Meetings

Meetings!

/ Tim / 1 Comment

When I first started in recovery I was told that if I want to get it and to keep it I needed to do five things: don’t drink/use, go to meetings, get a home group, get a sponsor, work the steps. A little over seven years later, I’m still doing these five things and I would have to say that there is no way my life would be as complete as it is today without following that advice.

Over the years I’ve probably gone to an average of six meetings a week.  At the beginning I often went twice a day: it gave me something to focus upon and besides, I didn’t know what else to do with my time. Before recovery I spent most of my time drinking/using or scheming to drink/use, scrounging for cash or dreaming of the perfect high. Now (somewhat) sober, I found meetings allowed me a reprieve from drifting back into my old ways of thinking and taught me new ways of approaching life.

By going to meetings I learned how others applied the steps to their lives. I could use their experience as my own. I know what happens when you allow anger to take over your life because I have heard about the experience of others. I don’t have to invent tools and approaches to situations because I can borrow the tools and approaches that others have shared at meetings. I don’t have to wonder what will happen to me if I stop going to meetings because fellow members have shared what happened to them when they stopped. I may only have a day or a week or a year or 10 years in recovery, but if I go to meetings with an open mind I can benefit from the many, many years of experience of those that are sharing around the table. You’re my team and without you, I have no chance of winning.

Early on I was taught the 70-20-10 rule of going to recovery meetings. Seventy percent of the time you hear good solid material that you can pack into your toolbox and use at a later date. Twenty percent of the time what you hear has you at the edge of your seat because it’s exactly what you need to hear now. And ten percent of the time the share is a lesson in patience and tolerance of others. What I must remember in this, because it has happened to me it that while I may be experiencing a  10% moment, it could be a 20% moment for another person in the room. I can always learn something at a meeting.

Making meetings isn’t the program of recovery; the Twelve Steps are the program. Meetings, however, are part of the way that I can learn about the program and deepen my understanding. They are one of those first five things that have been working for me in my recovery. When I feel I don’t really need a meeting or I don’t want to go, that, I have learned too, is exactly when I need to go to a meeting. I keep the program close to my heart and mind; I don’t even want to consider the alternative. I’ll stick with the winning team.

Attraction

/ Tim / 1 Comment

At my home group there’s a guy who gets dropped off . He comes into the room, sometimes he uses the washroom. When he’s sure the car that dropped him off has gone, he takes off up the road. Several have tried to talk to him but he’s evasive and declines all invitations to stay and listen.

There’s often one. You know who it is. The one who sits at the back of the room. He comes and goes without regard for others. He doesn’t say much if anything at all. Sometimes he comes in with eyes glazed over and slight smirk.

It’s easy to feel sorry for folks like this. It seems that they just can’t get it. Or they don’t know where to begin. Sometimes we say they just ‘aren’t ready’, or if they would only sit down for a bit, they might hear something that they could use to help them stop.

Recovery is a slow process for us. Before it begins, most of us ‘hang around’ recovery a bit to see how it might fit us. Before I came into the rooms of a Twelve Step recovery program, I tried many other options: meditation, counselling, self control, medication, even acupuncture. None of these had lasting effects. I called the local hotline to hear about meeting locations and read the announcement about local groups in the paper. And finally, one Monday morning, I arrived, entered and began the process of recovery.

We can’t sell this stuff; it can’t be promoted. It has to be desired. I remember what I used to think when someone said I should ‘slow down’. In my insanity, I would take it as an insult and use it as an excuse to get fried. An full scale intervention probably would have just given me one more excuse to really ‘show them!’  I had a lot of preconceived ideas about recovery and meetings. I didn’t want to admit that I was ‘one of them’. I wasn’t ready until I was ready, until I had the desire.

It’s kind of like buying a car. We go to the lot when we know it’s closed and walk around and look at the selection of vehicles. Maybe we’ll come back to a particular lot and test drive one or two. Some people check out the reviews for the model. Some folks rent a similar model for a weekend. Many of us take time to make the final decision. Meanwhile we are still driving around in the old one and we’re used to it’s clunks and shimmies and maybe we think the price to pay for a new one is too much.

We arrive at recovery when we arrive and some never arrive. We aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. I am grateful that when I finally arrived I was greeted with a smile. I was welcomed and I was invited back. If you’re the guy who’s sitting at the back or who doesn’t stay for a meeting that’s fine. Take your time. Check things out. Kick the tires. One day, when you have the desire, please come in and listen. We’ll share what we’ve discovered.

 

 

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.