Recovery

A Journey to Belief

/ Tim / 1 Comment

In Step Two we come to believe in a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. As with all the steps, it’s a process that takes some time. I still had a belief in ‘something’ when I came into recovery. I can’t say that I could have articulated exactly what I believed, but there was something ‘up there’ I figured. It certainly wasn’t the god I was raised with, and I was very relieved that the program allows me to believe in a god of my own understanding.

When I started to come out of my self-induced haze I had to admit that I hadn’t been doing all that well in the running of my life. And here were some folks who were telling me that they had turned things around in their lives and that part of that was a believe in a Power greater than themselves. I couldn’t argue with the results they were telling me about. And by the time I arrived at recovery’s doorstep I really was ready to give it a shot. After all, I was told, I didn’t have to believe in the god I was made to believe in, I could choose the god that I came to believe in.

I remember a friends description of his journey through Step Two. Joe was an atheist. He couldn’t accept that there was some sort of a god up there somewhere doing stuff to us and allowing all of the bad stuff to happen. As Joe tells it, when he was five, his grandfather, for whom he is named, died. He and his Papa had a very special relationship. At the funeral the priest said that God had called his Papa to be with him in heaven. What Joe heard was that God had stolen his grandfather away.  What a mean and selfish God. At that point, though he was very young, Joe stopped believing in God, gradually, with time, declaring himself an atheist.

Through the journey of life, Joe became an addict and alcoholic and eventually found himself coming into a rehab centre and recovery. He was having a great deal of trouble with Step Two.  During one of his discussions with his sponsor he shared his experience of his grandfather’s funeral. “What would you say to this god if you had the chance?” asked his sponsor. And Joe began to rail against this god who took is Papa away from him. “You sure have a lot of hate and anger against something you say you don’t believe in,” said his sponsor.

Joe was stunned. He couldn’t deny that what his sponsor had just called him on: he must still believe in some kind of a god if he had such strong feelings toward him. And that was enough to open the door for Joe. He continued to work with his sponsor and had come to a strong belief in a god of his own understanding. He came; he came to; he came to believe.

Thank you Joe G.

 

 

Embracing our Addiction

/ Tim / 4 Comments

I was talking to a fellow this morning who was with the four horsemen: Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. He had been sober for six months until Christmas and then decided to join the festivities. He now finds himself with no job, no home and few resources. It’s never his fault: someone else is always to blame for the soap opera that he’s living. It’s work, relationships or politics.  All fingers always point away from him. We’ve talked about program in the past, about rehab, but he’s always sure that he can do it on his own. He believes that his relationship with his Saviour will save him.  Only it doesn’t seem to be happening this way.

I’ve seen him repeat the process of sobering up, cleaning up, getting along okay for several month and then binging out of control until he comes to, one morning, realizing that they’re back again. I hope someday soon he’ll be ready to stop trying and start doing.  I’ve learned in recovery that I cannot give him my sobriety. I can only tell him my story and hope that he can relate to it enough to make changes for himself. We carry the message, not the mess.

How do we stop and stay stopped? I believe it is by embracing our addiction. I believe that what I resist in my life will persist. If I resist the changes in my life, I will be faced with lots of changes. If I resist conflict, I will be surrounded by conflict on all sides of me. If I resist anger, then people, places and things that I cannot control will be all that I see. I have to stop resisting these things and embrace them, accept them,  and ask myself what I can learn about them.

When I resist something I am putting my focus onto it. I resisted before I arrived at the meeting rooms. I told myself I could manage this, I could control it, I could function, I wasn’t living on the streets. I was focused on trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t one of those people. Only, of course, I was. Coming into the program of recovery I embraced my addiction: I accepted it as a part of me and I accepted that ‘I’ wasn’t able to do anything about it alone. I dropped my resistance and that allowed me to change my focus onto recovery, but first I had to realize that I needed recovery.

My buddy who is facing the Four Horsemen? He’s still resisting. He’s still focused on his disease and unable to admit he can’t control it; he’s trying to push his disease away. I hope that someday soon he will make the choice to accept and embrace his addiction. Once he does, I’m sure that he can leave behind the Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair that have been stalking him and find his own long-term serenity in recovery.

Peace my friend.

Make Me Teachable

/ Tim / 4 Comments

There are many paths to get to where we want to go in life. There’s not necessarily only one road to get to where you are going, rather many options. What makes the difference between those who achieve their goals and those who don’t make it is, I believe, attitude. Human resource professionals say that given a choice, they will choose a candidate with a positive, eager attitude over one with more skills and education.  Someone with a good attitude who is willing to listen and learn can be taught the skills of a job, make it their own and thrive in their work environment.

When the addict is ready, the recovery program will appear.

It is my attitude that determines the happiness, joy and freedom that I will experience in recovery. It’s up to me to choose to do the work of the steps or not. Meetings and sponsors can invite me to do the work, but it is my attitude toward change, trying new ways of approaching life and the people around me that will carry me through. If I don’t think I can do it, I won’t. Like Yoda’s advice to Luke in Star Wars, “Do or do not, there is not try.” I have to put myself all-in-there if I am going to make it.

Achieving a positive attitude toward life requires humility: teachability. It’s realizing that I don’t know everything, I don’t have all the answers. It’s listening to people speak at meetings and relating to their experience, strength and hope. And it’s applying what we have learned to our own lives.

I remember a speaker say that at most meetings the 70-20-10 rule applies. Seventy percent of the time people share good solid material that can be applied at some point in the future. Twenty percent of the time what is being shared has you at the edge of your seat because it is exactly what you need to hear right at this moment. And ten percent of the time, he said, it’s an opportunity to practice patience and tolerance. The funny thing is what’s a 20% moment for me, might be a 10% moment for the fellow sitting beside me. I don’t ever remember a meeting where I didn’t come away with something useful.

You can lead an addict to a meeting but you can’t make him recover.

Going to meetings is part of my program of recovery. I followed the recommendation of 90 meetings in 90 days in early recovery and it helped to develop a positive attitude and a yearning to work the Twelve Steps of the program. I discovered that I had a lot in common with the addict with six months sitting beside me or the alcoholic with 15 years across from me. I learned that I didn’t have to invent new ways of dealing with life on life’s terms; I could use the tools that others happily shared at meetings to create a path to where I want to go in life: living in the solution.