perserverance

Success in Recovery

/ Tim / Leave a comment

I read a good blog about success and how much we need to do to renew ourselves or realize our plans. Sitting on the sofa in front of the television will not make you a world class athlete or a best selling writer. People who are successful at anything are people who pour their whole spirit into their endeavours. A half hearted effort doesn’t get you a gold medal; it won’t even let you qualify to compete.

Recovery is the same. You have to go all in if you want to succeed. There is no ‘sort of recovered’. We are either in recovery or we aren’t. You don’t get a yearly key tag or medallion for being clean and sober for ‘most of the year’! Wanting isn’t enough. I have to do the work; I don’t try, I do. If I want to take the journey I have to take the first step.

I know achieving recovery isn’t easy. I know there are times when it seems like life is getting me down and I’d like to escape the pain I feel but I’m either in recovery or I’m not, so chemicals or alcohol are off the table, they’re not an option. I won’t go there. My recovery is my passion.

Had I continued on the path I was going down in my disease, I would have lost everything, not just material things, but my health, my dignity and my life. That’s how this disease works and I’ve seen it take too many others down. I know I’m not different from them except that I am passionate about my recovery. I have been given the tools of recovery and they work. I know they work because I have used them in the past and I got through very difficult and stressful life events. I got through them because I worked my program and I live my steps.

Recovery is an all or nothing deal. Recovery means that some days are great and some days are challenging and there’s no avoiding any of those days. It means taking all that life offers and using my experience, strength and hope: I can apply my program to every situation. Sometimes I get through with some scrapes and bruises, physical or emotional, but I make it. At the end of the day if I didn’t consume or drink then I am successful.

Pour your passion into recovery. Let it give you the deep desire that we all need to recover. Success doesn’t come to those who sit by and wait. It comes to those who work for it, train for it, study for it. This isn’t a one time event, recovery is a lifetime process. I am grateful to be a part of it.

Here’s a link to the article that inspired me today: Skylarity

Renewed Beginnings

/ Tim / 2 Comments

This edition of Recovery River is number 49. It is hard to believe that I have written that many entries since July 13th. I have covered a good number of recovery topics and, as much as possible, based my comments on the steps and my personal experience. I have no idea where this blog is taking me in the future, but the past six months have been a time of discovery and journey in my life.

When I started this writing journey I had just ended a relationship that I had believed would last forever. I found out that my Higher Power had other plans. I don’t regret that relationship nor that it is now over. I can see now, with hindsight, that I learned a great deal about what it really means to be a partner to someone and how a relationship can grow and grow differently for both people involved. Through the aftermath of that change, I discovered how much I learned from my program and how much I could apply what I had learned about living life on life’s terms to my own life and about how important my friends in the program are to me. The greatest awareness that came out of it all is that I can and will survive everything that happens to me in life, until I don’t. Meanwhile, my Higher Power has been and continues to be by my side through it all.

Writing this blog has forced me to look at my own recovery program with a critical eye. I have had to ask myself some difficult questions of how I apply the twelve steps and twelve traditions to my own life. I firmly believe that my program of recovery today, while it is built on the foundation of yesterday, must be constructed anew each morning that I wake up; yesterday’s sobriety doesn’t keep me sober today. I have to apply myself each and every day.

These words I put out twice a week have forced me to commit to myself, my Higher Power and my personal recovery program. There were times when I really wanted to do other things besides sit down and write. But I made a commitment, a promise to myself and to those who follow the blog to provide insightful and timely thoughts on recovery, whatever program you follow. I believe that we can all use a twelve step program of some type.

I have committed to another block of time to this blog because my recovery is based upon the work I do on it today. I can see from the growth in my own program that this writing is good for me. So, in this the last blog of 2017, I ask you, my readers, where do you see this blog going? Do you have suggestions, possible changes, ideas, topics or themes that you would like me to cover in the next six months? Those reader who are not in a recovery program are also asked to respond. Any ideas on best publishing times, days of the week? I’m learning as I go along here and I’ve learned that I can’t do it alone either.

I look forward to your comments and suggestions. Happy Old Year Folks!

Peace.

My Greatest Gift

/ Tim / 3 Comments

Our recovery program is an enigma: I can’t keep it unless I give it away and the moment I say I have it, I don’t. It reminds me of something we did  in school as a kid.  We took cornstarch and mixed it with water. As long as it was in motion we could roll it around and make a ball in our hands, like a silly putty. But the moment we stopped moving it, it became a liquid and oozed through our fingers. This interesting mixture only has solidity when you ‘work’ it. My program needs movement; this is a program of action. The moment I stop the action, the program oozes through my fingers and I’ve lost it.

Step twelve tells us that we need to carry the message of recovery to others. Carrying the message is what keeps the memory of my own recovery fresh. Talking with another addict or alcoholic helps me to remember that I am just a couple of bad decisions away from taking a drink or a hit. It takes the steps and the slogans and forces me to apply them in different ways and in different situations. And it keeps my mind and my heart open to gratitude for what I was freely given.

Working with someone is the greatest gift I can give them: I am offering them the gift of a new life and a way out of the darkness they are living in. I am offering an example from my own life that change really is possible and that if I, another addict could do it, then there is the possibility that another person could do it too. And it is the greatest gift I can give myself because I am constantly renewing my own life and deepening my understand of the many facets of the diamond that is sobriety. Regardless of the outcome, I strengthen my own recovery.

Early on in my recovery I wanted to tell the world about the program. But we don’t do it that way. It’s attraction, not promotion that we work at. Let the active addict or alcoholic see how I have changed; be an example of how my life has changed. I don’t have to preach on the streets, this is a program of anonymity. But as someone once told me, “Don’t be so anonymous that no one can find you.”

Be open to talking a bit about the program at the parties and gatherings you attend this season. Trust that your higher power will bring you opportunities to shine your light in someone else’s darkness. Be the designated driver. Show your happiness, joy and freedom and others will be attracted to you and what you have. Share what others freely gave you and you will receive the gift of continued recovery.

I am grateful.

Merry Christmas.