Recovery

Don’t Forget your Program

/ Tim / Leave a comment

As the end of the year approaches, it seems that time moves faster. There seems so much that needs to be done and little enough time to complete it. It’s just a perception; the earth doesn’t spin any faster this time of year, but we want to squeeze in so much more in a period of 24 hours. My message today is: don’t forget your program.

When things are moving at a fast past it is so easy to let a meeting or two or seven slip by. Once a couple of days goes by and we feel that we’re okay,  we begin to think that if we made a couple of days without a meeting, we’ll be okay skipping another day. Maybe yes, maybe no. I always have to remember that I am just a couple of bad decisions away from a substance. After that, all bets are off. These holidays are tough for a lot of us. We’re dealing with family: the people who have years of experience at pushing our buttons. And we’re dealing with a lot of expectations, ours and those of others. Depending upon where we live, there may be a blast of nasty weather blown into the mix. This time of year, probably more than any other time, is filled with opportunities to do the next right thing, as well as the next wrong thing, especially where our recovery is involved.

I have a friend in the program from NYC. He’s a great guy who works a good program. One of the things he often shares and that stuck with me is this.  He tells it, “When I came into the program I got a lot of very good suggestions. The were all given freely and free for me to use by members who had a lot more time in the program than I did. I took those suggestions. The only ones I had to pay for were the ones I didn’t take.” Work your program, especially when you don’t feel you have time for it. Make being clean and sober your number one priority. If you put your job, or your family or preparing that perfect Christmas ahead of sobriety, you are putting yourself at risk of losing everything, including all your clean time. Failing to heed this suggestion may turn out to very costly indeed.

Somewhere along the line many of us were told to believe that we had to constantly prove our strength and our worth. You don’t have to do that anymore. You don’t need to prove you’re stronger than your substance by putting yourself in harms way or by tempting yourself. None of us is made of stone. Things affect us. You don’t have to lead yourself into temptation. The old standby slogan of H.A.L.T. is especially true this busy time of year: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Make sure that you treat yourself to what you need in your life: Recovery. Let that be your gift to yourself and your loved ones.

Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël.

 

Awakenings

/ Tim / 3 Comments

By the time we get to Step Twelve in the program of recovery, a lot will have changed in our lives. A lot changed in my life. I recently was reflecting on my life before and after that Gift Of Desperation that I had several years back. I thought my life was manageable. I thought I had things under control. I didn’t think anyone really knew how much I was using and that I was covering things up pretty well. Yeah…right…

Looking back on my life I can see now that somewhere along the line, my addiction became my “go-to” for dealing with things in life. If things went well, I celebrated. If things went wrong, I commiserated. All is good in the world? Time for a drink. There’s a threat of war? Time for a drink. The only way I dealt with anything was by either floating on the red sea of wine or jumping off to drown my sorrows. I had no other way of dealing with life any more. If I had used any other ways of dealing with life, they had been discarded somewhere along the way. And of course, I was only pretending that I was dealing with life. In reality, the world began ignoring me and moving on without my not so imperious presence.

Upon coming into recovery, I found that life was very difficult to deal with life. I no longer had my crutch. I had to learn or relearn what I was supposed to do. I listened at meetings. I read our literature. I talked to my sponsor and to other recovering members. Gradually I learned how to do simple things like say ‘No, thank you,’ and ‘I think I’m going home. Thanks for a nice evening.’ As time went on I learned that I can stand tall against tragedies as well as triumphs without falling back on my old stand-by. My thinking changed. I was no longer doing the same things that I used to do. I was facing life and managing.

This, for me, is the spiritual awakening that is talked about in Step Twelve. A change in my spirit, my response to life. It’s a change in mindset: a new approach to life. And it’s just an awakening: it doesn’t mean I’ve got it all figured out. I see a spiritual awakening in the same was as I look at waking up in the morning. When I first start to become conscious in the morning I slowly open my eyes, come to realize where I am. I get up, put the coffee on and maybe after that first coffee, I can say that I am awake. In the same way, I see a spiritual awakening as that first opening of the eyes in the morning. It will take a while before I am fully awake spiritually.  A few more cups of ‘spiritual’ coffee, if you will, before I am spiritually conscious. More will be revealed.

I am grateful.

 

 

Epiphany

/ Tim / 3 Comments

I had lunch with some friends today. It wasn’t sunny, but the view down across the jungle to the ocean is magnificent. We’re not a particularly ‘close’ group of friends. We get together once a month to discuss our writing. So I was surprised when one member of the group shared an ‘epiphany’ that she had just yesterday.

“I had been so angry with the place I used to work because they unceremoniously pushed me out and forced me into early retirement five years ago. I was so flipping mad. I wanted revenge. I wanted to do the same thing to them. And I nursed that anger for the last five years. I had poured myself into my work and my work was good and often praised.  How could they do that to me!”

“Yesterday,” she continued, “I was sitting on my porch overlooking the valley below and I realized all of the wonderful things that had happened to me in the last five years. I now live in a beautiful tropical country, I have met so many new friends, I still write, but in a different way and I have just published a book.  None of these things would have happened without ‘those people’ letting me go. Two days ago I hated them.  Today I love them and what happened because none of this would have been possible otherwise.”

A powerful revelation for my friend. And it’s a huge change in perspective. We discussed how momentous this revelation is in her life. Perhaps she needed the last five years to get to this moment of forgiveness and understanding, and arrive at the shore of the sea of gratitude. I have no doubt that this will change how she looks at so many other twists and turns in her life that she wasn’t happy about.

I can look at my past and regret it. There are plenty of things that happened in my life that I thought would have turned out otherwise. I made some questionable decisions and rash judgements along the way, but here I am! I survived and I have a serenity I wouldn’t trade. Each step along the way was necessary to get to today. Each element is another brick paving the road of happy destiny.

When I am in the thick of it, when I am mired deep in the crap of everyday life, when faced with impossible decisions and doors close in my face, I can turn and run. And who would blame me. Such an impossible choice and terrible circumstances. However, I have another option. I can stand tall and walk forward. Today I am grateful for all events in my past. Today I know that while I may not understand what is happening right now, it is a small piece of a jigsaw puzzle. I don’t yet know what the final result will look like so how can I judge if what is happening is good or bad? This might be that moment in my life when everything changes.

I am grateful that I can trust in something greater than myself and keep putting one foot forward and moving on. I don’t ‘get’ it all, but I know that I too will someday be able to reflect on this and see how intricately the puzzle is cut and the beauty of the final mosaic.

Thank you Carol. You made my day!