Addiction

Stop and Think

/ Tim / Leave a comment
I’ve known my friend Barb and her husband Alan for over twenty years. Recently Barb has been dealing with a condition that is limiting and painful. As a result, she started take a pain management class. One of the great things she took away from the class is Stop and Think. “If you take nothing else from this class,” the instructor said, “that will get you through so much. And if you don’t take that in, nothing else I tell you will help.” Oh what a simple lesson, yet so often forgotten.

Stop and think reminds me of a safety lesson from grade school oh so many years ago. If you ever find your clothing on fire don’t run, rather, Stop, Drop and Roll. I’m pretty sure that we can apply this here because so often whenever we run into difficulties, we run around like the proverbial headless chicken. Stop, drop and think! I have the urge to do something to make things right and better. I want to help and do. However, I don’t always think my solutions through and often react by doing the same thing I did the last time I had this problem, which, obviously didn’t solve the problem because here I am trying to solve it again. Stop and think. I’ve come to the conclusion lately that ‘common sense’ isn’t all that common at all. There are a lot of folks out there in the world going off half-cocked doing and saying things that, if they had stopped, sat down and thought about it, wouldn’t have done or said.

In my recovery program, it is extremely important that I stop and think. At first it is difficult. It seems so easy to go to my angry place because of what my partner did. It is easier to slip into self-pity than to stop and think about the situation. The pill bottle or the liquor bottle will help out. I try the ‘easier, softer’ solution rather than stopping and thinking about what I am doing. We are breaking a habit that has been practiced for years. So the idea of stopping and thinking is new. And I must stop and think I can ask myself what’s the next ‘right’ thing that I need to do?

It’s not easy at first. I have neither the tools nor the experience to have any idea of what the ‘right’ thing to do is in this situation. Stop and Think Tim. I can talk to my sponsor or other addict about it. I can (and so often still do) say the Serenity Prayer to help calm and focus my thoughts. I can learn to play the tape through to the end, envisioning the results. In the process of my thinking about it, the answers came.

Sometimes the best thing about stopping and thinking is the realization that I don’t have to ‘do’ anything about this. So much of what was happening around me wasn’t my problem. I didn’t have to fix anything because it was never up to me to fix it. And other times when I trying to solve a problem it dawns on me that it isn’t a problem to be solved, rather, it’s a fact that must be accepted.

Stop and Think! At first, like any other habit that we are trying to cultivate, it is awkward and doesn’t feel right. Give yourself time. Gradually we learn how to apply the steps to our lives. I learn to do the ‘next right thing’, it doesn’t automatically happen because I’m now clean and sober. A drug or a drink will give me another problem on top of the original one. Stop and Think! because if you don’t get this, nothing else in the program will work.

Thank you for your thoughts Barb.  Check out her blog post here.

Commitment

/ Tim / 2 Comments

Many people come to the program as tourists. They’ve heard about the twelve steps program from a family member, perhaps a TV movie or sitcom. There’s something in their lives that isn’t going well so they make the effort to find a meeting in order to see what it is all about and then they go back home. Perhaps they are around for a week or two, listening and hearing what is said but, then they go back to live their lives. Vacation from using and drinking is over and they return to their lives as before.

There’s nothing wrong with this and from the beginning twelve step groups knew that they weren’t everyone’s cup of tea and that some folks would come and go. It’s expected.  Everyone is welcome to visit, learn and take away that learning. Not everyone who come into the rooms is an addict or alcoholic. Who knows, perhaps what they learn will be passed onto someone else in the future. Or perhaps they need to go back for more experience in their world before they are ready to admit they can no longer handle their addiction and want change. Remembering their experience in the rooms, perhaps they will return. Not everyone is ready for a commitment to their recovery when they first arrive.

For other people, it’s only when their home is destroyed, the battles are raging and there is nothing left that they will make the shift to recovery. These folks come as refugees to our doors. They really can’t go back because there’s nothing to go back to; everything has been destroyed. We welcome them because we have been there too. We know the destruction and the battles that raged around them. They are just as we were. These folks are no longer tourists at the table, they are now ready to make the commitment to do whatever it takes to stay clean and sober.

I first came to recovery as a tourist.  I really didn’t have a desire to stop, I had a desire to learn how to control the firestorm that was closing in on me. I wanted to get back to how it was before, those good times, when partying was fun. I wanted to slow down a bit, get some peace, figure a few things out and continue.

But I’m not a regular tourist. Never have been. I don’t stay at big all inclusive resorts and hang out with other tourists. I like to go and see how the locals live. I like to eat at local restaurants and stay away from tourist traps. I guess I did the same thing when I arrived at my first meeting. I wanted to see what was really happening, not just what a tour guide might show me. I arrived with an open mind, ready to see how these ‘locals’ were living their lives.

I am grateful that it didn’t take a long time for me to realize that I didn’t want to be a tourist. I was welcomed. I was invited to come back. I listened.  I was given hope. Soon I was able to see that I while I could go back to my life as it was, I could also stay. My life wasn’t completely destroyed, but like a river that undercuts its bank underneath a house, I knew that collapse was imminent: complete destruction was on its way. My whole life was on the verge of falling piece by piece into the river until nothing was left.

I made a commitment. I made a commitment to the program and to myself. I wasn’t a tourist here. I desperately needed what everyone else had. I was willing to follow, and still do, the five things I was told at the beginning: don’t use, go to meetings, get a home group, get a sponsor, and work the steps. Until there’s a commitment to stay, people are tourists in the program. Very often at the end of meetings people say together: “Keep coming back, it works if you work it.” I have a friend who says something I like equally as well. He just says: “Stay.”

Thank you Charlie for your share that inspired me today.

It’s Not the End of the World!

/ Tim / Leave a comment

How bad things may look right now means nothing.  It’s how good you know they can look with God’s help that counts. Life has a habit of changing itself completely around in 24 hours. Heck, in 24 minutes sometimes. Don’t you dare give up on Tomorrow because of the way things look Today. Don’t even think about it… Neale Donald Walsch

For all of us, times will arise when life seems impossible and difficult and totally unmanageable. It doesn’t matter if we’re in recovery or not. It’s life. It’s how things go from time to time. Regardless, it’s important to keep in mind a few things to help us to get through this challenge.

Whatever is happening, it won’t last forever. Things will turn around and get better. I know that when you’re in the thick of it, time drags and it seems that this will never end. And it will. Don’t quit because you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It will appear, it always does. I have learned that I can get through everything that life throws at me: death, ending relationships, depression, a broken leg, accidents, arguments and anything else comes along. The pain of today will transform into the joy of tomorrow.  That break-up seems to cause the whole world to crash down. But it will get better. And the idea of using or drinking again? Really? Is that what’s going through your mind? If you want to make things even worse than they are, drink or use.  That will really drag out your difficulties. Time heals

My perspective is a limited perspective. I can only see one side of anything until I stretch my mind to consider other perspectives. How is this affecting other people? I took to heart many years ago the idea to look at the best possible intentions of others. When someone does something that affects me, say, your boss gives a promotion to someone else. From my perspective, it’s the worst possible thing to happen to me right now. It could turn me into a tailspin if I let it. What’s the best possible intention of my boss? It probably wasn’t to make me angry or make me feel I should quit this lousy job. Your boss was probably looking for the best interest of the company. Were you? Perhaps there’s another, more suitable promotion for me, or perhaps work performance is lacking and I’m not really the best person for that promotion. I need to remember that it’s not all about me all of the time (though my Ego would tell you otherwise). There are other factors and other perspective that come into play.  Look for the best intention of others and even if that wasn’t their real intention, it doesn’t matter. I have a positive or at minimum, a neutral thought about it.

What I resist will persist. If I want to get through the worst of things, I need to accept it. I stop fighting it, blocking it, avoiding it. I accept it. This doesn’t mean that I like it, or that there’s nothing I can do about it. It means that I acknowledge its presence and that I will deal with it. Here, the Serenity Prayer comes into play. Acceptance allows me to discern whether it is something that I can change or not change. I can’t change people, places or things, but I can work on me. “Resistance is futile,” say the Borg in Star Trek. It is. Once I stop resisting and accept, I can do something about the situation; I stop swimming against the current.

H.O.P.E. Hear Other People’s Experience. When times are bad, it helps to talk to others and listen to their stories. Perhaps they went through a similar problem. Perhaps they have information that could be helpful. Their example will give me hope if I let it. Many times this happens in meetings. We hear something either in the literature of the program or the shares of other members. Often they aren’t even aware of what we are going through right now, but their experience, strength and hope help us along. We all have our Higher Power. Opening my ears to hear other people is also opening my ears to my Higher Power.

Pray about it. In the eleventh step we ask for two things in prayer: to know what our Higher Power’s will is for us and for the power to carry out that will. If I stop putting my expectations of the outcome of things, if I stop telling my Higher Power just how things should be resolved, I have a better chance of hearing what that ‘will’ is for me.

Difficult times come to everyone. It’s life. I love the line from the movie The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel: “It will all work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.” Trust yourself, trust your Higher Power and give time, time. I can live one day at a time because tomorrow is another day.  I am grateful.