on the literature of our program from the beginning. This young man’s insight is amazing. I am seeing things in a fresh new light that make me feel like a newcomer again where everything is about to be discovered. His work with me is a tribute as well to the great sponsorship that he has received and his application of what he has learned in his own life. We have had many great discussions in the last month and I look forward to many more.

This also means that I need let go of my old ideas about who I am, how I am and where I am going in life. Sometimes that’s tough to do, but I do it anyway. I trust the process because I know from my own experience as well as that of others that this is a time of growth. How can I become the best version of me if I don’t let go of the old version?

You can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the old dog is willing to leave behind what he thinks he knows and listen.

SO

I am listening, and learning. And for that, I am very grateful.

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Opening the Door to Change

/ Tim / Leave a comment

When I was still in the throws of my addictions I only had a faint idea of what I was really doing to myself; the physical, emotional and mental harm I caused, not only to me, but those who cared about me. Part of that is because I spent most of my time seeking out and planning out the next ‘party’ and part of it was because of my ‘buddies’ at the time. I hung around folks who acted like me and thought like me. One of the first ‘suggestions’ I received in recovery was to step away from those people, places and things that were part of my life that I wished to leave behind; close that door and open a new one. Simple enough advice, but why did it take decades to realize it?

In order to change how I was living, I had to change how I was living.

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I replaced my barstool for a chair in a meeting room and changed what I thought about by listening to and reading recovery literature. I started to listen to others in recovery. I started to talk to others about what I was going through. I helped out with cleaning up after the meetings and did some socializing with the new people I was meeting. I got myself an excellent sponsor and I began to study the Twelve Steps of Recovery with him. Over the course of the next six months I changed a great deal. The change was gradual, almost imperceptible to me, but very obvious to those that I hadn’t frightened off in the previous years. I changed my perspective, what I was looking at, and everything changed.

G.I.G.O.: Garbage In: Garbage Out…..or…..GOOD IN: GOOD OUT!

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Every one of us is the direct result of what we put into our bodies, minds and spirit. Western society’s fixation of fast cheap food had pushed obesity to the extreme. You simply can’t have a healthy body if you continue to put unhealthy food into it. Same with the mind. If you want a healthy mind, be aware of what you are putting into it. What are you watching, reading, listening to? Who are your buddies? Where are you spending most of your time? As the saying goes; tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are!

It takes mindfulness, conscious action and a determination to build the life you want to have. I used to put the cart ahead of the horse. I thought that if I had x, y, and z then I would be happy. I have discovered that happiness is the result of living according to my values and principles. Happiness is the realization that I am living right. When I am happy, the x, y and z will come to me, or, more likely, I will discover that I while I may ‘want’ those things, I really don’t ‘need’ them.

Yes, I had to leave my old buddies behind when I came into recovery. I found new ones who honoured my recovery and who helped me along the way. I let the old buddies know where I was and what I was doing and left the door open for them to come through but made it clear that I had no intention of walking back through that door and onto my old barstool. And as long as I continue to pursue new ‘Good’ to put into my body, mind and soul, I know that I will continue to move forward in life.

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The ‘Tim’ of the past is gone.

One of the most profound lessons I had to learn in recovery was that I had to let go of the ‘Tim’ that I knew in order for a new person to emerge. This is a lesson that I repeat daily, asking my Higher Power to ‘relieve me of the bondage of self’: to free me from my ego’s enslavement. If I wish to continue to grow today I must shed the old skin of yesterday and I do that by being mindful and aware of the people, places and things I’m spending my time with. Only by this daily renewal do I continue to move forward in this incredible journey of discovery that is life.

IS PRAYER STILL A THING?

/ Tim / 1 Comment

Someone asked me a while back if I still pray since I don’t believe in God. One would think that I don’t pray. After all, it’s a religious thing isn’t it? But the fact is, that I do pray. I still pray a lot. It’s just that my notion of what God is has changed so much since my youth, that I don’t want to equate it with the God of the Bible or of the Roman Catholic Church in which I was raised.

I don’t see God is a magician who makes things appear and disappear. I don’t treat him as my last hope, turning to prayer when it seems that there’s no way out of an impossible situation. Nor do I see God as some sort of a Santa Claus who has lists upon lists of who is naughty and nice. God doesn’t measure my ‘faith’, nor are my petitions granted only if I attain a certain level of devotion. God is not Facebook and doesn’t respond to the number of likes he gets.

My understanding of a “Higher Power” has changed over the years and I believe that trying to define God, puts limits on whatever “It” happens to be. Sufficient to say that as long as my “God” doesn’t stare back at me when I look in the mirror each morning, I’m good. So if I don’t pray to God, then why would I pray?

“The function of Prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” Søren Kierkegaard.

Recovery literature says that if you have anger toward someone, to pray for them every night for two weeks. This same literature says that whenever we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, we need to look at ourselves for the cause of our disturbance. Finally it says that we cannot control people, places or things; our response to something is the only thing that we can control. In a nut shell: I am the one who needs to change and I pray in order to make that change. When I take the focus off of the other person, the offense or a need, I open myself up to change. I would have a small god indeed if he needed my help to influence his actions.

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I pray because prayer changes me. Whether it’s rote prayer, meditation, or contemplation, when I pray I move away from my Ego-centrism. Slowly I begin to focus, even just for a second, on the present moment and my connection to something other than myself. It doesn’t matter if I call it my spiritual nature, or my connection with others; prayer takes me away from, well, me. When I do that, when I step away from myself I start to see things for another perspective and that opens me up, little by little, to make a change, a change in me. So, yes, I do pray. I pray for understanding and I pray to accept things as they are.

Prayer allows me to step away from the world around me and quiet my mind for a moment from the challenges I face each day. In these moments I can unite my mind and my heart in a moment of peace. I can do this at a church or temple, by a stream or ocean, in a chair or on a cushion. The how is not important. Being present in the moment and being one with one’s self is prayer however you do it.

I don’t need a Biblical God in order to accomplish this. I only need to acknowledge that I am not the “be all and end all of everything.” In prayer, I connect to the “Spirit of the Universe” or “Higher Power” which more closely aligns with my current understanding of God. This also connects me and keeps me conscious of other people as well. And that, for me, is prayer.