Early Recovery

A Journey to Belief

/ Tim / 1 Comment

In Step Two we come to believe in a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. As with all the steps, it’s a process that takes some time. I still had a belief in ‘something’ when I came into recovery. I can’t say that I could have articulated exactly what I believed, but there was something ‘up there’ I figured. It certainly wasn’t the god I was raised with, and I was very relieved that the program allows me to believe in a god of my own understanding.

When I started to come out of my self-induced haze I had to admit that I hadn’t been doing all that well in the running of my life. And here were some folks who were telling me that they had turned things around in their lives and that part of that was a believe in a Power greater than themselves. I couldn’t argue with the results they were telling me about. And by the time I arrived at recovery’s doorstep I really was ready to give it a shot. After all, I was told, I didn’t have to believe in the god I was made to believe in, I could choose the god that I came to believe in.

I remember a friends description of his journey through Step Two. Joe was an atheist. He couldn’t accept that there was some sort of a god up there somewhere doing stuff to us and allowing all of the bad stuff to happen. As Joe tells it, when he was five, his grandfather, for whom he is named, died. He and his Papa had a very special relationship. At the funeral the priest said that God had called his Papa to be with him in heaven. What Joe heard was that God had stolen his grandfather away.  What a mean and selfish God. At that point, though he was very young, Joe stopped believing in God, gradually, with time, declaring himself an atheist.

Through the journey of life, Joe became an addict and alcoholic and eventually found himself coming into a rehab centre and recovery. He was having a great deal of trouble with Step Two.  During one of his discussions with his sponsor he shared his experience of his grandfather’s funeral. “What would you say to this god if you had the chance?” asked his sponsor. And Joe began to rail against this god who took is Papa away from him. “You sure have a lot of hate and anger against something you say you don’t believe in,” said his sponsor.

Joe was stunned. He couldn’t deny that what his sponsor had just called him on: he must still believe in some kind of a god if he had such strong feelings toward him. And that was enough to open the door for Joe. He continued to work with his sponsor and had come to a strong belief in a god of his own understanding. He came; he came to; he came to believe.

Thank you Joe G.

 

 

Oh, Woe is Me!

/ Tim / 2 Comments

I was pretty good at looking at my life as a sad case when I was still living in my disease.  There was always a good reason why I needed to continue to drink or use. No one knew how bad my life was. You couldn’t understand me. Everyone was against me. My problems were so deep and personal no one could help me. I had so many reasons to keep on using and very few to stop.

By the time I got to recovery I, like many others, thought that my life was over. I knew I couldn’t go on the way I was going. Somehow I was able to fast forward and see what my life would soon be like and I knew that I had to stop.  I thought the fun was over in life. All was downhill from here on in: no more celebrations and parties, no more reasons to laugh. I figured that I would live a pretty sad life compared to the rest of my friends. But the writing was on the wall: either find a way to quit or follow that road to an early grave. Poor me. Poor me! Pour me another!

Self pity kept me in my disease for many years. Every once in a while I can slip back into it. The why mes. The if onlys. The you don’t knows.  I suffer from the disease of ‘terminal uniqueness’, a shortcoming that never lacks a reason to chuck it all and go back to active addiction.

I am grateful for a sponsor who called me on my stupidity. “You’re on an Ego Trip!” I couldn’t believe him at first, but I’ve come to realize that he was right. My ego telling me I am the worst of the worst and things can’t get better is really the same as my ego telling me I am better than everyone else and things have to go my way. The result is the same: a false identity and an incomplete picture of who I really am. What I need to do is put my Ego aside and try to look at things as they really are.

I’m learning that humility isn’t lowering one’s self. It is being, owning, embracing  myself as I am, not better than or worse than anyone else. I have my strengths and my weaknesses. And I need them all to make up the person that I am today. It doesn’t make me worse or better than the next guy.  I’m just another guy.

I’d like to say that I’m over feeling sorry for myself but I’m still working on it. I am grateful that it doesn’t reveal itself as often as it used to. And I’m grateful that I have learned to apply some of the things I’ve learning in recovery: a gratitude list, a change in my focus, service work and meditation. These help to keep balance in my life and allow me to see that my life can be happy, joyous and free when I work for it.

 

Embracing our Addiction

/ Tim / 4 Comments

I was talking to a fellow this morning who was with the four horsemen: Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. He had been sober for six months until Christmas and then decided to join the festivities. He now finds himself with no job, no home and few resources. It’s never his fault: someone else is always to blame for the soap opera that he’s living. It’s work, relationships or politics.  All fingers always point away from him. We’ve talked about program in the past, about rehab, but he’s always sure that he can do it on his own. He believes that his relationship with his Saviour will save him.  Only it doesn’t seem to be happening this way.

I’ve seen him repeat the process of sobering up, cleaning up, getting along okay for several month and then binging out of control until he comes to, one morning, realizing that they’re back again. I hope someday soon he’ll be ready to stop trying and start doing.  I’ve learned in recovery that I cannot give him my sobriety. I can only tell him my story and hope that he can relate to it enough to make changes for himself. We carry the message, not the mess.

How do we stop and stay stopped? I believe it is by embracing our addiction. I believe that what I resist in my life will persist. If I resist the changes in my life, I will be faced with lots of changes. If I resist conflict, I will be surrounded by conflict on all sides of me. If I resist anger, then people, places and things that I cannot control will be all that I see. I have to stop resisting these things and embrace them, accept them,  and ask myself what I can learn about them.

When I resist something I am putting my focus onto it. I resisted before I arrived at the meeting rooms. I told myself I could manage this, I could control it, I could function, I wasn’t living on the streets. I was focused on trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t one of those people. Only, of course, I was. Coming into the program of recovery I embraced my addiction: I accepted it as a part of me and I accepted that ‘I’ wasn’t able to do anything about it alone. I dropped my resistance and that allowed me to change my focus onto recovery, but first I had to realize that I needed recovery.

My buddy who is facing the Four Horsemen? He’s still resisting. He’s still focused on his disease and unable to admit he can’t control it; he’s trying to push his disease away. I hope that someday soon he will make the choice to accept and embrace his addiction. Once he does, I’m sure that he can leave behind the Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair that have been stalking him and find his own long-term serenity in recovery.

Peace my friend.