Alcoholism

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.

Expanding Horizons

/ Tim / Leave a comment

As the disease of addiction takes over more and more of life, the addict’s world became smaller and smaller. I think that’s the experience of most of us who enter recovery. The one who was the life of the party and the centre of attention imperceptibly changes. He looks to party with people who party like he does, who don’t suggest that he might want to slow down a bit. He finds a bar or a house where he can enjoy his pleasure in peace. Each locale is smaller, in a sketchier neighbourhood and with more of his kind. Gradually even these folks begin to irritate him. He doesn’t want to hang out with a bunch of losers so he holds up in his now tiny apartment or rooming house.

Slowly he has turned into the loner who doesn’t go out anymore unless he absolutely has to leave to seek out more supplies. He’d rather stay hidden under the table or behind the chair because that’s where he feels safest. He can’t see that he’s lost his family, his house and his job. He is unable to perceive that he’s without a sense of living or purpose or dignity. He can’t see it because the change happened gradually and addiction has twisted his mind to such a degree that his search for solace in a bottle or a toke has become a solitary experience.  If he continues he will move into a cardboard box on the street and then onto a statistical list of persons found dead of an overdose, cirrhosis or suicide.

Recovery opened up my world. It has slowly broadened and widened my life to one of fullness. Recovery delivers on all of the promises that alcohol and drugs reneged upon. I am living a life that truly I couldn’t have ever imagined. And it takes time.

Early recovery is difficult because the lure of what was known is so much closer that the promises of being clean. My world had shrunk so much that I no longer knew how to cope in the outside world.  My mind was still in the prison of addiction and though the door was open, I was afraid to venture forth into the open spaces of recovery. Some days I wanted it and other days I wanted the ‘comfort’ of what I had known for so long. I often felt insecure and undeserving of recovery. The sins of my past weighed heavily upon me.

Though it was explained to me that I wouldn’t find happiness, joy and freedom overnight, I had the expectation that once I stopped, things would get better quickly. Looking back I can see that some things did begin to turn around fairly quickly such as my financial situation, and my physical health. I was told that I didn’t get to my bottom in a week or a month so I shouldn’t expect to ‘get over this’ in a week or a month. I went to a lot of meetings in those first months, more than 90 in 90. It was where I felt safe and protected by my recovery family. That long breath that I once took after I got that first sip or hit now happened as the chairperson called for quiet to begin the meeting. It was my social life because I couldn’t trust myself in other social situations yet. Slowly, my world began to get bigger again.

Staying in recovery takes a decision and commitment. I’ve come to realize that my perspective on life slowly changed so that I became more comfortable without using and drinking. I woke up in the morning and began to enjoy this new life I was living. I started to see things around me that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time: birds, squirrels, people walking dogs, a beautiful scene. I turned my focus from the smallness of my old world onto the greatness of the one around me.  As my recovery continued, my life expanded again to where I can now see a far horizon. There is a path before me and I happily tread it. Gone is that tiny little world of addiction. I never want to return.

♥  ♥  ♥

Please like and share this blog. Perhaps it will give others the needed 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.  Please comment and offer suggestions.  I’d love to hear from you.

Peace

Photo credit: Rodney Conrad

Honestly? Yes!

/ Tim / Leave a comment

I’m not sure how many times the word ‘honesty’ appears in recovery literature but I am sure that it’s a substantial number. Honesty is an essential part of the program. The essence of the twelve steps is to dig through the layers of ego driven lies and bravado in order to arrive at the truth of who I am and then maintain that truth, and even dig a little bit deeper as I go along.

“To thine own self be true.”  Shakespeare

The coins we receive to mark time in sobriety have this struck onto them. It comes from the play Hamlet where a father is giving advice to his son who is going off on his own for the first time. Be honest with yourself, says dad. He’s also advising his son to stay the course, not to stray, to be true in the sense of an arrow heading for the bullseye. The first nine steps in the program allow us to find our path of truth. The last three help us to stay on that path.

We’ve all told some whoppers in our day. When looking back at these big lies, we can see that we told them to protect our vision of ourselves or deflect suspicion onto others: lies are always Ego based. The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. The biggest lie I told myself is that I was ‘different’. I suffered from ‘Terminal Uniqueness’: my belief that I was unlike anyone else was killing me slowly. My ego told me that it was okay to try to escape from my surroundings and who I was because no one understood me, no one was going through what I was going through and everyone was against me or I against them. Drugging and drinking were symptoms of deep dishonesty.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde

It’s a challenging path to the truth of who I am. It’s peeling off the layers of the onion to get to the center. There’s often a fear that we’ll go so far we’ll find there’s nothing at the center. Fortunately, onions grow from the inside out and there’s always another layer to discover: new truth and understanding. But yes, being honest with myself means ripping off the layers that Ego has built with half-truths and lies and getting to my essence and accepting the ‘me’ that I discover. It’s not easy and it’s not something that happens overnight. Like many other parts of our program, it’s a process. But once there, I have a base, a foundation I can build upon.

“Pretty words are not always true, true words are not always pretty; and yet, they are still true.” Aiki Flinthart, The Yu Dragon

Being honest isn’t easy. It’s hard to face who I am and to know that it’s not the world, circumstances or others who brought me to my knees. I did that. I was the one who made those decisions that created the addict/alcoholic that I am. It wasn’t my parents, my partner, my job, where I live or my tragedies: I created the mess that landed with a thump at the door of a recovery program. That’s probably the most difficult truth anyone has to face. It’s the one that I must face if I am to recover.

I build my new life based upon truth, based on honesty. I can begin small by just not telling lies to myself and others. This goes beyond being ‘cash register honest’. Honesty and truth become deeply imbedded in this new character we are constructing. Self-inspection is essential to building this new life.  Even the best bricklayer uses a level to make sure that his work is plumb and follows a string line to make sure that it is straight as well.

“The longest journey is the journey inwards.” Dag Hammarskjöld

Once more I see how the program is simple, but not necessarily easy. It takes courage and willingness to dig deeply into my self and come up with an honest appraisal of who I am. Here again, the Serenity Prayer comes in: serenity, courage and wisdom. I ask for these in my quest for honesty and the discovery of self.