A Year in a Life

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 / Tim / 6 Comments

It’s been a long time since my last post; April I think it was. It’s not that I haven’t had the time to write. I have been writing a lot, almost daily in a journal. And now I know that it’s time for me to start writing and sharing more blog posts.

This past year has been very full.

I moved back to Canada the first week of December, 2022. Leaving my home, friends, loves of the last ten years has been so challenging. Costa Rica is indescribably beautiful in so many ways. But I knew that I needed to continue with the next part of my journey back in Ontario. Moving back in December might not have been the easiest month to move back: I had to crawl out a window on the house on Christmas morning because both doors were completely blocked half way up by snow. I survived.

I started working a full-time job, in my brother’s company. It’s the first time since 1996 that I’ve worked full-time for someone else. The ol’ nine to five, though in my case it’s 7 to 3:30, with a pay cheque every Thursday. I’ve worked for myself and on contract jobs for so many years, doing so many things that it was very strange to have a job where I could go in, do my work and leave it completely until the next morning. But this has also given me the opportunity to do so many other things on evenings and weekend.

I was blessed to be able to spend a lot of quality, though somewhat challenging time with my mother during the last ten months of her life. In 2020 some severe medical issues forced her to completely give up her independence and move into a nursing home. While I was a long way away in Costa Rica, her plight was present to me, but certainly not in the way that I could appreciate how challenging this had been for her. She went from living in her own garden apartment where she moved easily between friends and activities, driving her own car, going to meetings, dances and casinos with friends, to being unable to do so many of the basic things in life. She could no longer walk nor stand. Her life was restricted to a very nice, but small room at the home, dependent on the staff for transfers from the bed to the commode, the tub to her wheelchair. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Hard for me to see; I can imagine but little what it was like for her. I’m grateful for the time I got to spend with her, two or three afternoons or evenings a week. When she passed at the end of September, she was more than ready to move on to whatever lies beyond.

The most important change in my life was getting more involved in AA. I’ve been sober since 2011. I worked the steps with a sponsor. I went to plenty of meetings. I always had a sponsor and I sponsored others. In Costa Rica I was involved in my local AA and I worked on the committee for our yearly convention. But for probably a year before I moved back to Canada, I noticed that things in my life were not as ‘happy, joyous and free’ as they had been. Back north, I started going to a lot of meetings, seeing many old friends in the program. And the thought came to me that perhaps I could use a refresher course through the steps again myself.

That has become the understatement of my year!

I asked a young man with just over a year of continuous sobriety to sponsor me and take me through the steps. I actually thought I would be doing this young man a favour by giving him the opportunity to sponsor me. I was completely unable to see the arrogance in my thinking.

This young man has taken me through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in a way I never knew existed. We would read paragraphs that I know I’ve read many before but would have to admit I really never ‘heard’ until that moment. Many times during our discussions, he would point out ideas and concepts that were completely foreign to me: me, the veteran AA member! I learned quickly that I needed to open my mind. The ‘Set Aside Prayer’ he asked me to write in the inside cover of my Big Book and which we prayed every time we met, was working in a way I could never have predicted. I was letting go of old ideas about what I thought I knew about the AA program and myself and was seeing greater truths.

I had no idea how much I needed what this young man has. And I’ve made sure he knows how grateful I am for the experience of continuing to work with him. The AA program I am following today is very different from the one I returned to Canada with. Not for lack of effort. I had a good man as a sponsor in Costa Rica. But I know I needed to come here to get the renewal in the program I needed. I can now see how close I was to taking another first drink.

With renewed guidance, I am working the AA program. I have a home group that knows I’m a member. I have group and now district responsibilities. I am privileged to be taking other members through the Big Book as my sponsor is taking me. And, most importantly, I have made a deeper connection to that Higher Power that I can now see has guided me to where I am today in my recovery. And for all of this, I am truly grateful.

I had no idea whatsoever what was ahead of me when my brother and sister-in-law picked me up at the airport that December evening. It’s been a year of great changes and challenges. And I have no idea what the next year might bring: I await with eagerness what lies ahead.

Dealing with the Blues

January 8, 2019 / Tim / 1 Comment

I am grateful to be living in an area where I no longer experience winter. However, the post holiday season can be a difficult time for many of us. We spend so much time preparing for Christmas, Hanukkah or special days as well as the New Year and suddenly, it’s all over. If you live in the northern hemisphere, you suddenly notice that daylight is short and there are three to four more months of winter to deal with. The January Blues are very real for many people. Seasonal Affective Disorder may also play a part in our sense of depression.

I have dealt with depression for far too many years. Sometimes I have been able to manage on my own, or with the help of a friend. At other times I’ve taken natural medications such as St. John´s Wort. For about five years I took prescription antidepressants. Clinical depression is very real and most of us experience it at some point in our lives. Some of us are able to come out of it without taking anything and others need varying degrees of assistance to deal with the depression. Everyone is different and so it is important not to compare with others but to treat it properly.

Since I have been in recovery dealing with depression has become easier. After a few years in my program and, with my doctor’s advice, I was able to slowly wean myself off of the medications for depression. However, that doesn’t mean that I am ‘cured’. I still have to be conscious about how I am feeling.

So what do I do when I feel myself spiraling down? There are a number of things that help me. I get my butt to a meeting. When I am down, I don’t want to see anyone. And that’s probably the worst thing for me. I need to get out of my head. Going to a meeting helps me to get out of myself and engage with others. A meeting also reminds me that I am not alone in all of this. I do have a lot of support. After the meeting I can talk to my sponsor.

Exercise also works. It doesn’t have to be a three hour marathon at the gym. A walk to the store instead of driving, or taking the dogs for a extra walk. Getting the body moving releases endorphins which help to regulate our mood. There’s a very steep path near my home up to the top of a mountain that doesn’t take more than ten minutes to climb, but it leads to a great view, it’s good exercise and my dogs love the run.

As much as I griped about it when I was first in recovery, I now often write a Gratitude List. There are always at least three things that I can be grateful for. Again, writing this list takes my focus away from those things that I find depressing. How can I be depressed when I have been given so much?

Clinical depression is very serious. If none of these suggestions help to alleviate your depression, seek professional help as soon as possible. There may be a chemical imbalance in your body and like I did, you may need to take a medication to help correct the imbalance. It may be that you need to talk to someone who is a professional and has more experience than your sponsor or your friends in the meeting rooms. In the same way that if you had a bad head ache lasting a week without seeing your doctor, don’t let depression go untreated when it lasts a week.

We all have down days. It’s normal. But remember that the better days are on the way. We don’t have to remain down. It’s not the end of the world. I’ve often shared that even in Recovery, I still have ups and downs in my moods and how I feel, but the extremes of feeling really good or really sad now seem to be gone and for that, I am grateful.

Please like and follow my blog at http://www.recoveryriver.org.

russian blue kitten on brown woven basket

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The Power to Carry It Out.

November 17, 2018November 16, 2018 / Tim / Leave a comment

Last post I wrote about knowing what my Higher Power’s will is for me. This post will address the second thing we are told to pray for in the Eleventh Step: the power to carry out that will.

Just where do I get that power? I’d like to say that there’s an automatic line from heaven to me that pumps energy into my to do the will of my HP. But I can’t. It just doesn’t work that way. My Higher Power only does for me what I cannot do for myself, so if I can do it – it’s up to me.

When I came into the program, I believe that HP removed my obsession to use. I sure couldn’t do it myself. I had been trying for years to stop without much success. Suddenly I no longer had the urges and for me, that was a miraculous power. I was told that faith in a Higher Power does move mountains, but to bring along a shovel and a wheelbarrow. In other words, there are things that I have to put the work into. It takes time and it takes an effort forge a life that is truly happy, joyous and free. So where did I find the power to keep trudging the path of happy destiny?

I found power to do HP’s in my own past. If I could stay sober yesterday, then I could use that as encouragement for me to stay sober today. Gradually the days added up. I can still find self esteem and courage in the small successes to keep me going through today. I have been through separation, death, and broken bones in recovery, and I didn’t fall apart so the small victories, one day at a time, gave me power to get through the traumatic times. I admit that my mind sometimes throws my failure at me with full force. However, by developing the habit of looking for successes, I can find power even in the smallest ones. They encourage me.

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I found power in my recovery fellowship. I listened: at meetings, before meetings and at the coffee shop after meetings. Here were people who were doing the same thing as I was and they were finding a path through difficulties. They were showing me what to do and sometimes, what not to do, by their example. Their experience became my valuable experience; even though it didn’t happen to me I could learn from their lessons. I needed and still do need my recovery family to help me through the difficult times that pass through everyone’s life at sometime or another.

I found power in the assistance of mentors in recovery. Sponsorship helped me to see on a person to person level how to go through the Twelve Steps of recovery. It allowed me to share things I wasn’t ready talk about with a group or perhaps weren’t appropriate for a meeting share. Having a sponsor helped me to see and celebrate those small successes, as well as the major ones.

Past successes, recovery fellowship and sponsors are also there to challenge us. If I am the same as I was yesterday, then I’m not growing. I believe that this is a program that requires growth and constant learning. The power I need to step out of my comfort zone and into unknown territory comes from knowing that I can face fears and walk courageously forward because others have done so before me. I know that I have the power to carry out my Higher Power’s will for me today.