Sharing and Caring - ESH

[MajestyJo]

When we decide to make changes in our life, it becomes a process. There are several stages we go through. 1) We become aware there is something wrong and we just may have an issue we need to address. 2) We share with a close friend, clergyman, counsellor, and/or family member our perception of the problem and allow others to give us feed back and direction. 3) We come to a place within ourselves which we acknowledge what is and make the decision to change and to find a solution instead of living in the problem. 4) We take action towards obtaining our goal, be it seeing a doctor, a counsellor, a recovery institute, a self-help group, a Twelve-Step program, who can guide us on our recovery. 5) We change our attitude and be willing to learn to listen and to do what is suggested to us to obtain our goal. Sometimes these last two stages are reversed and I have to ask for the willingness to be willing to change before I can take the steps towards making things better in my life.

The butterfly has been the symbol of change for me. When I come from a place of love from within myself, and through my Higher-Self, I can raise myself above any problem and live in a new solution.

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[MajestyJo]

So tired today and yesterday after all my busy this week. I know that to do is going to cause this, and I generally accept the results, except for the fact today, I do have housework to do today along with laundry, and am in too much pain.

Not much posting will get done today. My memory isn't clicking in, like I know I posted prayers on here somewhere and now I can't find them.

The worst of Fibromyalgia is the pain but the chronic fatigue. This morning, I made a small sandwich and only ate half, too difficult to chew. My arms are heavy and it is difficult to pick up the mouse and my typing is slow.

To top it all off, I had two peaches that didn't ripen, and so I cut them up, put them in a small saucepan with some aguava juice and a little water, forgot it until I could smell the pan burning and ended up with a burnt offering. It is a normal thing for me, when the fibro flares, but still doesn't make me a happy camper. :)

Expectations are killer, too sick to post last night, went to band ed early, slept about 9 hours, and figured I would be up raring to go. Not! I figured that bed with be part of the equation of the day, it is just whether I can stay awake and watch my shows from 1-3 pm. ;) I tend to put a lot of expectations on myself, not so bad at taking on that of others, but most days I am too hard on myself. What is, is!

Thanks for letting me share. Hugs.

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Today is a struggle, but one minute, one hour, and even if it is seconds, I know my God will see me through it.

[MajestyJo]

From time to time, I will share my own personal awareness on a topic and the gift that has been given as a result of working my program. It is just my experience, strength and hope, and isn't meant to represent any one fellowship. It is my truth, not someone else's or my interruptation of what I heard or read.

From Alkie Speaks:

I realized I had a body which can't tolerate alcohol, which is OK. except that I had a mind that can't leave it alone. I'd always said that I could take it or leave it alone - I couldn't do either.

- Doug D.

Because I had a high tolerance for alcohol, I thought I wasn't an alcoholic. I labelled my dad and my ex-husband as alcohlics because they passed out, fell down, staggered, were violent, couldn't walk or drive a straight line. I once said to my dad, "You drove in that condition?" He had just come from his girlfriend's. He looked at me and said, "Well I certainly couldn't walk and proceeded to fall flat on his face and I had to help him to bed.

The reality was that I could match them drink for drink, drive them home, function and resented them for drinking all the booze, before they passed out. I wanted to party and there wasn't much for me. That is when I started hiding my booze. I couldn't have consumed all that liquor and been sober although I never saw myself as drunk. There was only a couple of times that I recall taking the stairs on my hands and knees.

When I saw myself in my dream, because I was wearing red high-heeled shoes and walking a straight line, I was sober. Then I saw myself in living colour and saw the person I changed into when I did drink. It wasn't what or how much I drank. It was what it did to me when I did drink it.

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[MajestyJo]

Learn to listen. Listen to learn.


That is true. I have found for the most part, most people don't want to hear.

My evening meditation cards:

"Enlightenment is seeing the unseen itself, and in this there is no seeing and no seer - only beginningness, endless calm."

ATISA DIPANKARA SHRIJNANA (980-1054)

"HE WHO DOES HIS DUTY IS TOLERANT LIKE THE EARTH, FIRM AS A PILLAR AND CLEAR AS A LAKE: NO FURTHER BIRTHS WILL BE IN STORE FOR SUCH A ONE.

DHAMMAPADA (1ST CENTURY BC)

"THERE IS ONLY ONE MOMENT IN TIME WHEN IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AWAKEN. THAT MOMENT IS NOW."

ATTRIBUTED TO THE BUDDHA (C.563BC-C.483BC)

"IF WE CAN BE WISE, AFTER LISTENING TO THE LAWS WE BECOME SERENE, LIKE A DEEP, SMOOTH, STILL LAKE."

DHAMMAPADFA (1ST CENTURY BC)

FROM: The Buddhist Prayer Deck - February 22

[MajestyJo]

One of my favourite sayings and I have seen it happen so many times. I am grateful for the people who did the research for me so that I didn't have to go back out and discover for myself. Once I found what I wanted here, I stayed.

Quote:
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, that person will take you out!

As the slogan says, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."

It makes me sad when I hear people say, I have been doing things this way for 10, 20, 30.... years and it has stood me in good stead, why should I change now. Why wouldn't you want to change it if it brought you to your bottom and you want to learn to live clean and sober?

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[MajestyJo]

So glad that this is a one day at a time program. The new awareness and experience along the way and the many blessing that have happened as a result of working the program.

One of the reasons I went back to school in 2001, was that I became aware that I was so involved in service, taking the newcomers in the group through the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Traditions, that I was again, focusing on people, places, and things outside of myself, and not always looking at me and my issues. One of the things I did was go to an out-of-town meeting with a friend that I volunteered with at the jail. Her husband would come and pick me up, they lived in Dundas, just outside of the city and drive me to Burlington, which was another city, which was part of our cities of Hamilton and District.

I need to be at a place where I wasn't giving and was in a meeting where I could top myself up. Giving is good, it is good to get out of Self, but when I exclude myself to look after others, it takes my life out of balance. Like in today, my son doesn't see me as working or doing anything when I am on the computer. As much as I tell him it is my lifeline, he chooses not to see it. That is not surprising considering the fact that he is still using, and he often uses me if I don't set up boundaries.

Putting someone else down to make myself feel better, isn't my idea of recovery and the kind of recovery I want for myself. I know I have health issues, many in fact, but the good news is I don't have to use in order to deal with them, unless my coming to the boards is an addiction. Truthfully, at one time it was. It wasn't so much the boards as the computer, and me again, getting out of self, and not looking at myself. The difference today, is that it is my only Source of Recovery contact. In the last 6 months I have not been to a f2f meeting. I can't go out in the night air, and with my cough, it is annoying to me, let alone the people around me.

I special thanks to those who I have met on this site who have send me private messages.

My spiritual adviser told me many years ago, "You have a message that people do not want to hear. Don't worry, it is their denial." I had to laugh when one guy said he doesn't read my posts. That is OK, I didn't post for him. I post for myself and my healing, with the hope that there is someone out there who is helped as a result of my sharing.

I know that I suffer from chronic pain, but when it flares up and I get several messages in a day, I know it is my emotions or something I am doing or thinking, which is causing the pain. What I really need to guard is taking on someone else's pain, especially when people don't want to help themselves, they project there stuff onto me.

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[MajestyJo]

The Rules For Being Human

Cherie Carter-Scott

1)You will receive a body.

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of time around.

2)You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called Life.
Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.

3)There are no mistakes, only lessons.

Growth is a process of trial and error: Experimentation.

The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

4)A lesson is repeated until learned.

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, you can them go on to the next lesson.

5)Learning lessons does not end.

There is no part of life that does not contain it's lessons.

If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6)"There" is no better than "here".

When you are "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".

7)Others are merely mirrors of you.

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8)What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9)Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10)YOU WILL FORGET ALL THIS.
How true! This was something I didn't want to allow myself. People repeatedly seemed to be saying, "Well you are only human you know!" That wasn't acceptable to me. I could not always be perfect and right but I felt that it was my job in recovery to be the best me I could be each day. I didn't always live up to my expectations and I learned not to beat myself up for falling short of who and what I wanted to be, and yet I felt better within me for having tried.

Before recovery, I didn't try. I had given up on life and I got to the stage where I was sick and tired of being tired and sick. I have been back there a few times since then and it is not a good place to be. Thank God for this program.

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[MajestyJo]

When I came through the doors of recovery, I wasn't too sure I was glad to be alive. For several long weeks it had been stop the world, I want to get off.

It talks about being human, and I didn't feel very human or humane. When you live in a room in the YWCA there are not too many places around that look much better than here, when all the places are the same, except maybe neater or with more stuff. Which is what life is all about, we look a the surface and look at what we don't have rather than what we do have.

Welcome to the journey of recovery.

These were posted on another site, may have been on the old one that crashed.

The last few weeks have been very stressful and very tiring, which triggered my Fibromyalgia. Much need for prayer, acceptance, patience, tolerance, and just living in the moment. So many things changed, got postponed, was late or forgotten, and it was all part of life, and ever so grateful to have the program and the tools to deal with it. For me, it is the difference between being sober and having sobriety. I can get on the "Oh Woe is me" train, sit on the Pity Pot, or just recognize that it is life, and my God will see me through it.

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[MajestyJo]

Butterflies Gifts of God

http://www.gifts-of-god.com/types-of-butterflies.html

Found a quote on botterflies the other day and it said, "If you don't see a butterfly, you are cut off from the spirit of God." That is my memory, not sure it is exact.

I went to the bus stop today to go shopping, and I saw a white butterfly.

http://comfortinstylemag.com/fashion-bytes/healing-properties-colors/

White

white capri pants. White is the perfect color for it is a combination of all colors, in perfect balance and harmony. It is the color of the awakened Spirit, the light of perfection, all that is pure, the light of the Cosmic Consciousness, the Divine Light. White light raises the vibration of one’s consciousness and the body, bringing harmony in all aspects of one’s life.
What the hue says about you-
Love it- White signifies innocence, purity, virginity, cleanliness, freshness, simplicity, nothingness, oneness and completion, truth. In certain cultures though white is the color of death and mourning.
Hate it- A person who has an aversion to white color is foremost or solely interested in ‘realistic’ and tangible things, not in illusions or things that are beyond seeing or understanding. They tend to know and accepts the own imperfection and do not wish to achieve perfection.

Death means change, letting go of the past, going through a grieving process, to make room for the new.

To add to that, I saw three patches of Black-Eyed Susans, my favourite flower. along with several species of roses, petutinias, and patience (I also saw lots of ants, which mean patience too).

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[MajestyJo]

The spiritual enlightenment for me was the phrase, "If you have to control it, it is already out of control!"

I had heard this phrase around the rooms for several years and it mean nothing to me. I kept coming, I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but I wanted what the people in the rooms had. I knew I didn't want to go back to where I came from, so I just kept coming.

I thought maybe if just kept coming, some of what you head would rub off onto me. So I came, and said, "Hi, my name is JoAnne, and I am an alcoholic" and was in total rebellion, with the attitude, "I'll say it if I have to, and went through the alcoholic/addict stage. Ironically, I knew I was an addict, and I think it was because I knew the meaning of the word. Or I could relate it to chips, or cookies, and the feeling of more, but couldn't identify the alcoholism. I knew I misused and abused my medication, but it wasn't until many years later that I came to know it as dried-up alcohol.

I came but I did all the wrong things, I compared instead of identifying. I don't like beer, I didn't have black outs, I didn't pass out after so many drink, I could drive the car after drinking all day and night and not get pulled over, I could walk a straight line (my son use to say he looked out the window and saw Mom bringing B**** home). I didn't go to jail, I didn't get tickets, I didn't get cut off at the bar, and the list went on, and on, and on.

After I heard the phrase above, I came to realize "Don't look at what you didn't do, but look at what you did do!"

That was a different story. I decided I would rather be an alcoholic.

It wasn't until God saw fit to give me a dream to let me see how others saw me when I was drinking. I was a first class, manipulating b**ch, who told everyone how to do it, what to do, when to do it, and was aggressive and a loud mouthed person that I wouldn't have wanted for a friend. I had assumed that the reason that people had back away from us because of my ex-husband's drinking, when it truth, it was probably my conroling, manipulating and nagging ways. Now that was a spiritual awakening, and I was two years in the program. I was sober but I can honestly say I didn't have true sobriety until then. Sobriety for me means soundness of mind. You can't have sobriety and be in denial and life of secrets and control. I was continually at war with myself, and often with those around me because I didn't have my own knowingness. I only knew what was told to me, and I had to find my own path and my own truth.

My spiritual adviser said, "You will learn two thing. 1) How to work your program. 2) How not to work your program.

Keep coming, so you won't have to come back.

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[MajestyJo]

Solid recovery

Each setback provides an opportunity to recover. And each time you recover, you grow stronger.

The route to your goal is not a straight line. There will be many times along the way when you find yourself off course.

When that happens, it can seem like your destination is unreachable. Doubt, fear and apathy will take hold if you let them.

The key is not to let them. For as hopeless as the situation may feel, there are actions you can take that will enable you to quickly get back on track.

Much of the substance of achievement is in becoming skilled at making a quick and solid recovery. Each setback gives you the chance to practice and strengthen and refine that valuable skill.

Know that whatever has slowed you down can provide you with a way to move more effectively forward. Quickly get back up, and feel the new strength you've gained.

-- Ralph Marston

One thing I was told, you had to check my motives and intentions on whether I was using my bed to hide from what I don't want to face or do. It was my escape in the past. Today because of health issues and chronic fatigue from Fibromyalgia, I have to give myself permission to take the time out and allow myself the rest.

I also had to learn that I didn't have to give myself permission, I could just do. That was a long time in coming. Many times we can slip in our recovery and stop doing things that are the backbone of what has been the main stay of our recovery and we think we don't need to do it any more. All of a sudden, we feel sluggish, and things just don't seem the same, stop and pause, say a prayer, and get back to basics. You could be heading for a relapse. Remember relapse is a part of your disease. It is not a recovery tool. You can learn thing from a relapse, but you can learn so much more by STAYING!

This also helps me when it comes to my recovery in Al-Anon and when the Mother in me wants to get in the way and the Enabler comes out in force and starts justifying her actions and her rationalization becomes truth instead of fiction. Then I have to surrender, turn it all over to my Higher Power, and ask for forgiveness, and get back on track again.

The program works if I work it. It is a 24 hour a day program. It is not a 2 - 4 hour a day program.

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[MajestyJo]

Found this post on another site. I had wrote about sharing with someone, who was referred to me from my old group. So many people say, you don't go to meetings, so how can you be sober? I don't know if I am delusional and in total denial or what. I probably talk and share recovery more than anyone on the planet, even people who work in treatment centers. Now I don't even have my bridge games to give me the balance, and my eyes haven't allowed me to have to break that I use to take from the computer. The only difference, is that I am getting more sleep, and it is cutting into my computer time.

They use to call me the meeting kid. They laughed at me for going to so many meetings. I am so glad I went to all those meetings. What comes out of my mouth, is what I heard in all those meetings. My thoughts are not original thoughts. They are words I heard, or words given to me by my HP. My goal in life is to be a channel to carry the message of recovery to the addict who still suffers, be he/she is new or old. Some days that person is me, and I need to give in order to receive.

Do you know what solid recovery is? I didn't pick up a drink or a drug! Do you know what solid recovery is? I didn't pick up a MIND ALTERING SUBSTANCE today! My doctors have prescribed anti-depressants for me for years. I just don't like how I feel on them. I find them to be mind altering for me and stop me from being me. I don't like my thinking, and or my inability to think and feel connected to my God.

It doesn't mean I had serenity all day. It doesn't mean I had peace and wisdom and love all day. It means that I tried to the best of my ability to be the best person that I can be in today.

I was told that sobriety meant soundness of mind. My disease is a thinking disease, so it isn't about not picking up a drug of any kind, but changing the thought patterns, the old behaviours that put me into that old thought patterns that lead me to picking up in the first place.

I need new light and awareness in my life. Me alone with me is bad company, I need that memory that it is no better out there, and to look at the whole picture. Look at the beginning, and the journey I took to the end, and remain grateful that I was able to walk through the doors of recovery.

:lighthouse:

[MajestyJo]

Even though I am a recovering alcoholic and I will never forget the day I walked into my Al-Anon meeting and was told that I was doublly blessed. I get to take the best from both programs.

I am the daughter of an alcoholic father who died from his disease at 66 and the daughter of a mother who used food to deal with my father's alcoholism and died at the age of 40 when I was 21.

I have a son who is in recovery waiting for a bed at a six-month treatment center for his drug and alcohol addiction.

Al-Anon has helped me with friends who have relapsed and from those who choose a different lifestyle and not healthy for me to be around. I know a lot of people through the bridge club but they don't invite me to their home parties. My not drinking or smoking makes me a party pooper I guess.

It doesn't matter what section or room of recovery that I go to, I can identify. The substance is but a symptom of my disease. Whether it is alcoholism, addiction, codependency, caretaking, gambling, work, food, etc. the Twelve Steps work for them all. Somethings we stay in denial about a little bit longer. i.e. my computer although it is a lot better than it use to be. I don't have to be on it each day or ever hour of the day!

Not sure if many identify with me or we have a lot in common. I had alternative medicine work done on my migraines by a sponsor who was a Reiki Master along with a friend of hers.

I also had several sponsors. Each one taught me what I needed to learn and then for some reason I moved on. Some fired me and some I separated from by mutual consent. My last sponsor said she didn't feel she had anything to offer me and she felt overwhelmed because she felt I had more of a grasp on the program than she did. To me there is no race, test, or blueprint, we do what we need to do for ourselves in the moment. I was one of the really sick ones. Partly because of my own addiction as a result of the decisions I made due to the dysfunction in my life growing up and in two abusive marriages.

I don't think I would have what I have today if it wasn't for service. I am not as active now due to health issues. Things have been closed down at the Community Job I volunteered for until the new year and it is going to relocate. I will be going back into the jails in the new year as well.

It is ironic, jails have been my focus for 16 years and yet I myself have never been in jail, yet no one was more a prisoner of her own mind, that I was. I didn't need steel bars.

I may suffer from chronic pain but I can't let it rule my life and allow it to stop me from doing what I need to do each day. I did lie down for about 20 minutes with the heat, but didn't sleep.

I was told that living is getting up each morning, ask for help, living each day as it comes, give thanks at night. I never know what my body will allow me to do on any given day but I do try to listen to it. Not listening is self-abuse. I ignored my needs for many years. I shut down and shut off and detached from myself. Thanks to the program, I have been able to turn that around.

I got sober in AA, it was the basis for my recovery because of my denial. NA was for affirmation of my addiction, I always knew I was an addict. Al-Anon helped me to find myself, not just in today, but the root cause of my disease and allowed me to heal all those deep hurts and pain that I had stuffed and forgotten, or didn't allow myself to remember.

Look forward to sharing more with you.

Some of these were posted from another site and added onto or edited in today.

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[MajestyJo]

DAILY OM

Releasing The Reigns
Changing Others

Our perception of humanity as a whole is, to a large extent, dualistic. We paint people with a broad brush—some are like us, sharing our opinions and our attitudes, while others are different. Our commitment to values we have chosen to embrace is often so strong that we are easily convinced that our way is the right way. We may find ourselves frustrated by those who view the world from an alternate vantage point and make use of unusual strategies when coping with life's challenges. However ardently we believe that these people would be happier and more satisfied following our lead, we should resist the temptation to try to change them. Every human being has been blessed with a unique nature that cannot be altered by outside forces. We are who we are at any one point in our lives for a reason, and no one person can say for certain what another should be like.

The reasons we try to change one another are numerous. Since we have learned over time to flourish in the richness of lives we have built, we may come to believe that we are qualified to speak on behalf of the greater source. The sum total of our knowledge will never compare to what we do not know, however, and our understanding of others’ lives will forever be limited. The potential we see in the people who are a part of our lives will never be precisely the same as our own, so we do these individuals a disservice when we make assumptions about their intentions, preferences, and goals. Our power lies in our ability to accept others for all their quirks and differences and to let go of the need to control every element of our existence. We can love people for who they are, embracing their uniqueness, or we can love them as human beings from afar.

Your ability to influence people may grow more sophisticated because others sense that you respect their right to be themselves, but you will likely spend more time gazing inward, into the one person you can change: yourself.

What do you think?
Didn't realize that I didn't have the power. I kept bringing up the old tape I heard from my mother as a child, "Look at what you made me do."

I had a lot of false guilt, pride, phobias and fears that I had trouble letting go of, because they came from people who I saw as authority figures, and I didn't realize that when I surrendered to the program, I was empowered to do for myself. It was about me and not others, I can change me and I was powerless over others.

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[MajestyJo]

Don't worry if your job is small,
and your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.
--Anonymous

We feel better about ourselves when we can laugh at ourselves a bit. All it takes is a little attitude adjustment. For example, if I decide to learn to ski and my first day out I fall on my face, I can take the attitude, I am a klutz, I'm not capable, I don't fit here. Or I can take the attitude, This sport is a riot! What a challenge! I can't wait to feel what it's like to get down without falling.

The person with the first attitude will quit and feel badly about himself or herself. The person with the second attitude may never be an Olympic skier, but will have fun, confidence, and a sense of accomplishment.

Today let me remember that attitudes make the difference and attitudes can be changed.


You are reading from the book:

Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast

Found this posted to one of my sites in 2005, and posted it on another site in 2011.

I loved the quote. It reminded me that I was told that AA had a tool for any and all nuts who walked through the doors looking for recovery.

http://angelwinks.net/images/iq/qckittenleaping1.jpg

[MajestyJo]

"Ask Your Body For Advice"

"The body has its own way of knowing, a knowing that has little to do with logic, and much to do with truth, little to do with control, and much to do with acceptance, little to do with division and analysis, and much to do with union."

-- Marilyn Sewell

Are you aware of your body’s wisdom? Our bodies usually know us better than our minds do. If you have a decision to make, consult your body before making a final choice.

Reflect on an option before you and then pay attention to your body. Are you breathing deeply or barely at all? Are your muscles tense or relaxed? Is your energy blocked or flowing?

Your body knows what it likes and it feels good when it's happy. As your body is the source of your vitality, your motivation, your inspiration and enthusiasm and most importantly, your intuition, it's best to get that part of you on-side if you are venturing into a new activity.

"When you are saying that you are happy and you are not, there will be a disturbance in your breathing. Your breathing cannot be natural. It is impossible."

-- Osho

"Our inner guidance comes to us through our feelings and body wisdom first -- not through intellectual understanding. ...The intellect works best in service to our intuition, our inner guidance, soul, God or higher power -- whichever term we choose for the spiritual energy that animates life."

-- Christiane Northrup

from Higher Awareness (used with permission)

So often we judge ourselves and compare ourselves to others. Listening to my body is so important, when I don't, I make my life so much more difficult. When it says rest, eat, exercise, etc. I know I should do. I don't always, like today, I talked myself out of going out for several hours. I was glad I listened, by the time I made up my mind, I was glad I didn't go because of the Santa Claus Parade yesterday.

I still have a problem with having a Christmas Parade in November. :(

http://angelwinks.net/images/iq/qcangel472.jpg

[MajestyJo]

JUST FOR TODAY!

Within

from: "Source of Strength"

"I need power each day, because I get weary. But with A.A. as my structure and God as my source of strength, I can face life without taking a drink. I don't have to stare out my window in total despair any more. The ocean and the sun and the trees and all the fantastic beauty that God has created have finally become very real to me. I crave and need the presence of nature. But I must also bear in mind that it is the spirit within me, which comes from God, that is going to be the healing force."

© 1973, Came to Believe..., page 103

= The Hoffelds

JUST FOR TODAY:

For me, when I surrendered and said, "My way isn't working, the Spirit was given to me and it was my believe that it was there, the trusting in that new source of power, and my continual feeding of the Spirit which allowed it to grow. It became a Source so much more powerful than I could have ever imagined, and it has been my mainstay through all tribulation.

The Spirit is there, the Light is within, it is whether I choose to smother it, or nurture it within my soul as to how much it can do for me, one day at a time.

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[MajestyJo]

Tonight I saw a friend at a meeting who is just coming back into the rooms. He is at the local mission and the last time I saw him at a meeting he was in detox. I have known this fellow for 13 years, he was in NA when I came into the rooms.

It doesn't matter what fellowship he has come back to after a relapse, I have been there. The last time I saw him was at an AA Twleve Step meeting and an open Speaker Meeting in AA over a year ago. Tonight it was at a CA meeting where they use AA literature.

I have never used Crack/Cocaine yet I am an addict who used alcohol and prescription drugs. I never used Crack and Cocaine, because they were never in front of me. Crack/Cocaine is his drug of choice and he is new to CA and I hope this time he will stay.

My recovery started in AA and have gone to NA when required for identification, and I have only been a member of a Women's CA Group since June of this year.

They say we are where we are suppose to be, and this proved very true for me. I came to this fellowship as a result of a 15 month relationship with a fellow who had 5 years clean. I had thought of leaving and giving him his space, yet when I have things like this happen, I tend to take it as a message that I am where I am suppose to be.

I qualify for all the programs, I am an addict and an alcoholic, and I have gone where I have been led.

CA says "and all other mind altering substance" and believes in complete abstinence from "all" substances in order to be clean and sober. Sobriety for me means soundness of mind. You can't smoke pot and take pills and have soundness of mind, although I have heard some people say they have had a spiritual experience smoking pot! Yeah right!!! All the more power to them! This same guy fell off a sixth floor balcony, became paralyzed from the waist down and died from an overdose. He was at his home meeting in AA on Sunday and was found dead by his girlfriend on Monday morning.

How many 'pure' alcoholics are there today! Gambling, work, food, and other substances seem to be substitutions that take people back to the same soul sickness of their addiction and are taken back to their drug of choice.

A woman who was a big example in my early recovery, went to meetings in a wheel chair. She had to be carried into the meetings. She died falling down stairs in her wheel chair, as a result of being stoned on pot.

I am not saying this is all people in AA. I am just saying that we need to get back to some basics. To use is to die. Bill and others confessed to be addicted to other substances (Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict) and if they realized they needed to stay clean, why do alcoholic in today justify their behaviour. I know it is a disease of denial. Yet I keep hearing about how the success rate of recovery has dropped and they seem to question why? When we look at the success rate of the earlier recruits into AA, what are we not doing in today?


Posted in 2004

[MajestyJo]

Recovery was a big part of my life, and for many years the center as you say. A lot depended on what was happening in my life at the time. When I wasn't in a relationship, when I was breaking up a relationship, then I got involved in service.

Being on disability has prevented me from getting out and having a job because I am not able to work more than about three hours a day, and those hours are never at the same time every day. The internet has allowed me a place to share my recovery, when I can't get out to meetings.

For many years people would say, what do you do for fun. My response was I enjoy talking to people and sharing recovery. I know a lot of people don't feel that way, but that is not what I am talking about basics. I am saying that people take and don't give back. I will be forever grateful for the people who where there for me, who took time to show me the way. I hope I never come to a place in my life that I am so caught up in busy I don't have time for anyone else. Without recovery, I wouldn't have busy.

How come the relapse rate is so high in today, is it because there are so many other substances out there which people use as a substitute of alcohol, which takes them back to their drug of choice. I have heard so many people say, "Well if I hadn't picked up that beer, I would never have gotten into the crack."

Why do alcoholics and addicts like to continue beating themselves up.

It is simple, don't use, don't pick up, just for today, no matter what. Get honest, clean house, and help others.

KISS - Even when they change it to Keep it Simple "Sweetheart" from Stupid, that still makes it a bit hard to swallow, too cutesy for me.

The same goes for "Keep Coming Back!" How about Keep coming so you won't have to come back or Keep coming back to meetings, so you won't have to go back out there!

Have times really changed? The program remains constant. It is the people who change.

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[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book Today's Gift (March 6, 2010)

This Mouse must give up one of the Mouse ways of seeing things in order that he may grow.
—Hyemeyohsts Storm

There is an American Indian tale of a mouse who heard a roaring in his ears and set out to discover what it was. He encountered many animals who helped him on his way. Finally, the mouse had a chance to offer help to another. He gave away his eyes to help two other animals.

Without his sight, defenceless, he waited for the end. Soon he heard the sound eagles make when they dive for their prey. The next thing the mouse knew, he was flying. He could see all the splendour around him. Then he heard a voice say, "You have a new name. You are Eagle."

Like the mouse, we also feel something inside us we'd like to explore. That secret, like all others, has its answer hidden deep within us, yet right under our very nose. Often, we merely have to give up our eyes and see in a different way. When we do this, we are rewarded with a new kind of vision, one that lets us discover our true potential.

How can I look at things differently today?

Liked this because it mentions a mouse, which according to Jamie Sams, means scrutinize. Look at where you are at, look at what is happening in your life, look at the direction your life is heading, look at whether you want to keep going that way or take a detour or a different route.

When I stay clean and sober, I can better stay in reality. Sometimes reality sucks, but being honest with myself, helps me to heal and grow. Honesty is what I need for living and working Step 10 into my life.

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[MajestyJo]

From time to time, I will share my own personal awareness on a topic and the gift that has been given as a result of working my program. It is just my experience, strength and hope, and isn't meant to represent any one fellowship. It is my truth, not someone else's or my interpretation of what I heard or read.

From Alkie Speaks:

I realized I had a body which can't tolerate alcohol, which is OK. except that I had a mind that can't leave it alone. I'd always said that I could take it or leave it alone - I couldn't do either.

- Doug D.

Because I had a high tolerance for alcohol, I thought I wasn't an alcoholic. I labelled my dad and my ex-husband as alcohlics because they passed out, fell down, staggered, were violent, couldn't walk or drive a straight line. I once said to my dad, "You drove in that condition?" He had just come from his girlfriend's. He looked at me and said, "Well I certainly couldn't walk and proceeded to fall flat on his face and I had to help him to bed.

The reality was that I could match them drink for drink, drive them home, function and resented them for drinking all the booze, before they passed out. I wanted to party and there wasn't much for me. That is when I started hiding my booze. I couldn't have consumed all that liquor and been sober although I never saw myself as drunk. There was only a couple of times that I recall taking the stairs on my hands and knees.

When I saw myself in my dream, because I was wearing red high-heeled shoes and walking a straight line, I was sober. Then I saw myself in living colour and saw the person I changed into when I did drink. It wasn't what or how much I drank. It was what it did to me when I did drink it.

[MajestyJo]

I have found for the most part, most people don't want to hear.

My evening meditation cards:

"Enlightenment is seeing the unseen itself, and in this there is no seeing and no seer - only beginningness, endless calm."

ATISA DIPANKARA SHRIJNANA (980-1054)

"HE WHO DOES HIS DUTY IS TOLERANT LIKE THE EARTH, FIRM AS A PILLAR AND CLEAR AS A LAKE: NO FURTHER BIRTHS WILL BE IN STORE FOR SUCH A ONE.

DHAMMAPADA (1ST CENTURY BC)

"THERE IS ONLY ONE MOMENT IN TIME WHEN IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AWAKEN. THAT MOMENT IS NOW."

ATTRIBUTED TO THE BUDDHA (C.563BC-C.483BC)

"IF WE CAN BE WISE, AFTER LISTENING TO THE LAWS WE BECOME SERENE, LIKE A DEEP, SMOOTH, STILL LAKE."

DHAMMAPADFA (1ST CENTURY BC)


FROM: The Buddhist Prayer Deck

[MajestyJo]

One of my favourite sayings and I have seen it happen so many times. I am grateful for the people who did the research for me so that I didn't have to go back out and discover for myself. Once I found what I wanted here, I stayed.

Quote:
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, that person will take you out!

As the slogan says, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."

It makes me sad when I hear people say, I have been doing things this way for 10, 20, 30.... years and it has stood me in good stead, why should I change now. Why wouldn't you want to change it if it brought you to your bottom and you want to learn to live clean and sober?

[MajestyJo]

So glad that this is a one day at a time program. The new awareness and experience along the way and the many blessing that have happened as a result of working the program.

One of the reasons I went back to school in 2001, was that I became aware that I was so involved in service, taking the newcomers in the group through the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Traditions, that I was again, focusing on people, places, and things outside of myself, and not always looking at me and my issues. One of the things I did was go to an out-of-town meeting with a friend that I volunteered with at the jail. Her husband would come and pick me up, they lived in Dundas, just outside of the city and drive me to Burlington, which was another city, which was part of our cities for a meeting.

I need to be at a place where I wasn't giving and was in a meeting where I could top myself up. Giving is good, it is good to get out of Self, but when I exclude myself to look after others, it takes my life out of balance. Like in today, my son doesn't see me as working or doing anything when I am on the computer. As much as I tell him it is my lifeline, he chooses not to see it. That is not surprising considering the fact that he is still using, and he often uses me if I don't set up boundaries.

Putting someone else down to make myself feel better, isn't my idea of recovery and the kind of recovery I want for myself. I know I have health issues, many in fact, but the good news is I don't have to use in order to deal with them, unless my coming to the boards is an addiction. Truthfully, at one time it was. It wasn't so much the boards as the computer, and me again, getting out of self, and not looking at myself. The difference today, is that it is my only Source of Recovery contact. In the last 6 months I have not been to a f2f meeting. I can't go out in the night air, and with my cough, it is annoying to me, let alone the people around me.

I special thanks to those who I have met on this site who have send me private messages.

My spiritual adviser told me many years ago, "You have a message that people do not want to hear. Don't worry, it is their denial." I had to laugh when one guy said he doesn't read my posts. That is OK, I didn't post for him. I post for myself and my healing, with the hope that there is someone out there who is helped as a result of my sharing.

I know that I suffer from chronic pain, but when it flares up and I get several messages in a day, I know it is my emotions or something I am doing or thinking, which is causing the pain. What I really need to guard is taking on someone else's pain, especially when people don't want to help themselves, they project there stuff onto me.

These were posted on another site, hope they aren't duplicates of what I have posted here.

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[MajestyJo]

The Rules For Being Human

Cherie Carter-Scott

1)You will receive a body.

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of time around.

2)You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called Life.
Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.

3)There are no mistakes, only lessons.

Growth is a process of trial and error: Experimentation.

The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works."

4)A lesson is repeated until learned.

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, you can them go on to the next lesson.

5)Learning lessons does not end.

There is no part of life that does not contain it's lessons.

If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6)"There" is no better than "here".

When you are "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".

7)Others are merely mirrors of you.

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8)What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9)Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10)YOU WILL FORGET ALL THIS.
How true! This was something I didn't want to allow myself. People repeatedly seemed to be saying, "Well you are only human you know!" That wasn't acceptable to me. I could not always be perfect and right but I felt that it was my job in recovery to be the best me I could be each day. I didn't always live up to my expectations and I learned not to beat myself up for falling short of who and what I wanted to be, and yet I felt better within me for having tried.

Before recovery, I didn't try. I had given up on life and I got to the stage where I was sick and tired of being tired and sick. I have been back there a few times since then and it is not a good place to be. Thank God for this program.

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[MajestyJo]

When I came through the doors of recovery, I wasn't too sure I was glad to be alive. For several long weeks it had been stop the world, I want to get off.

It talks about being human, and I didn't feel very human or humane. When you live in a room in the YWCA there are not too many places around that look much better than here, when all the places are the same, except maybe neater or with more stuff. Which is what life is all about, we look a the surface and look at what we don't have rather than what we do have.

Welcome to the journey of recovery.

So glad you share this journey with me. We can do what I can't do alone. Without you, there is no me. I thank you for being a part of my recovery.

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[MajestyJo]

Pocket Sponsor - Book - Quote

Did you know that the word 'share' derives from the Old English word for 'shear' which means to cut or divide? To share with others means to divide your burden. Each time you share, you leave another little piece of the weight of your burden with them.

By sharing, I divide; by dividing, I lighten my load.

Have always loved this concept. It doesn't matter what substance you use, be it people, places, and things, we all have needs, emotions, and feelings that we need to share.

My sponsor use to say, if you take it to a meeting and there are 10 people there, you only have to take a 1/10 of it home.

It is not only healing for me to share. I have had people come and after a meeting and thanked me for what I said because it helped them. I share because I care. Hopefully, if anyone out there is going through what I have been going through, we can share the journey together, knowing we are not alone.

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[MajestyJo]

As we get older, we learn some truths:

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm
pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment
at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything
productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research
paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never
wash this - ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dang!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop thephone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I
know not to answer when they call.

18. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday
or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller-Lite than Kay.

20. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

21. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was
younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was
going on when I first saw it.

22. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

23. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm
trying to finish a text.

24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

25. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you
just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand
a word they said?

26. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent an ass from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never
get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber
every year?

29. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure
you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

30. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate
drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always
hate cyclists.

31. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the
snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

LIFE IS SHORT
MAKE FUN OF IT


CONTINUED...

[MajestyJo]

In early recovery, I can remember bemoaning all the years that I wasted. All the years that I stayed in my denial about being the 'one' with the problem. My life was full of 'if only`s' and would have/could have/should haves.

Now that I am growing older, it took me a while to get to that stage of acceptance too. I never felt old, not realizing that in many ways, I didn't grow up. Now I have to accept that I am growing older and I can't do what I use to do.

I was told in treatment to get in touch with myself and my inner child. I had no concept. I am not sure if it was because nothing special, just same old, same old, positive happened and I didn`t remember, whether I just blocked things out and closed this down because of seeing my brother killed when I was 3.

I told a friend and she said, `What do you mean, you are just one big kid who never grew up.` Maybe she was right, I certain feel young in spirit most days.

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[MajestyJo]

After a NA meeting, I walked uptown with some members and a guy from the eastern provinces asked how old I was. He told me that you must have found the Fountain of Youth. I said, `No I am just well preserved in alcohol.`

I didn't think I was going to live to be 40 because that was the age my mother passed away. She didn't drink or smoke. Her problem was food. Her food addiction killed her. She used food to deal with my father's alcoholism and life in general. My father died at the age of 66 from his disease.

I am certainly living overtime. For today I am grateful I made it to old age although I have gone kicking and fighting all the way.

Staying clean and sober gave me back my life.

A friend sent me the following link. It scares me, I'm not sure I want to live for another 33 years. Thirty-three wasn't a good year for me, that is the age I got married for the second time.

My query said I was going to live for another 8 years. I will be 79 years old. Wouldn`t want to put things on hold, waiting for things to happen and the moments to pass away!

http://www.deathclock.com/

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[MajestyJo]

It has been a quiet weekend, hardly any pain, yet haven`t felt good. Not sure if it is just laziness, no motivation, yet when I went to post today, the words just came out, or I was lead to what I need to see and hear. I can`t pin point anything wrong, I just felt yuck! So I knew that I need to post and come to the sites.

My son cooked dinner, he didn`t know he was suppose to, I neglected to inform him of my thoughts. He did end up cooking a cheese and mushroom omelette and bacon, and we had slices of tomato with it.

I think it is time to take a time out and watch some tennis. Not sure what is going to come first, hopefully I can stay up and get some reading tonight too as I have been fighting sleep all afternoon and evening. I got called to the computer even though my tennis was on and Canada was playing, so I think this was where I was meant to be. I listened to that inner voice, more importantly, I followed the good orderly direction I received.

I did a meditation earlier, but will be a must do before I go to my bed.

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[MajestyJo]

Some of you may have read this, but this is part of how I got to AA.

A lot of my early childhood is heresay, because I don't have a lot of memory. My mother was very isolated on our 199 acre farm and never got to see many people, so anytime she met someone she kept repeating the stories, good and bad and they were very much reinforced.

The 199 acres is one of the reasons I always felt less than. It always seemed stupid to say it, yet to say it was 200 acres was a lie. My grandfather had 550 acres and he gave an acre of land to the Township to build a school on when the old one where my grandmother taught was burned down. My grandfather was a farmer, trucker, lay-minister (built the local church) and had his own lumber business. He bought machinery as it came onto the market and hired it out to other farmers. I can remember the Clydesdale horses being there when we moved to the farm a mile from his when I was six.

I have no memory at all of the house I grew up in the first five years of my life. I know what my grandmother's house (she was the controller) looked like where my dad's two older brothers, who married two sisters lived with their children. We lived in the house which was more like a shack in comparison, which was only a few hundred yards away. When we moved to the farm, I no longer had anyone to play with as my sisters were 2 and 3. The little house was stuck by lightning when I was five, and I have just realized that was one of the reasons I reacted so strongly to smoke when I got sober and quit smoking nine years ago this coming December.

When I was one year old I had a birth mark removed from the back of my head. It was the size of a tame strawberry and my mother repeated many times over that if I had fallen and bumped it, I would have bled to death before they could have gotten me to the hospital. That was a big fear growing up, and I am sure I was protected prior to the operation and when it was over, a lot of the attention was no longer there. Being a true Aires, I must have missed that extra TLC, and perhaps that attention seeking was the cause of my wraping my arms around my dad's leg when he came home from work, and catching the cord of the hotplate along with his leg, I pulled the hotplate off the counter along with the kettle which was full of hot water at boiling point and the water went down my back. My mother pulled my t-shirt off and the skin came off of my back, my father fainted and when the doctor arrived, he had to attend to my dad first. This was a big resentment for years. The start of my father not being there for me when I needed him. The lack of thought and supposed caring of my mother as to the end results of her actons.

As a friend in NA said when I shared with her, that was the probably beginning of my first taste and connection with drugs. I had no awareness of it. Yet over 60 years ago, I would have been given some pretty heavy duty ones. When I stole a glass of communion wine at 10, I was probably good and primed for it. I will always remember that feeling. That "ahhhhh" feeling of total heaven, after all it was from the church, and I searched for that feeling for the rest of my life. I also carried the guilt of doing wrong, along with the guilt of trying to make a gulp look like a sip when I was babptized at 14 and was given permission to have the wine. Alcohol was not in our home, I had no contact with it, and communion was the only chance I had for this taste of ephoria. By the time I was 16, I was having major head aches and pains in my stomach. So bad that they put me in the hospital again, put me under with ether (which I had a violent reaction to) to examine me as to the cause of it all. They came to the conclusion that I had a nervous condition, that I was unable to cope with life and they put me on valium.

I missed over 30 days of school the year I was in grade 11, I failed the grade with a mark of 49.5%. I was devasted, I had received honor marks all through public school. The teacher never taught us study habits and never gave us homework. When I got to grade 9, I was devasted, I got less than 60%, then in grade 10, I was able to get my grades up to the mid-60s. Along with the old tapes that said I was stupid, this reinforced it. I went back the next year, but my mother took ill, I was sick and missing school and I asked to stay home and look after my mother and my father went off the farm to work, so I did a lot of the barn chores. I left the farm to come to the city at the age of 17. I was given a job with the understanding that I would go to school to learn how to type. I went for one term to night school, then took two terms of bookkeeping, and it was the beginning of another life.

I will reflect for a moment to the time I was 14. It was at 14 that we got TV and I saw how much of the world I was missing. It was at 14 that my mother broke down and allowed us to go to drive-in movies even though she had a lot of guilt about it. We went to see a movie and it was about forest fires, and I went into total terror and we had to leave the show, never to be allowed to go again. I visited my aunt when I was 14 and had my first taste of coca-cola. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, but I was forbidden it. It was not good for me, and when I went to the city at 17 and had my own money it became my first addiction. From that time to do without it was to die. Even in later years, you could take away my rye, but you couldn't take away my cola and expect to live in the same house with me. It was at age 14 that my mother went into the hospital and I was left with the responsibility of the house. We had a teacher boarding at our place. In today, I am sure my mother had fibromyalgia, back then I was sure she was a big, fat, lazy slob and I didn't realize that she used food to deal with my father's alcoholism. My mother died when I was 20 at the age of 40. She died the first of June and would have been 41 on the 28th of June. I saw my father drunk when I was 8 and couldn't figure out why I couldn't ride in the car with my dad after being away on holidays. Why did I have to drive in the car with a stranger instead of my daddy? When I was 14, I came down to get a drink of water and my father stumbled across the kitchen floor, upchucked all over and my mother said, "Go back to bed, Daddy has the flu, he will be okay in the morning." When my mother died, my father started bringing booze into the house. I returned from Hamilton when I was 26 to become his drinking buddy.

But I am getting ahead of my story, so I will pause and reflect more will be revealed.

My years from 17 to 21 were years were spent looking at the world, but it was hard to be a rebel when you are living with an old maid aunt who you love dearly even though she has very narrow outlooks on life.

I guess those years were as close to being 'normal' as I have ever experienced life as a whole. Getting a job, going to school, advancing from file clerk to accounts receivable clerk. A couple of boyfriend here and there, and then I met the man who was to become my husband and the father of my son. He came to be two weeks before the wedding to say he wasn't sure if he was ready to settle down and get married. I said, "Perhaps you had better think about it, better to change your mind now than later." Three days before the wedding is was really sick, I had a temperature of 104% the night before the wedding. A tall blonde stood in for me at the wedding rehersal. The doctor came and game me a shot in the btm and said, "If you walk down the aisle tomorrow, it will be a miracle." I replied, "I'll make it down the aisle supposing I have to crawl!" The signs were there, it was my conscious decision to go my own way, and as a result I ended up in an abusive marriage. Put downs, running around with other women, along with physical abuse; didn't prepare me for him being with another woman the night my son was born and moving in with that woman when my son was two months old. When my seperation papers went through, I stood in front of the liquor store with my sister tossing a coin to see who was the one to go into the liiquor store. Neither of us had been in one before (remember we are good little Christian girls who don't drink), I won/lost the toss. I went into the liquor store and continued going there for the next 25 years.

I went out and drank socially with my husband in TO and had eight rum and coke. When I came to the program, they said that wasn't social drinking. I said, "It was social drinking compared to what I drank when I made the decision to quit drinking at 41. My social drinking constituted of "If you are going to have a drink, so shall I." I had two 60 oz. bottles of white wine and a mickey of rye and I came to the conclusion that I couldn't afford to maintain my habit in the style that I would like to be come accustomed and I wasn't willing to live the life style that would allow me to afford to maintain my habit. I would quit for three months then go out and reward myself with a bottle of Crown Royal to reward myself for good behavior. I could stop, but I couldn't stay stopped. Slowly, but surely, my drinking decreased but my pill intake increased.

Pills were like dried up alcohol for me. I didn't have blackouts with alcohol but I did with pills. I didn't drink every hour of every day, but I used pills in one form or another since I was 16, and in the end it was for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since I was 24 and my marriage ended and my son was born.

My son says he never saw me drunk, which means he never saw me sober.

After my marriage, I partied and made up for all the lost time I figured I lost in my teens and during my marriage. I was able to go to shows, dance, smoke, drink and make merry any way I wanted. I took several hostages along the way, and a couple of people who abducted me. When I was 31, I was dating a 24 year old. The older I got, the more insecure I came and the younger the crowd was. I didn't realize that my second husband had the same problem, and even though I always looked young for my age, I often wonder how come he chose to marry me. Perhaps to bring some maturity to his life, which of course didn't happen. I was looking for someone to keep me in the style that I would like to become accustomed, and the same thing happened that happened in the first marriage. My husband lost his job after we were married for three months. The same thing happened in my first marriage. When my husband got a job it was for less money than I was making and that was a really good reason to abuse me and put me down to make himself feel better. When he got a better paying job was when he met the 'other' woman and one of my resentments for years was about the fact that I never got to be able to spend his money after years of him living off of me. He told my 'supposed' best friend who inturn felt the need to tell me, that he would have left me sooner if it wasn't for the money I was bringing in. Husband number two told me when we got married that he didn't want any wife of his working, that he was the 'man' of the house and he would provide. After five years of marriage that tune changed to "Get off your fat ass and go get a job."

There seemed to be no consideration of the fact that he moved us to the country to live in a shack that was two miles by railroad track and three miles by road to the nearest village. I had two cars when I married him, and as a result of him not wanting to do upkeep and repairs on the cars because it would take away from his beer money, the cars gave up the ghost. My VW was totally rotted out although the motor was good. The front seat was sitting on two hockey stick to prevent it from falling through the floor. There was no gas pedal, just a piece of metal coming up through the floor.

I figured my friends didn't want to have anything more to do with me because of my husband. It wasn't until years later in recovery that I realized that I had become just like him. We are products of our environment. I didn't drink beer, he had a resentment because his beer cost 95 cents and he had to pay $1.05 for my rye and coke. It averaged out to $1. a drink, and we would go to the bar with $40. and it was good for 20 drinks a piece plus what ever we could beg, borrow and con, although I never looked at it as stealing.

At the end of the marriage, he complained when I spent some money for food for my son. He was a teenager and would not have survived this time if it wasn't for peanut butter and Kraft Dinner. He said I am getting a check tomorrow, now I don't have any money tonight. He went out with his brother, that night, and tomorrow came but the cheque didn't. He went out again and I had been waiting for the right time to break up the marriage only the right time never came. When I asked him to leave, I had 50 cents in my wallet and not even a jar of peanut butter in the cupboard. The legion issued me a food voucher to get food until I could contact Mother's Allowance on the Monday.

Today I had a memory of sitting in our dining room at the farm, wearing a navy taffeta skirt, a yellow nylon blouse with the dreaded 'frills' down the front, a lacy cameosole, white bobby sox and saddle shoes. I was 14 years old, sitting on a dining room chair, looking out the window. I wanted to go out and play and my mother said, "No, it is Sunday. You know it is a day of rest." It was only in the past year that I realized it was the first time that I used my bed to escape my feelings.

This was to become a pattern with me, pop pills, and if they didn't work, pop more, and if they didn't work, use the ultimate candy gravol to sweeten the mix. My prescription for dealing with life. Pop pills, go to bed and sleep and make the world go away.
I was horrified in recovery when I found out that I had gone to a job interview and did a typing test. I typed 40 wpm because of the errors. The As and the Es looked like Os, or was that the Es and Os looked like As, or maybe it was the Es, looked like As and Os. In recovery, when I went back to school I typed 75 wpm. I went for a computer course. I ended up signing up for Business Administration and Accounting on Computers. What can I say, I am an addict! I still need the computer course to be able to do what I want to do on the computer and that is what I aiming for in today.

I got my Business Administration Certificate, but the stress and the process of the course and the job placement, triggered my fibromyalgai and I was unable to complete the accounting portion. What the course did teach me was that I had no desire to go back into the rat race, and unless I want to start my own business, I don't need the accounting. I also have the books for the course, if I need to do a follow up.

The lady that came into recovery had stopped working in 1988. The bosses son said, "I think your problem is that you take too many pills!" I said, "Well I wouldn't need those pills if I didn't have you and your dad to deal with; I wouldn't need the pills if you guys knew how to do your job, etc." My boss told the woman from Unemployment Service that he wanted another woman just like me to assist me on the job. (He started with two stores and ended up with five when I was working for him). She told him, "When they made JoAnne, they threw away the key, but I will see what I can do." I trained the new girl and he let me go because he figured she had my smarts now and he could pay her lest money. I didn't see that he was paying me for less hours when I phoned in sick and unable to produce on the job. He later requested me to go back when she quit on him. I went back for more money, and ended up trying to do the work of three people, and not being able to measure up, and as a result, I continued to use more. When I started, I was Ms. Super Woman and when I left, I was "Ms. Thankful for Correction Tape!

After I left that job, (my doctor said, "I can't help your migraines while you continue to work for that "A**hole" so I quit the job on a Monday, I felt better on Thursday and went to my bank and he had bounced my paycheck. Working for this guy, I had to change banks three times. I was running out of banks. I went to make an amend to him for my part "time I stole from him and my attitude" and when I went to get off the bus I found an "Out of Business" sign on the door. God does look after me, all I had to do was become willing. I do admit to a little bit of ego creeping in when I saw the sign and thinking he had not been able to operate without me. I had changed his filing system, designed his letterhead, redesigned the stationary and business forms, and although he called my Office Manager, I was more like a Girl Friday.

I was Secretary, Accounts Receivable and Payable, Payroll, Purchasing, Receptionist, and when he wasn't around, I was in charge of the Warehouse personnel.

Over the years, there wasn't a department in an office I didn't work in. A part of this I contribute to my addictive mind, I always seems to have a thirst, wanting to know more.

My drug of choice is more, so everything that I put into my using, I put into my recovery.

When I quit working, I slowly worked myself into a place of isolation. A new apartment, which was smaller, less light, and away from the center of the city.

From there I ended up in a room in the YWCA, because I gave my apartment to my son, who had lost his apartment. I lost track of my son for six months and didn't know where he was, and it was one of the most fearful times of life, and was a big contributing factor to my escalated using. Stop the world I want to get off, hide in oblivion so I don't have to think, worry, or wonder. I made a vow, never to have this happen ever again, and it resulted in my not being able to say no, and having no boundaries with him or others, because I didn't want to lose anyone again. It didn't matter that it wasn't done out of anger directed at me, it was a fear of abandonment which I didn't recognize.

We reconnected at the YWCA and he had a job and was taking me out to dinner and a movie on payday. As I got sicker, the time got shorter and then I got too "sick" to go out and he would just come to visit me for 10-20 minutes and leave. I was in total nothings, depression and completely stoned! I couldn't communicate with him. The anxiety had started in the apartment. Not wanting to walk three blocks to the grocery store, leaving the cart in the grocery store when the whole concept of shopping became overwhelming and I didn't know what I wanted (I can still find myself in today going totally blank), too many people in the store, too much noise (today I know that is part of my fribromyalgia), and very sensitve to the energies around me, especially smells. My next to last drinking bout was with my son and his friend (who died a few weeks later as a result of drinking, fixing his car in the garage and leaving the motor running) and his friend said, "Gee Kevin, we should go drinking with your mother more often, she is a lot of laughs!" Meanwhile, my son is wanting to crawl under his chair and doesn't know where to put his face when mother goes into memory lane and telling old stories. I had five rye and coke that night and wondered why I felt bombed. I didn't have any extra 'pills' that day because I knew I was going out drinking, with no thought of the fact that I had tyenol, tranquilizers, tegrital and gravol in my systems for many day prior to this occasion.

I was called the "Den Mother" of the fourth floor and girls were coming from the third and fifth floors to come to somone who couldn't help herself, but she could sit there and listen and be a dumping post. A good way to go into further depression, and a good escape so I didn't have to look at myself. The rest of the world was the problem, not me.

I was walking down the hall on August 8th, 1991 when I heard a girl, who called herself my 'unofficially' adopted daughter (I had three), say in response to the Social Workers question, "Why don't you want to take a Tyenol 3 for your migraine?" "Because, I don't want to be like her down the hall!" As I got to my room I thought, "I think she was talking about me! Am I really that bad?" and I realized I was. I picked up the phone and called the same Social Worker and asked for help for myself. I started to see her on a regular basis and she made me aware that my medication was inter-acting with each other, and that started the process of not abusing, and not using my medication. On August 20th, 1991, I went out to Kelsey's and had a steak dinner with this same girl and had a glass of wine. It was my last drink.

I use the 21st of August as my dry date, although I was still taking medication, as far as I know, I stopped abusing it. What I didn't know until later was that my doctor has been mistreating me. My social worker wanted to take away his licence but because he was my aunt's family doctor, I wouldn't let her take action. She wanted me to go into treatment at Mary Ellis, he wanted me to go to relapse prevention at the General Hospital. He told them I needed my medication and it wasn't his fault that I abused it. I filled out eight legal-sized pages of questions only to be told I didn't have a problem. I am not sure if it was because of the doctor or my own inability to be honest or a combination of both. It doesn't matter, I ended up where I was suppose to be, at Mary Ellis.

For me a burden shared is a load lessened.

[MajestyJo]

I couldn't understand the word 'powerless' until I substituted it with the word control. When I looked back at the times I tried to control, I realized that I tried to be safe, but got hurt anyways. Control was an illusion.

I was 10 when I stole a glass of communion wine. There was only about an inch in the silver goblet, but I wanted to see what I was missing (the story of my life) out on. I can still remember the feeling, which I call the warm fuzzies, that feeling that makes you go ahhhhhh! I was always looking for that feeling. The problem was when I found it, I could stop there I always had to have more. The first time I drank socially, I had eight rum and coke and it just brought me up to the same place I get in today on a natural high. I didn't drink again until I was 21 and got married. My church upbring told me it was a No No! When I was 14, I was baptized and my church used real wine for communion. I can remember trying to take a gulp and make it look like a sip. At the age of 16, I was put in the hospital for testing to see what was causing my headaches and the pains in my stomach. They came to the conclusion that I had a nervous disorder and put me on valium. When I started drinking, I took two 222s every night before I went to sleep if I had a lot to drink to prevent a hangover. Pills were dried up alcohol for me.

When I tried to quit drinking on my own I substituted pills for the alcohol. In the end I was doing both and on a death walk at the age of 49 when I came into recovery. Because of my relgious upbringing I had to deal with a lot of guilt beside letting go of the drugs and alcohol.

Everything growing up in the church was "thou shall not" and I had to give myself permission to live. I had to learn to endorse myself and say, "Hey, it is okay." I learned that just because I did stupid things, I wasn't stupid. It was okay to make a mistake. Just because I made one doesn't mean I was one. I wasn't a bad person trying to get good, I was a sick person trying to get better. I had to go through what I went through to bring me to where I was in today. My experience, strength and hope was meant to be shared with others.

When I quit smoking, I went back to church on an Easter Sunday. I had communion for the first time in many years. It was like I was making an ammend to my God for all those guilt feelings and fears of being struck down by the wrath of God and acknowledge Him as a loving God. I didn't go back for two years and when I did I found that church for me was for people who didn't have Twelve Step Programs. The people didn't identify and understand me but that was okay. That wasn't my purpose for being there. I generally went for the music and the singing. The minister's message I related to the program after all the Oxford Group was what the program was built on.

My drug of choice was more. More of what I am having, more of what you are having, a more of what ever comes my way.

That more in today can be my computer, food, work, reading (shutting out of the world), and going to bed. It doesn't matter what the substance is, it can lead to the same soul sickness as drugs, alcohol, gambling, and relationships.

Every time I picked up, I gave away a piece of myself.

Every time I was in a relationship, I lost my identity.

Every time I didn't work my program, I slipped mentally, emotionally and spiritually, even if I didn't slip physically.

When I came into recovery, I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what made me happy. I didn't know who I was, all I knew was what other people had projected onto me or their concept of who I should be and I was trying to fit the mold.

When I was in treatment, we were asked to do a collage (not sure if that is right spelling, a paper with pictures on it!). We were to portray how we felt inside, how we thought others saw us, how we thought we portrayed ourselves to others, and how we really wanted to look. It was amazing.

I found a picture which was all black and pale yellow was used in the background to indicate the profile of a gorilla surrounded by vines and thick jungle. A perfect portrayal of coming being in the darkness and just coming into the light.

I thought I portrayed the image of the girl next door!!! This is really funny considering I was raised to be a lady and spent most of my life trying to prove I wasn't. I had major resentment when the 'lady' came out because I didn't want to have any part of the religious teachings attached to her.

I thought that everyone saw me as an 'elderly' lady because I have been called 'mother since I was in my early thirties by people other than my son. He was born when I was 24, and I think I had a problem with that because everyone said I must have been a child bridge in order to have a son as old as he was. His birthdays always made me feel older than my own, because I never felt old. In today, I know it is because I never grew up and have always been young at heart, and then I found the Fountain of Youth when I came to recovery.

When I came through the doors of recovery at 49 I looked older than I did at 39. At 59, I looked younger than I did at 39. I never looked as good as I did at any time in my life as I did when I was 57. Maybe it was because I identified with the '57 Chevy which a big love of mine. The thing was the only difference between me and the girl in my collage was that she had blue eyes and mine are brown. I had the long blonde curly hair, the shine in the eyes, the clearness of self that she portrayed. God answers prayer. He has been very kind to me.

For someone who thought she was 'ugly' all of her life, it was a big step, to learn to identify myself and to learn to love the person I found within. Through the healing of the Fellowship and the Spirit of the program, I have healed. The Twelve Steps and Traditions have given me a new life, and one day at a time, as I become more aware, I am so grateful for all the gifts that have been given to me.

Just for today, I choose to live clean and sober. I get up in the morning, ask for help and give thanks at night. Just for today, I choose not to abuse myself and others and not let others abuse me.

Just for today, I trust my Higher Power, and through Him, I have learned to trust myself.

Just for today, I have choices. If I make the wrong choice, I can choose again. A day can start anytime. When I get honest, surrender and turn things over the the God of my understanding, things happen as they should be, not always as I would have them be.

When I can accept what is in today, I never had it so good. Things always seem to change when I get to that place of acceptance. To get there, I need to let go of expectations of myself and others.

Just for today, I choose not to use. It was important to acknowledge any craving and obsession I had in order to be able to let it go. I may have the feeling, it doesn't mean I have to act on it.

[MajestyJo]

Well I was the drug user, and they were like dried up alcohol for me. I didn't know I wasn't operating on all cylinders. I thought I was acting norm. I didn't realize that people looked at me and saw that I was stoned out of my tree.

I didn't feel high, I just wanted to shut off the pain, stop the world I wanted to get off because I was lonely and didn't see much purpose and direction in my life. I was put on valium at 16 at was the only way I knew how to deal with life's problems. I thought men were my problem, then I realized that my drinking got me into trouble and wanted to stop, but didn't know about recovery and tried it my way for 8 years, and as my drinking lessened, my pill intake increased. I stopped drinking for almost a year, but at the end I was back drinking and taking pills.

It wasn't until I had a spiritual awakening and heard a friend talking to the worker at the YWCA that I realized I had a problem. I believe until I was ready to hear, I wasn't capable of understanding and certainly in total denial with tunnel vision, which was somewhat impaired and deaf to any concept that the great I am was anything less than she had always been.

I shared with a friend this week that addiction to medication is difficult because unknown to me was the fact that the body manufactures the pain to tell you that you need more. More always seems to be totally justified, because "I have a pain you know, I have depression you know, I lost my job you know, I lost my boyfriend don't you know, I didn't sleep you know, etc."

There are always a lot of excuses but not a good reason to take more than prescribed. My family doctor was my supplier for 17years. I went into Relapse Prevention at our local hospital and they sent me home and said I didn't have a problem, my doctor said I needed the medication for my migraines, stomach disorder and my anxiety. Meanwhile he is going on holidays several times a year thanks to the kick back he gets for writing me a script!

All I did was sleep, I was not living I was existing. I use to be a very social person who became totally isolated and introverted. That may seem highly improbable to those of you who have got to know me here at ***, but when I came into recovery if I spoke you didn't hear me, if I spoke at all. It took almost two years for me to totally detox from the medications I was on so that I was thinking clearly and out of the fog. Then I learned I had fibromyalgia and I realized were some of the pain was coming from. In today, I still don't take pain medication for it. I do take a muscle relaxant, but I have to be careful, because it could be addictive too. It helps relax the muscles so I can sleep. I have periods when I have to up the dosage to the full amount to two a day to give my body the rest it needs, but more than that would be using. Sometimes I just do without the sleep and for me meditation is the biggest tool.

It gives me the conscious contact I need with my Higher Power. Often it is stress which triggers it, so I have to do what I call "defrag" my body and mind so I can relax and go to sleep. Look at the source, and why I am in the pain and what lead up to it. The Twelve Steps work for me when dealing with my chronic pain and fatigue.

Perhaps awareness can help you find the acceptance of the disease. Use the same tools that you used for his drinking, it doesn't matter what the substance is, it all leads to the same soul sickness. It doesn't have to be drugs and alochol, it can me gambling, food, shopping, working, etc. Anything that stand in the way of living this life the way my Creator would have me live it, becomes the "Lower Power" in my life, and it stands in the way of my recovery and communication with my Higher Power who can empower me to help myself.

Someone else can't do it for me, I had to do it myself. I had pushed my son, my sister and her family, even a lot of the women at the Y. It is bad when you become isolated in a room which is full of women. They use to call me the unofficial Den Mother of the fourth floor and people were coming from the third and the fifth too, and I was the caretaker, rescuer, and dumping post for all the people and I compounded my misery with everyone else.

[MajestyJo]

It was with some hesitation and fear that I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting. I said, “I am not sure I belong here, I am an Alcoholic. I have just been sober for four months. Thankfully one of the ladies said, “You are welcome, you are doubly blessed.”

I am the daughter of an alcoholic, who died as a result of his disease, (my mother died at the age of forty-one as a result of using food to deal with my father’s alcoholism). I was married to an alcoholic. I became an alcoholic, became my father’s drinking buddy at the age of 26. It was the first time I sat down and had a one on one conversation with him. I use to think I had my disease because he was an alcoholic, but in today I know that isn’t true. I have abandonment and rejection issues because he was never there, so how could he be responsible for my drinking when I only saw him drunk twice before the age of 21. If anything, I got my isms from my mother who didn’t have the tools to deal with living with an alcoholic. I married an alcoholic. It was an abusive relationship, and the abused became an abuser. I stayed in a bad relationship for seven years. My son is a self-admitted alcoholic, depending on which day you ask him.

At that first meeting, a dear lady told me, “You are responsible for your own happiness.” This was new for me. My attitude toward my husband was, “Perform, I am not happy, you are not doing your job.” This dear, dear woman had the nerve to tell me that it wasn’t his job and that I could no longer continue blaming him that I had to take responsibility for myself.

Thank God for the direction I was given to attend that first meeting. It has allowed me to heal a lot of old tapes and look at all the resentments, anger, and old tapes that happened long before I picked up my first drink. I told a friend, “Al-Anon is why I drank in the first place.” She said with laughter, “I have been in Al-Anon for twenty-five years and have never heard anyone make that statement.” I said, “It is true, it is all those mixed message and abuse that make me look for something outside of myself to make me feel better. The pain was there long before I picked up on a regular basis. I stole my first drink (a glass of communion wine) because I wanted to know what I was missing out on. The thinking was there long before there was a drinking problem. The guilt and shame was there for many years, and it wasn’t until I came into recovery that I was able to recognize it and find recovery though the Twelve Steps.

I saw my brother killed when I was three and he was two. I was calling to him to get out of the way of the truck that killed him, and I thought it was my fault he was killed because he was coming to me. It wasn’t until I was in recovery for ten years that my aunt told me that from the day he was born, (he was nine days short of a year younger than I was) I nominated myself as his caretaker. It was then I realized that I had been guilty of his death because he was in my care and I had allowed him to be killed. This disease is indeed cunning, baffling and powerful. Today, I realize that my son may choose to carry the message, “To use is to die.” Even though he has seen me in recovery for fifteen years, he says he will never go to NA or AA.

I am powerless over people, places and things. In today, the God of my understanding utilizes people, places and things to show me a better way of living, one day at a time.

My favorite slogan is, “Let it begin with me.” It isn’t about my son, but how I live my life and deal with it clean and sober. I can’t help my son, but I try to give back by going into the local jail and talk to Young Offenders and Adult prisoners. There were many years I wasn’t able to be there for him, but in today, thanks to this program I have been able to change. In the past, I feared change, but today I embrace it, because it allows me to grow and heal.

[MajestyJo]

As the saying, goes, that's not odd, that's God. I had phoned my sponsor twice and got a busy signal. Less than an hour later, she called me.

She has suggested that I put some of my stories down on paper. I don't know how often I will get new thought, but I will turn it over and see what comes up.
We have a lot in common and have been in similar circumstances in our life and can identify with each other. Both of us come from abusive marriages. Both physical and mental abuse.
Today, thanks to the program, I have learned not to accept abuse from others or from myself. Quite often the abused becomes the abuser. We get angry and we start hitting back. I know I did. For many years, it was all his fault. The only problem was, he left and I replaced him with husband number two. I thought they were as different as night and day. One was tall dark and handsome and came from a Caribbean background. The other one was Scottish, had freckles and red hair and was about three inches shorter, yet the temper was more violent when he was drinking. Number One used women, Number Two used alcohol, and I used right along with them. I cheated on my first husband (he could do it, so could I) and drank with the second.
Both had a habit of using me for a punching bag when they couldn't control that anger. My first husband hit me twice. My second husband hit me many times, tried to choke me to death and put me through a wall and left the imprint of my body in the wall plaster. It took three men to hold my second husband from coming at me over the table when we were playing cards because he didn't like the way I played my hand. When I won a trophy for District Euchre and Zone Cribbage for the Legion he celebrated that he taught me all I knew.
The biggest amend that I owed this man at the end of the marriage was that I had married him. I certainly didn't love and respect him and had married him for all the wrong reasons. I was looking for someone to keep me in the style that I would like to become accustomed and I was looking for a father for my son.
He never had time for my son and didn't try to communicate with him unless he was drunk then my son didn't want to have anything to do with him. He demanded respect from him but did nothing to earn it. He lost his job at the railroad three months after we were married and we ended up on welfare. We both went back to school. I got my grade 12. He quit to get an apprentice ship as a journeyman and 8 weeks before he was finished the company went bankrupt.
Whether it is to celebrate or morn a loss, it was all the more reason to drink. He tried to quit and he quit for nine months. I told him that I would stop along with him to give him support because it wouldn't be easy go to bed with someone smelling of booze. Of course, he was the one with the problem and I was doing him a favor. The truth that came out in recovery was that I couldn't stop, and took a drink once in a while. He started back drinking by having a glass of wine with me at a meal. I could stop, but I could never stay stopped. When he started again, the violence got worse and he started hanging out with the boys and was gone until the wee small hours of the morning. I put up with that, didn't really care if he was gone although a part of me resented the fact that he was drinking and I wasn't. I finally put an end to the marriage by kicking him out when he complained when I bought food for my son instead of giving him the money for beer. I was waiting for the right time to kick him out, but never found one. Finally with no food and 50 cents in my wallet, I said, "Leave and don't come back." I went over to the Legion to talk to my friend who was bartending. I didn't have a drink had a can of coca-cola (my first addiction) because I didn't have the money to add the rye. I hated beer. Never drank more than one beer in my life. Couldn't stand the taste or the smell, therefore, I couldn't be an alcoholic. I drank my rye with coke and I never drank it straight, so I wasn't an alcoholic. Why should I when my first love was coca-cola.
When I talked to my friend, I felt the tears coming and I told her I had to leave because I didn't do tears. I knew it was anger and feeling sorry for myself because I didn't regret what I had done, was just wondering what I was going to do. When I got home, I thought, why should I give him the power, why should I sit here alone and boohooing, and started back to the Legion. I think a part of me knew that I could get a drink bought for me. On my way to the Legion, I met my friend's husband who was Vice-President of the Legion and he was in Legion Uniform. We went back to my apartment and he presented me with a Food Voucher for $50 to get me food in the IGA which was next to the Legion, until I could get money from Mother's Allowance. God was looking after me when I wasn't even aware of His Presence.
It was difficult living in a small village with him always around. I came home one night and he was sitting at my back door waiting for me and asking me where I had been and what was I doing out so late. I was very grateful when he moved to the city but I had no car, no job, and no way to get to one. I made the decision to leave and join most of my family who lived in Hamilton. I had left the farm when I was 17, lived in Hamilton until I was 26, and then went back to the farm. My dad sold the farm when my son was 7, just before I met my ex. When I people found out I was going with him, people said, "What are you doing going out with that drunk? A year later I married him. I blamed it on my mother-in-law. If she had kept her mouth shut I would have been quite happy to let things go and figured I could break off the relationship when it was good for me. She told him to choose her or me and he chose me!
I came to Hamilton in 1983. It took me eight years to find the program. I eventually found a job. Got Bells Palsy and because my face was paralyzed my boss fired me because I was his secretary/receptionist and had to deal with the public. The last job I had ended in 1988 when I tried to do the work of three people and because I could keep up, I started using more and more. I had tried to quit drinking over this period but I substituted pills. They were like dried up alcohol.
I didn't have black outs with alcohol, but I did with pills. I didn't isolate with alcohol but I did with pills. I stopped living and I only existed, marking time and thinking my life was over. I pushed my family away. My son came and take me out for dinner and then to a show on payday. I ended up too sick to go. Meanwhile, I was totally stoned. It kept taking more and more to get me out of my bed and functioning only to wanting more to go back to sleep. I used my bed for years. It was a good way to hide from reality. Shut the world out, I want to get off this merry-go-round. I don't want to know what makes the world go round, and round, and round. I finally got to that place of being sick and tired of being tired and sick. It wasn't until I heard the young girl who called herself my unofficially adopted daughter say, "I don't want to be like her down the hall." I had to stop and think, "Am I really that bad? The answer was, "Yes I am!" That was when I picked up the phone and asked for help. That was my day of surrender, August 8th, 1991. I had a glass of wine with a steak dinner on the 20th with this same girl. The 21st is my dry date, and went to my doctor and asked to be taken off all of my medication. He said I needed it and I had to work with the Social Worker at the YWCA to get the help I needed. I took my last pill the day I went into recovery at Mary Ellis House. I take the date of the 21st because I stopped abusing all substances. It wouldn't have been healthy for me to quit everything at once. I went into treatment November 2nd of 1991 and graduated December 13th. I didn't think the time would ever go by. How could I possibly live with ten women for six weeks in the same house? When it came time to go, I didn't want to leave. I went back to the YWCA and moved into my first apartment at 6 months clean and sober. It was a bachelor apartment. I borrowed dishes and pots and pans. I was given a mattress and I slept on the floor but it was the most freeing move I have ever made in my life. It was my space. It had a two burner stove and I kept blowing the fuses. I couldn't have the oven on and the burners. You couldn't use the toaster or the electric frying pan with more than one element going. Many hours I sat in the dark waiting for the landlady to come home to give me light. Yet it was okay. I went to two meetings a day for two years. The Area Social Club was just up the street and I was able to go to meetings morning and night. Thanks to my worker, I applied for disability and after being turned down and appealing, I was put on disability.
I did the do things. I went to meetings, got a sponsor, got a group and got active. I didn't get a group until after I was three months. There were several groups I liked; I was looking for a place I could feel spiritually connected. I joined the Women's Discussion Group. I came to realize that I was angry at men, resented and couldn't stand Women, but they seemed the lesser of two evils. I had to learn to communicate with them. I had been a single mom, a person who worked all her life and never stayed at home until the end of my using and then I was surrounded by women. I drank and worked with the men. Most men thought the group was a bunch of men bashers, as a friend of mine said, "We don't hate men, we love men; that is our problem, we need to detach from them so we can heal." Many women who had been abused couldn't do meetings with men, but I had no problem and I went all over the city to meetings. My co-sponsor said, "Stick with the winners, be with the long-timers." I told her there were few women who went to meetings other than there own, so I traveled to find these women. A lot of the men I met at these groups too and because they went to all the meetings I knew a lot of them. Gossip nearly drove me out of the rooms. I had more blackouts in recovery than I ever had when I was drinking. I was wedded and bedded so many times I couldn't keep track. Someone said, "JoAnne, can I go with you to the AA Head Office." Everyone laughed, (we were at the meetings I started at 3 years sober) and said, "If you are seen with her people with think you are an item." It was even funnier because he was gay and hadn't officially come out of the closet. I sponsored a gay guy at one time, and they felt safe at the meeting. We had seven meetings in six days. The group was called 'Freedom of Recovery' and was registered with New York. Two people took over the meeting in 2001 when I went back to school, but sadly it eventually closed. No one could give it the commitment that I could. I sometimes feel guilty, yet I know I was meant to go back to school. It brought more changes and growth in me. Most of my recovery had been all about recovery and I was able to find some balance and start doing other things like playing bridge. Getting a computer and meeting a whole new set of friend on the internet.
For two winters I was unable to go out during the winter and the people on line saved my life. I was able to do service and share with others, and although you can't beat face to face meetings, it sure is better than none. I still picked up the phone. I still had a sponsor, in fact over the years I have had an Al-Anon and NA Sponsor as well as an AA Sponsor and Spiritual Adviser. It was important for me to have a strong network of support. They say some are sicker than others. I was one of the really sick ones. You would think that I wrote the book on denial.

This is the result. Thanks for letting me share.

[MajestyJo]

When I came into recovery, I went to two meetings a day for two years. It took that long for me to find acceptance of my disease and remove the blanket of denial.

I had to stay away from speaker meetings because I compared instead of identifying and I stayed sick. I went to topic discussion meetings, 12 & 12 meetings and Big Book meetings.

I had a long-timer tell people at a meeting to throw away the 12 & 12 because all the recovery they needed was in the Big Book. If I had just read the Big Book, I don't think I would have stayed sober, it is the tool of the Twelve Steps and Traditions Book, which I apply to my own life which kept me sober and allowed me to find sobriety.

People say the traditions are for the groups, but they have spiritual principles that I can apply to my life the same as the Steps. This is a living program, not a 2-4 hour program, but a twenty-four hour program. Words me nothings if they aren't followed by action.

The best way to stay clean and sober is "Not to pick up!" All substances are inanimate objects until such a time as I make the decision to participate and injest in the action following the decision. I also have a decision to make a decision to turn my life over to my Higher Power and work the rest of the steps into my life on a daily basis.

My spiritual advisor 12 years ago told me that if I kept one hand in the hand of a newcomer and the other hand in my Higher Power, I wouldn't have any hands free to pick up, whatevery substance I chose. That is still true today and we are both sober and he will God willing celebrate 48 years at the end of this year. I was gifted with the presence of several long-timers who had met Bill, Bob and Lois. I have gone to Al-Anon for twelve years as well.

A long-timer who had 25 years in the program went to meetings every day. He said, "I used every day, so I go to a meeting every day!" Another long-timer said, "Don't keep such an open mind that everything falls out of it!"

I remember the 'taste' of my very first drink. I also remember the guilt because it was communion wine. I search for years for that feeling, and many times I found it but I couldn't stop there, I always had to have more. Yet I never drank more than one beer in my life, I never had a black out with alcohol, I could drink from noon until closing and walk a straight line or drive on my own side of the road going home. I know I had cops follow me home and not pull me over. I never drank my booze straight, I always mixed it with coca-cola, and I hated gin and I know a few will shutter at this, but in order to drink a glass of scotch once I added a 1/2 tsp of sugar. I hated the taste of beer and added coca-cola to it, and all it did was make the cola taste awful. I stayed in denial about being an alcoholic for two years after I came into recovery because I didn't want to wear a label I put on my dad and my ex-husband. Today I know they were drunks, I was the alcoholic. They had a drinking problem, I had a thinking problem. I was the one who finished her husbands beer because he was too drunk to finish what was in the bottle. I was the one with the resentment that they drunk so much and passed out and I wanted to party and had to hide some away in the cupboard so I could continue to drink, I was the one that could match them drink for drink and bring them home, and still want more.

When I made the decision at 41 to quit drinking I didn't know about AA and I substituted with prescription drugs. They had been a part of my life for years also. I firmly believed that two 222s with my last drink helped me not to have a hangover and I didn't normally get them. I was put on valium at the age of 16. When I made the decision to quit drinking, I had consumed two 60 oz. bottles of white wine and a mickey of rye the day before. I would quit for about three months and then go out and reward myself with a bottle of Crown Royal, but I could never stay stopped. This is a progressive disease. When I moved into the YWCA before coming into recovery, I wasn't allowed to have alcohol on the premises, so my pill using escalated. Then I found myself going out (which was unusual because I had become very isolated) to have some wine with dinner and a couple of times had a few drinks with my son. I was on tyenol 3s about 10 a day, 18 mg. of tranquilizers 3 a day were perscribed, and I was generally taking at least two more a day, gravol when everything wasn't working fast enough, along with what the doctors call carbamazipine and the dealers call tegrital (not sure of spelling). The first pill I took I called the doctor to see if I should feel like I was walking 10 inches off the floor, he suggested I take a half pill. Being the good addict that I was, I took them as prescribed three a day. If these pills won't work in five months, they will never work and won't do the job, my doctor had me on them for five years. At his suggestion whent he social worker at the Y suggested that I go to treatment asked that I go to our local General Hospital and go to Relapse Prevention. I filled out eight legal sized pages of questions and had an interview, and they told me I didn't have a problem. My doctor said, "She needs that medication for her nervous disorder and migraines." The body manufactures the pain to tell you that you need more. In recovery, I was put on Imitrix for my mygraines and I became immune to them, I was taking the maxium dosage and they weren't doing the job. Sound familiar, think I heard that a few times in AA. When the elixar stops working, we keep looking for more.

I was always looking outside of myself to find something that would make me feel better. I couldn't cope with life at 16, by the time I came into recovery at 49, I was barely existing, let alone coping. When I moved out of the YWCA, I moved into my first bachelor apartment with 8 bags of what was called "Newfy luggage" to show for 49 years of living, one month shy of my 50th birthday. I had a tri-lite and a little square end table, I borrowed dishes and a mattress to sleep on the floor. I had four walls, and I had never been happier in my life. I had a stove with two burners and an oven which you couldn't put on at the same time. I would blow fuses all the time and have to wait for the landlady came home to have light. Yet I wasn't sitting in the dark, I had Light in my soul. I was free.

In today, I have the freedom from active addiction one day at a time. I am free to be myself. I now have a one bedroom apartment, I am on disability, and I have a new man in my life the past year who loves me for who I am, not as I see myself some days, but as he sees me. I have been sick for the last two years, many excuses to go out and use, but no reason to pick up. I owe it all to AA. I also went to NA, but AA is where my denial was, so I went there for my sobriety. I go to Al-Anon for the stinking thinking and to change my old tapes and to find myself. I am a daugher of an alcoholic father who died as a result of his disease. The daughter of a mother who died as a result of her overeating and they both died from heart disease. I was married to an alcoholic and I have a son who is a self admitted alcoholic and pot smoker.

Just for today, I do what ever it takes to stay clean and sober. For me, that means soundness of mind, at peace with my Creator, and in today, as long as I stay sober; I am granted freedom of choice and empowered to be Co-Creator of my own life.

When I surrendered, found acceptance and got honest, I found that my Higher Power and the Fellowship of the Spirit of all programs that I attend, gives me the freedom to be me and to 'live' in today. Each year of my recovery has been the best year of my life. I hope you can say the same. Life still happens, it doesn't get better, I do.

[MajestyJo]

This addict used alcohol, pills and men.

I recalled a story last night when talking to a friend. I wasn't even drinking, and didn't realy drink much back then, and hadn't had a drink all day.

My husband had hit me and I called my aunt to come and get me. I got a call from my husband's first cousin asking me if I wanted to go to Carabana. It was the first time that Carabana appeared in Ontario. I was hurt and bruised and I said sure. He was staying with my husband's mother and we got back there and no one was around and the two of us "made out" in my mother-in-law's bed. She never liked me when I was with her son, but after we broke up she was all friendly probably because she wanted to see her grandson. Her grandson hadn't even been conceived though when this happened.

My aunt belong to a church called Bethany Gospel Hall and I went there with her and was later married in this church. It had a drive in church service on Sunday nights, so he took me there to meet my aunt so I could go home with her. We just pulled into a parking spot at the rear and along comes my husband, parks beside us, and get in the passenger side of the car. There I was, sitting in the middle of my husband and his cousin who I had just had sex with. :( My husband said he wanted to talk to me, that he was sorry, and la, di, da and little old me took him back. This same cousin married my husband's sister, (two first-cousins marrying each other and have two kids) and became my brother-in-law for a short time, but shortly after their wedding my divorce went through. My son was conceived on the rebound, when I was pregnant my husband resumed his running around (he ran around with another woman when we were seven months marred and fessed up to that and I forgave him) and the night my son was born, he was with another woman and when son was two months old he moved in with her. I had only changed one diaper in my life before my son was born. I was terrified. I went and stayed with a girlfriend so she could show me how it was done. The first night home, my husband slammed the bedroom door at 8:30 p.m. and said, "Keep that kid quiet, I want to go to sleep I have to get up in the morning to go to work!" He had sold all our furniture which I had bought as a part of my trousseau and moved us into a furnished apartment. When he left the landlady didn't want a single mom living there and I had to leave. The first time of six that I started my life from scratch. We only drank on pay day if we went out some where and when we had a party which I think was twice. I went with a guy for a year afterward and only had one glass of champagne during that relationship, but when I moved back up home when my son was two, I became my father's drinking buddy.

It showed me last night that it was about "If you don't love me, I will find someone who does!" I thought I was less than, not loveable or my husband wouldn't have run around on me. He told me I had ugly legs and that is one of the old tapes I have had trouble getting by with my swollen feet and legs.

I have been truly blessed by having my friend in my life. Last night he said, "Right now there is no place in this world I would rather be!" My friend called while I was out and when I returned her call she informed me that she planned to marry the man she has in her life in July 2006 if not sooner if finances permit. She said, "My boyfriend was invited and I said, "If he doesn't run away before then, and he replied, "There is no fear of that!" He has asked me to speak for his 5 year CA anniversary on July 30th. It will be the first time I have spoken in front of a room as an addict. I have spoken over 60 times in AA. I was sharing with a guy I knew from NA who started CA here in Hamilton, and he said, "We will get to hear a new story." I said, "No you will get to hear an old story in a new way!"

Posted in January 2007 on Recovery Inn

Thanks for letting me share.

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[MajestyJo]

God wants you to know that ... you haven’t opened all your gifts yet.

This reminds me of a story I heard many years ago in recovery. It was on the old site, but don't think I posted it on the new. I don't have it to copy, so hopefully I can remember it.

An old person, down in his/her luck, walked into what looked like an abandon's building. Downstairs, he found a room full of manure, and thought with all this chit around here, there must be something buried in here. Maybe there even may be a pony, so he got down on his knees, went through it all with his hands and could find nothing. He kept trying can't believing that there wasn't something there, it couldn't be all waste.

He got up and left the room. He saw some stone steps, and their were twelve of them. So he climbed the stairs and came to this room that was filled with Light, and in the room there were gifts of all shapes and sizes, all wrapped up in silver and gold.

He said, "Is there anyone here?" The voice answered and told him to come in. The voice says, they are gifts that people rejected because they were not willing to climb the 12 Steps. They are yours if you are willing to accept them. If you don't want them, because you don't think you are worthy, you can go back down the steps, be careful that you don't fall, and go back to the other room and play in all the chit that is there.

There are many gifts and blessing in recovery. Are we willing to use the Steps in order to receive them or do we prefer to rummage around in our own chit or that of others, without asking for help, not willing to do the work to achieve this priceless gift of recovery.

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[MajestyJo]

Abba Antony said: Whoever sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: those of hearing, speaking, and seeing.

And then there is only one war left in which to fight, and that is the battle for your own heart.

Sayings of the Elders. PL. 73. 858.

Really like this. My thought was "There is solitude, isolation, and shutting down." They are part of my disease. Taking time out can be good. It also depends on why we need to take that time out, is it from burn out or just because we need a rest.

It is good to detach, think things out, then move on, not always best just to stay there. When we stay, we become complacent.

We can be in a roomful of people and feel alone. We can be in an empty room, and not feel lonely.

Isn't it nice when you see someone else's quote, and it gives you food for thought and soul.

They say if we are isolated, we can't get to God and He can't get to us. When we shut out negative feelings, we are shutting out the positive ones too. When I stuffed my feelings, I also stuffed positive ones, and didn't allow myself to feel.

When I look back now it makes me sad, to think of how much joy I missed out on in my life.

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[MajestyJo]

Acceptance

When we have given our lives back to our Higher Power, we gradually learn to accept what happens to us as part of His plan. Most of us made a mess of trying to run our own lives. We are amazed at how much better things go when we acknowledge that the Power greater than ourselves is in control.


This quote from today's Overeaters Anonymous today, reminds me that it doesn't matter what Fellowship I choose to belong to, or not belong to, I still need my God, He is the solution.

The program is adaptable to all forms of dis-ease, and what we choose to pick up to make it feel all better, going without instead of within.

Just for today, I choose not to use. Just for today, I choose to go to my Higher Power and ask Him to get me through this day, without abusing myself and/or others.

I was in so many abusive relationships, because I didn`t know that I had the right to be me, set boundaries, and freedom of choice. I didn`t know I could say `No`and stand up for my beliefs, right or wrong.

Acceptance is the key to all of my problems in today. If I can`t find it within me, I need to pray, and ask for the willingness to be accepting.

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[MajestyJo]

Today's Reminder from Courage to Change:

My thoughts are my teachers. Are they teaching me to love and appreciate myself and others, or are they teaching me to practice isolation? Today I will choose my teachers with great care.

"Live and let live" sets us free from the compulsion to criticize, judge, condemn and retaliate...[which] can damage us far more than those against whom we use such weapons. Al-Anon helps us to learn tolerance rooted in love.

- This Is Al-Anon

February 2, 2011

My thoughts are energy and what I think, I put out to the Universe. What I put out comes back to me.

So much of it calls for good motive and intent. Do I have good intentions towards myself and others. What is my motive for saying and doing what I do (did)?

All pause for thought!

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[MajestyJo]

When I re-read the quote, the thought that came to mind was, "Just because I had a feeling or a thought, didn't mean I had to act on it. That was something I had done wrong all of my life. I would see or hear and would immediately presume you were looking or talking about me and often in defence, I felt like I had to retaliate.

There was very little stop before you speak. I would hear things and perceive them as derogatory and hurtful, and would either want to pay you back or would burst out in tears and role play to the hilt. All in response to "It is your fault, look at what you made me do, if you hadn't done that, I wouldn't have...."

I took everything personal. I used my thoughts to beat myself up royally and I used your words as I perceived them to be, which were never validated, to put myself down, or I would hit back and put you down to make me feel better.

An ugly world, an unkind place, and I am glad I don't have to go there any more. I don't have to buy into other people's game and I don't have to role play and be someone I am not.

I had to heal those thoughts. I had to change the thinking. I had to allow myself to heal and forgive myself. Often it was my disease acting out. Many times it was all I knew and what I heard growing up and didn't know my thoughts were outdated.

I had to learn to allow others to have their thoughts. I just had to learn not to buy into them and give them power over me. It was important to not give up my own power. Power that I didn't know I had.

Have found over the years that I have learned to hesitate and meditate before I speak. That is a real departure from the old me, even in recovery, I wanted to tell people, who it should be done!

For me to walk away and not react was and is a big step for me. I still may come back and share my own experience, strength, and hope. It just won't be done with resentment and anger. I have always been a person who has believed in standing up for what she believes in. For too many years, mum was the word and it all festered inside, only to explode in anger and hate. I am a firm believer in it isn't about what you say, it is about how you say it. When you let go of the anger and always having to be right, things can be stated in truth. Agreeing to disagree was a wonderful tool in recovery.

:61:

[MajestyJo]

To an alcoholic, changing drinks is like changing cabins on the Titanic. - Unknown origin

This reminded me of my ex-husband who generally drank beer because he became violent when drinking hard liquor.

Me I didn't like beer, had trouble getting beyond the taste and the smell. Yet drank one on occasion, and one night when my husband was too drunk to finish his beer, I drank it rather than leave it on the table.

Comparing myself to him almost killed me. Comparing myself to others in recovery, kept me sick. Thinking I was better than some because I didn't use what they did. Feeling less than because of my track record with men on my quest for more love, attention, and wanted them to keep my in the style I wanted to be accustomed to.

Alcohol is alcohol no matter what the brand. Some just went down smoother than others. When I went to a certain Legion, they had one of my favorite's on tap, Johnny Walker's Gold. Every time I went there, I got royally p*ssed, even so, I would never let my husband drive home, mainly because he was in worse shape than I was.

When I tried to quit drinking, I escalated my pill intake. Instead of being p*ssed, I walked around stoned. In the end, I was starting to drink again.

I was grateful that I got so sick smoking Wacky Tabbacky, I might not have lived to make it to the doors of recovery.

I left AA at one time because there were so many people on pill and pot maintenance and I didn't have any tolerance toward them. I went to NA. I figured if I was going to be around people who used drugs, I might as well be there. I loved their literature when I discovered it in treatment in 1991.

I ended up going to Al-Anon and went to AA and NA as required. I went to AA for my denial. I go to NA for identification. I go to Al-Anon for my recovery. Now that I am on the internet, I have 3-333 reasons to go to Al-Anon.

Don't pick up, no matter what!

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[MajestyJo]

I like that the principles are all the same no matter what fellowship you belong to. For me, the common denominator are the 12 Steps, which for me are the tools of recovery and common to all fellowship. They may change a few words here and there, yet it still asks us for the same thing.

When I think recovery, I think AA. It was AA that I went to twice a day for two years. It was AA that I went to and immersed myself in, 24 hours a day because I was told it was a 24 hour a day program, not a 2-4 hour a day program.

I had to look at all areas of who I was. An adult child of an alcoholic and a mother who was a food addict. The ex-wife on an alcoholic. The mother of a still practicing, self-admitted addict and alcoholic. I was sponsor to 5 women, two who died from their disease, what one is still using, another who is in and out of recovery and when she is clean, will often call me and I run into her at the mall, and another one who I suggested that she get another sponsor. I told her I couldn't be a sponsor if she didn't want to work an AA program. We still connect in today either by phone or by e-mail.

As I have said many times, "I went to AA for my denial." I always knew I was an addict.

It was important to know that alcohol was not my only problem. It was even more important to know that the drug wasn't the problem, the problem was me. The substance is but a symptom of my disease.

Alcoholism affects so many people. It is a shame that more people are not filling the rooms of recovery. It seems like they can't get past the blaming of the alcoholic and not being able to recognize their own problems. As I heard earlier today, "It is rooted in the self!" Quit looking outward and start looking inward.

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[MajestyJo]

Love doesn't just sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.
—Ursula K. LeGuin

I looked outside of myself for years to find love. What I came to realize when I came into recovery, and my son got caught up in his addiction, I passed a lot of my fears along to him. I did not know how to express love, our family was not demonstrative. My sister's and I had a reunion, it was sad, not a hug to be found.

A saying I heard more years ago than I care to remember, about a little boy who was asked who God was. He replied, Teacher, everyone knows, God is a feeling."

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If I had to add a feeling to God. It would be love. It is unconditional, forgiving, and caring.

God is as He reveals Himself to me in today. The key for me, is to keep looking for Him. When I think I KNOW who God is, I might just stop looking and listening for Him.

I looked for love and happiness and in recovery, I found it was an inside job.

God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for this food. For the food and everything else in my life. He has been very good to me.

God is Good. Good is God. God is Love. Love is God.

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