Early Recovery

Do It Any Way

/ Tim / 1 Comment

There are no shortcuts in recovery. It’s not a buffet of items I can pick and choose. Rather it’s a recipe that I need to follow on a daily basis in order to get the results of happiness, joy and freedom. Initially I may not like doing a step or part of the step but leaving it out is an open invitation to return to the life I had before. Leaving out the sugar or substituting salt is going to alter the results of your mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, regardless of how much love and care you put into their making. The same is true of a recovery program: “If you want what we have, then you do what we did.”

Is it always easy? No. There are times when I want to skip an apology to someone I had an argument with. I don’t always feel like praying. What if the meetings are boring? Why should I do it all? I’ve been in recovery a month, or a year or ten years. I’m doing fine. Right? How do you think the cookies taste without the sugar?

“Do it anyway: do it any way!”

Larry was a friend of mine in recovery who often said this. A recovery program requires trust. Even if I don’t understand what is happening, even if I don’t believe it is going to work, even when I don’t have any desire, I need to do ‘it’. And I need to find a way to do ‘it’. ‘It’ has to get done. ‘It’ is part of my recovery work.

What is ‘it’? Perhaps it’s working the next step. Perhaps it’s making amends for the argument I was in yesterday or last year. It might be sitting down to pray or meditate. It could be looking into the real reason why I’m depressed or why I avoid social situations. It’s that which gnaws and knots our stomach. We all have an ‘it’. And if we’ve been in recovery even a short time, we won’t have to dig very long to know what that ‘it’ is: the next right thing I need to do.

If you ask anyone who returns to the program after a relapse if they were ‘thoroughly following their program the answer is always ‘no’. They left something out of their program that was vital to their success in it. In going to meetings you will run into members whose recovery is much less than happy, joyous and free. They too are living without some of the ingredients of a healthy recovery program. They aren’t doing ‘it’.

I’ve learned to trust the Twelve Steps as my guide. I learn to go over and review them regularly because I don’t want to go back to where and how I was living before. I can’t guarantee that I’ll still be in recovery ten years from now, but I don’t need to. If I keep doing the next right thing, if I live my recovery today then I will be okay today. Tomorrow is another day.

Today I’ll do it anyway/any way because I want recovery.  I am grateful that Larry was a part of my recovery. RIP big fellow!

 

Falling Together

/ Tim / 1 Comment

 

“Just when it looks like life is falling apart, it may be falling together for the first time.”                 …Neale Donald Walsch
     I was a little more than a year into recovery when I broke my leg. I remember thinking, while I was lying there waiting for the ambulance, ‘This is going to change a few things!’ I ran my own business (a Bed and Breakfast Inn) and did most of the work myself. A couple of weeks later my relationship that had been limping along for several years finally ended. I thought, ‘What the hell, is this going to continue?’  My ‘go to’ for keeping myself somewhat sane was going to about 12 meetings a week and driving my motorcycle to out of town meetings. That wasn’t going to be happening for a while. The final thing was that I had already started the process with my doctor of weaning myself off of anti depression medication so I was ‘phasing’ every once in a while
     For the first month or so I was pretty much confined to home. I hired two people who were also in recovery to help me do all the work at the B&B. My mother and my ex pitched in when they could as well. And it was all working out fine. My sponsor came to visit as did other program friends. We had meetings around my bed at first, and later in the living room. Friends lent me some recovery literature. And I survived.
     I also learned several things. I learned that I didn’t have to do anything alone if I didn’t want to. I learned again of the generosity of people. I learned that things didn’t have to be done ‘my way’ to be done ‘properly’. I learned that my ‘perfectionist’ ways could be a whole lot more flexible. I never heard one complaint that I didn’t make the muffins or that the bed was made wrong or the bathroom was dirty. Everything got done just fine.
     I learned that while I wasn’t all that happy with how my life was at this particular moment, I was learning in recovery to play the ‘long game’. I might not see exactly what was happening or why it was happening, but I could trust the process and know that all was happening as it should. And I learned that I could survive and stay clean and sober even when the wheels fell off of the cart, or in our case, the wagon. Finally, it was at this point in my life that I began my journey deeper into spirituality and awakening.
In the time since that epic month of August in 2012, everything that came apart, came back together. After a couple of operations, a hard cast, a soft cast, walkers, crutches and canes and a month of physiotherapy, my leg healed.  A year later the business sold and I moved full time to Costa Rica, which had been a dream of mine. I haven’t had the need to return to medication for depression and I am still in recovery. There was a lot of change in a short time and a new me emerged from the ashes.
     Other momentous things have happened since in recovery. I now tend to look at them as stepping stones on the path. Some I have liked and some I would have preferred to avoid, but if that’s the next right step, then I take it. I’ve learned to trust my Higher Power and the process. My life fell back together in a way I couldn’t have imagined. I am grateful.

Changing Allegiances

/ Tim / 2 Comments

I didn’t realize it then, but in working Step Three wasn’t doing anything different than what I had already been doing. In turning my life over to the care of a Power greater than myself I was continuing to do what I had done for years. I always had a power greater than myself only it was the god of my disease: alcoholism and addiction.

My life was commanded by my desire and need for alternative substances in my body. I couldn’t live life on life’s terms. I couldn’t face the world without altering my mind. However, this power greater than myself wasn’t interested in caring for me. It was only interested in more and having its needs satisfied and it’s cravings met. This power was a monster that took over my life and my mind and recreated it in its own image. It got to the point where everything I did, all I thought about was feeding the god of my disease. I had turned my life and will over to the care of this higher power but it wasn’t benevolent. It wasn’t life giving. There was no care. My disease had a huge appetite and it wanted it satisfied; it cared little of me. It gave me a life beyond my wildest nightmares.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as we understood him. 

So in working through Step Three I was changing allegiances. I made the decision that my disease would no longer be my higher power and ruler of my life. I decided that my disease was not a worthy higher power any more. I decided that I deserved better than it was giving me. I finally saw that it had promised abundance in my life and ended up taking away everything it had promised. I needed a new Higher Power.

I decided to turn my life and will over to the care of a Higher Power. In the years since, my life has changed drastically for the better. This is not the jealous, covetous, demanding and mean power I once adored. It is one that presents me with opportunities to grow in love and understanding of it and of life. It opens up my interactions with others. It gives me hope. Together we are creating a life that is more balanced, peaceful, loving and kind.

As I grow in recovery I have discovered that my understand of my Higher Power is changing as I am changing. I don’t know exactly what that Higher Power is. I’ve discovered that to try to define it would limit its power, so I get my understanding of it by looking around and seeing what it does in my life and the lives of those around me. In recovery I’ve discovered a new way to live a life which really does present me with freedom, happiness and serenity. I’ve finally discovered a Higher Power that delivers on its promises.