Living Change

August 31, 2017August 30, 2017 / Tim / Leave a comment

If I don’t change, I won’t change.

How often in life have we not liked a situation or circumstances and done nothing about them? Perhaps it was a job, a relationship or a where we were living that wasn’t working out. Oh, we could and did complain. We complained about the boss, the spouse, or the neighbourhood to whoever would listen. However, a situation never resolves itself unless something changes.

When I find myself in an intolerable situation I have two of choices. I can either do nothing and hope that somehow it will get better, or I can make the change I want to see. I used to be a master at the first option. I let it slide. I’d tell myself it really wasn’t that bad. I would hope that things got better, I would ignore it. I’d use it as another reason to escape into my addiction. I saw myself as a victim of circumstances or of other people. Rarely did I do anything about it because that would involve me making changes. It’s amazing how we can learn to accept even the most intolerable conditons rather than make a change.

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

Often I don’t make a change because I fear that if I make a change things will get worse instead of better. This attitude can be traces back to the idea that we must accept our lot in life. I think serf and slave owners fed us that work ethic. We saw ourselves victims of fate or karma about which we had no control.

Or when we saw others making changes in their lives we focused on their failures, or the amount of effort it took to make the change. We didn’t think we had the necessary abilities or talents to accomplish something similar in our lives. Probably nothing has held us back more than social pressure. “Don’t rock the boat,” we were told. The pressure to conform and be similar to everyone else in our group was too difficult to break away from. We would be all alone if we did something different. No, we had no choice but to keep with the status quo. Or so we thought.

What doesn’t kill me will make me stronger.

One of the things I have learned in the past few years in recovery is that I can survive anything. I know because I have. I have gone through some difficutlt times in sobriety: ending relationships, changes in health, income shifts, moving to a different country. I have survived each major challenge and I believe, learned from each one. Yes there is fear of the unknown. Yes there are obstacles. Yes river is riddled with rocks and eddies. And yet here I am. I have always and will always survive whatever comes my way until I don’t.

I know that I have a connection to something greater than myself. I have come to the conclusion that the next right thing for me to do is what I do. There is no right or wrong. There are only options. Sometimes I like the outcome and sometimes I don’t. But I am making changes, I am learning, I am moving beyond my fears. If my Higher Power loves and cares about me then I know I can trust whatever comes my way.

I embrace change. Sometimes, I admit, it’s about as whole-hearted as hugging a porcupine, but I do it anyway. I know that life is change and nothing stays the same. Oh, I can fight the current, thrash away to keep myself from going through those rapids ahead, but eventually, I will have to go through what lies ahead. Why not save the energy and trust. My fear tells me there is only one possible outcome: disaster. False! There are many possible outcomes to every situation. I am learning that I get through the rapids much quicker if I let the current take me.

Faith will move mountains, but bring a shovel.

I choose to rely upon my Higher Power. I choose to move forward. I choose change over stagnation. I will do the work to move ahead and to grow. I trust. I am the change I wish to be. I may not always be successful by the standards of the world around me, but I’m learning and for me, that’s what this life is all about.

♥ ♥ ♥

Please like and share this blog, not to stroke my ego, but for those who need the courage, strength and hope to start and continue their journey down Recovery River. I would appreciate it if you would sign up and follow as well. My intention is to post Mondays and Thursdays. Please comment and offer suggestions. I’d love to hear from you.

Peace

Gratitude

August 28, 2017August 27, 2017 / Tim / 2 Comments

There is no room for resentment, anger or fear in a heart full of gratitude.

This is a statement that I picked up from my sponsor. He will celebrate 27 years in the program next month. He’s picked up a lot of tidbits over the years. I am picking them up from him. He’s also taught me that I can trace these three emotions back to my ego. When I have a resentment, it’s because I didn’t get my way in the past. When I am angry, I’m not getting my way now. And when I have fear, it’s because I am worried I may not get my way in the future.

When I am feeling resentment, anger or fear, I believe it is all about me. It’s all about ‘my way’. It’s what I want to have happened, happen now or to happen. It’s all about unfulfilled expectations in the past, present and future. I heard another tidbit from a member this past week that summed it up quite neatly.

Expectations are resentments under construction.

Past, present and future expectations find their source in my ego and getting ‘my’ way. Expectations have little regard for what is going on around me, who I am dealing with, or where I happen to be at the time. And when they fail to materialize, then I become upset because you didn’t say you liked the gift I bought you; the traffic is making me late; the noise is making me lose my concentration. All expectations of how things ‘should’ be and not accepting how they are. The world revolves around me, don’t you know! Expectations start in the future and stealthily move through the present and slip into the past as resentments.

Gratitude removes me from resentment, anger and fear because it moves out of me and away from my ego. When I am grateful I am no longer thinking of just myself. I am thinking about the things that have been given or done for me. I stop and realize that this world isn’t just about me and about my thoughts, feelings and desires. I see how much I have been given by my Higher Power and by others around me. I see your part and how important it is in giving me the incredible life that I have. I am thankful for what I have been given, for what I have and for what I know will come my way in the future. I stop taking things for granted.

An earlier sponsor loved gratitude lists. She suggested that I think of at least three things I was grateful for every night before I went to sleep. She told me that when I am upset about something that if I focus on the wonders around me and be thankful. During the day, the real or imagined storm that is whirling around me will lose its strength immediately if I am thankful.

This sponsor died suddenly after only working with me for six months. I remember feeling abandoned and and fearful because now what was I going to do, who was I going to turn to, why would my Higher Power do this to me? I was focusing on how her death was affecting me: this wasn’t how I wanted things to go! I was turning the tragedy of her death into my tragedy because I expected that she would be around to guide me for a much longer time. Fortunately, I had worked with her long enough to realize how egocentric, how selfish I was being. I began to focus on how grateful I was for what she had taught me, for the love and kindness she shared with myself and others and for the challenge to follow her example of living the program.

The practice of gratitude takes practice.

It doesn’t happen overnight. And there are still times when I can get all tangled up in my mind because my focus is not on the present moment but on my resentments, anger or fears. With practice I am able to see my fear for what it is: an expectation of the future. If I remove that expectation, I can accept life on life’s terms and not be shaken by what happens. If I am not upset with how things turn out, then I have no reason to create a resentment. But as I said, this takes practice.

Getting into the habit of making a written or mental gratitude list is changing my focus away from the belief that life all about me. It changes my focus to see the wonders around me instead of in me. This habit helps to keep me focused in the present. I’m still working on it. I still have fears, resentments and anger, but they are less intense and I move on quicker. I can accept what is and not wish to change it. Like me, my focus on gratitude is a work in progress.

♥ ♥ ♥

Peace

Living the Program

August 24, 2017August 23, 2017 / Tim / Leave a comment

I am an addict. It doesn’t matter what substance I used, how often or how long I used it, or how long it’s been since I’ve used it. I am and always will be an addict. I am grateful that I have some time in my program, but I must always be aware that I am just a couple of bad decisions away from a crash and burn. I know from hearing others in meeting rooms how easy it is to slip up and what can happen if I do go out again, and it won’t be pretty. I have never heard of someone who came back to their program talk about how wonderful it was while out there using or drinking again. “The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.”(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 30) This idea must be crushed and obliterated from my mind. My ego tells me I can be different from everyone else. Experience, my own and others, warns me that I am not.

It’s not sobriety that has brought about the changes in my life. It’s the spiritual awakening that is the result of working and living the 12 steps. Not drinking and not using may mean that I am sober and clean. But they don’t give me sobriety. In my early thirties I stopped on my own once for about five years. But I wasn’t really sober: I was fighting against my desires to escape life. I really wanted to have a beer with friends, a glass of wine with dinner or share a joint, but I knew I shouldn’t. And I wasn’t the nicest person to be around because I still had all of the ego charged character traits that I always did, only now they weren’t being softened by that gentility of the first pipeful or shot. My recovery was missing something.

That something, I believe, was the spiritual experience, or awakening. A psychological shift in thinking that has allowed me to surrender, stop trying to control everything, and realize that I was the greatest threat to my existence. I was drowning in the river of life and still trying to swim upstream. If I wanted to really live, I had to understand that when it came to certain things, I was completely powerless. If I just stopped thrashing about, I could at least float with the current.

Surrender on this existential level wasn’t that hard. There really wasn’t much left to give up. I had lost my dignity and self respect. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. My liver was enlarged and who knows what other physical problems I was on the verge of encountering. I had alienated most of the people around me and was finding comfort in gloomy establishments with people who were living much like I was. My life was circling the bottom of the toilet bowl. Somehow I still had enough sense to see that I was on the path of losing myself. So in spite of my misgivings and preconceptions of what recovery was all about, I showed up at a local meeting and took my place at the table.

I understand that I was ready to surrender, to try something else because my way wasn’t working. A friend of mine calls it his Gift Of Desperation. I was powerless and I couldn’t manage my own life. That was my first baby step into the program. The eleven remaining steps helped me to recover and slowly brought me about to a more awakened state of being and opened me to a relationship to a Higher Power.

My life today is changed from what it was before. My sobriety today is of a different quality than I had when I quit solo for five years. It is different because I work at living a twelve step program. I know that this is a lifelong process, and it is one I do willingly because I like the changes in my life and my being. Today I like who I am and I can look at my reflection in the mirror without cringing. The changes in my life are not because I am put down the bottle or the pipe. They are a result of working all twelve steps of the program and awakening to the spirit. I am finally enjoying the trip down the river.

♥ ♥ ♥

Please like and share this blog, not to stroke my ego, but for those who need the courage, strength and hope to start and continue their journey down Recovery River. I would appreciate it if you would sign up and follow the blog as well. My intention is to post Mondays and Thursdays. Please comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Peace