Early Sobriety

A Firm Foundation

/ Tim / Leave a comment

Meetings.  They’re part of the foundation of my recovery. When I came into the rooms I was invited back the next day. Not used to receiving many invitations at that time, I accepted. And I kept going back. I never counted the meetings I went to at the beginning, but I know I did a lot more than 90 meetings in 90 days. Now that I wasn’t consuming anything, I suddenly found that I had more time on my hands. I really didn’t trust myself going out socially. So I went to a lot of meetings. They ended at 9 PM. I’d get home a bit before 10 and go to bed. Safe and sound.

What I didn’t realize then was that I didn’t know how to act with nothing in my system. I didn’t know how to relate to others. My whole world had revolved around my disease. How to get it, how to hide it, how to get some more. I’d be nice to others because I thought you might share with me. Or I’d be trying to control things so I could make it through the next part of the day until I’d be free to let loose again. My life revolved in so many ways around my disease, so that now that I was trying to live in the solution, I had to find out what the solution was.  I had to relearn, or in many cases, learn for the first time how to relate to other people and life. I did this through meetings.

Going to meetings isn’t the whole program of recovery. But meetings kept me in contact with others who had, or were going through the same things I was going through. At meetings I learned how to apply the steps to my own life. I heard simple ideas about how to stay in recovery and not stray. I may not have been the cream of the crop of addicts but I did figure out something fairly quickly: people who were having the most difficult time in recovery were the same people who figured they didn’t need to go to meetings. Those who have long term recovery are those who still go to meetings regularly as part of their recovery. They’ve built their recovery on a strong and solid foundation upon which to base their lives. When the difficulties and challenges come along, that firm base supports them.

When I came into the program I was told five things: don’t consume, go to meetings, get a home group, get a sponsor, work the steps. There’s a reason why meetings have been part of Twelve Step programs since their inception: they work. Who am I to think I know better? After all, some of my best thinking got me to the point where I had to turn to recovery.

I go to meetings regularly because I’ve learned, when I start missing meetings, I start missing whatever I used. I listen at meetings because there’s still so much I need to know. I share at meetings because I’m grateful for what been given by the other members.

Peace.

Opening to New Thinking

/ Tim / 2 Comments

When I came into recovery I was told to keep an open mind. I was told that my best thinking had led me to the meeting rooms so maybe my thinking wasn’t the best at that moment. Perhaps I had better start listening instead of thinking.

At first I thought, I’m educated. Twelve steps? I can whip through those in a few weeks and be on my way. Higher Power? I’ll choose universal energy, it’s much better than the traditional ideas I grew up with. Make amends? No problem. I just won’t include a few people on the list.  I wasn’t living in my car. I didn’t drink Listerine. I wasn’t pushing a shopping cart through town. I wasn’t like ‘you people’ who really needed the program. I just needed a bit of help to get me stopped then I would be fine.

I had the idea that I was somehow ‘better’ than the other people around me. I had so many reasons why I was different from the others in the room. My situation was ‘special’. I had a set of challenges that no one else had. I heard my sponsor tell me that I was suffering from something very common in the rooms: Terminal Uniqueness. I was so special, living in conditions so different and in a world so ‘unique’ that it was slowly killing me, just like any other ‘terminal’ illness does. But I didn’t get it right away.

Slowly I learned to identify with everyone in the room and stop comparing myself to them. I learned that I had plenty in common with the woman who had lost custody of her children and the guy living at the mission. I began to see that their struggles were my struggles, and their triumphs were my triumphs. Once I pulled my head out of my, um, the sand, and I let go of the idea that I was different, things began to change. I started to feel I was a ‘part of’ and not ‘separate from’.

Throughout our literature I’ve read about how my Ego is at the root of my problem. My ego tells me I’m different, unique, separate and alone. Ego says I am far above or far below anyone else. It Ego that tells me that I ‘deserve’ this and that if you have something, I should have it too. What I didn’t realize when I arrived was that Ego was robbing me of the most important thing in life: connection.

Slowly I have reconnected with others in recovery, my family, friends, a Higher Power and myself. I am no longer alone as I walk this path of life. I thought that I was alone, but I never was. I thought I was different but I discovered many more similarities. I thought I wanted your possessions but I found that I already had abundance. Ego needed to be tamed, humbled, brought down to its right size. Slowly my thinking is turning around and it all started because I started to open my mind and listen.

I am grateful.

Free of Regret

/ Tim / 2 Comments

It’s not easy to live life without regrets. It’s much easier to wonder sometimes about the “what ifs” and “if onlys”. Regret is a sadness or disappointment over what happened or didn’t happen in the past. “What might have been?” I can ask myself. “I could have been a better son, friend, husband, father and coworker. I might have made so much more with my life.” If we don’t stop the internal conversation it can lead to the vicious spiral of depression, more regret and relapse.

“The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time to plant one is today.”

The gift of the Serenity Prayer is acceptance of what we cannot change. One of those things is the past. I know that my life would be very different today had I taken another road in the past. I was in a relationship that wasn’t working and hadn’t been working for a lot of years. I knew it, but I lacked the courage and strength to leave. In the end, I was the one who was left behind. I can’t take back those years. I can’t go back in time and change them. So what do I do so as not to live in regret?

I have to accept what happened. I accept that my Higher Power was looking after me during that time and continues to do so. I accept that I had challenges to overcome and some lessons to learn. It’s not easy to learn to forgive oneself for roads not taken but I must. Steps four through nine help us to work through regret. So yes, things did or didn’t happen in the past and today I don’t have to regret those things. Rather I can use them as teaching tools for the present. I prefer to look at all that happened in the past was needed to bring me to who I am today. And I know that what happens today will lead me on to who I am to be tomorrow. I’m learning to trust the process of the program and my Higher Power. Today can I plant that tree I didn’t in the past without guilt, without remorse and without regret.

It’s important for me to remember that: “We will not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it,” is a Ninth Step promise. I have to work all the steps that come before. There aren’t short cuts. Living the steps isn’t all that difficult but it does take persistence. I don’t get a vacation from being in recovery. I live in recovery 24 hours a day. So today I will plant a tree. It may be a while before it bears fruit, but an unplanted tree never will. Trust the process. It works when you work it!