Posted in June 2011

All I can do is try to be the best me I can be in today. When I stay clean and sober, I have the option.

How I handle each situation is between me and God if I let Him in and ask for His Care and Direction.

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When I grew up, I was isolated on the farm. When I went to high school, I was really fearful as there were more kids in my home group than there were in the whole of my rural one-room school. It was a real culture shock. We had to catch the bus to come home so we never could participate in things. We lived 13 miles away and if you missed the bus you were out of luck.

When I came home at 26 from the city my father said, "You use to be such a quiet young thing and now you are making up for lost time." I had my party years from 26-31 when I remarried. That too was a lot of party time too, mostly at home or the Legion. I made myself get up and welcome strangers. It was like feel the fear and do it anyway, but back then I had alcohol to give me the courage. It became false courage and I no longer was an extrovert, I became an introvert.

I am so glad that I can socialize in today. I had a lot of healing to do. Service really helped me in this area.

When I got sober, if I spoke no one could here me. When I was using, I could get up and address a roomful of people and I was the Sports Officer and put on cribbage, darts, bowling and euchre tournaments.

When I first got up to speak, people were shocked that I could get up and tell my story. I still had a couple of members from my group, come into a large AA meeting and saw me in front of the group speaking,and couldn't believe it. They came up and gave me a hug, told me they were in shock and told me that they enjoyed my sharing.

For me, it is a miracle. I don't do the speaking, I am but a channel.

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Forgiving or Resentful

"The purpose of resentment is judgment. When judging ceases,
so does the resentment. - - AA saying

"Forgiveness of others is a gift to yourself". - - AA saying

to forgive:
1. To excuse for a fault or an offence; pardon.
2. To renounce anger or resentment against.

to resent:
1. Be offended by, be angry about, take offence at
2. Bear a grudge, to feel bitter, indignant, or aggrieved at.

This wasn't and still isn't an easy task for me. It even mentions in my horoscope that Aries people are slow to forgive. It seems to be the nature of the beast, so it was something I had to take to my God.

I no longer resent the people from my past. I no longer resent 'some' of the issues from my past, although there are some that still come to mind, and I have to keep working on them.

Sometimes things happen in today and when I feel upset, I often find that there is a link into my past that is triggering it or it is compounded interest and an issue I haven't dealt with yet. I am so glad that this is a one day at a time program and that I can continue to work on these issues when they appear. I didn't get sick in one day. I don't heal in one day. I am human and make mistakes. I am grateful that my God is a forgiving one. I always need to remember that if He can forgive, why can't I?

When I find myself resentful, I know that the program says that I need to pray for the person(s) until it goes away. The situation doesn`t change, it is me and my attitude that changes.

I found that I had to forgive the person, the act wasn`t always forgiveable, but need to be let go of. The longer I hang onto it, I stay sick and it continues to burden my outlook and my day to day living. Do I want to keep my life in turmoil and live in chaos.

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For so many years, I looked outside of myself for something or someone, to make me feel better. When I think of it, it shows that the thinking is the nature of my disease.

It was so important, especially in times of chaos, to go within and connect with my God, and find peace and the good orderly direction I need to move forward, or the peace of mind to stay where I was, waiting for God's Will, instead of charging forward on my own, and trying to make things happen, and make it all go away, now if not sooner.

Let go of the fear, and when you go within, you can come from a place of faith.

Thanks for letting me share.

Know that my body and mind are not acting the way they are suppose to. Self care is so important, I ignored it for years, and as a result of not listening to it and being honest, I am paying the piper now.

Self-honesty is so important. Just glossing things over, and pretending it isn't happening, is not good. I found myself slipping back into old patterns and behaviors.

Today when I was lying on the hospital bed, I found myself angry and very agitated because my doctor wasn't there and how dare he keep me waiting there. Ouch! So I decided to do the colour meditation that I was taught to do in treatment. When I close my eyes, I see darkness and then, I generally go through the colour spectrum starting with red, other times, I go to green, blue, or indigo before I see the healing power of the white light.

Today I saw the red and new it was anger. An all time first happened today, it was weird and strange. It was like I was seeing down the tunnel of my throat, and it was all red, but it was like a red tunnel and it was in motion, and it looked clear. When I got the results of the scope, I was told it was normal.

It was light go of the anger, fear, resentment, etc. and trust my God. Knew He was with me, and it was like He was showing me I had nothing to fear.

When the doctor did come, they moved me around, stuck something in my mouth, and the next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room and was told to sit up and get dressed. I woke up feeling great, don't know what they gave me, and don't care. I don't think it was a narcotic because I didn't have a heaviness from the after affects. He stated in the room to the other doctor that I was clean and sober 22 years.

Thanks for letting me share.

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Shared this on another site:

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Can identify with this. I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. If I stopped alcohol, I substituted other things, like food, pills, work, and busy as a whole, something to take me out of the moment so I didn't have to feel, be accountable, or acknowledge what was going on in my life.

When I got to my first anniversary, I was told, "Now the work really begins."

Once I detox, I was told that it took 11 months, I had some clarity and could start to have self-honesty and see the picture for what it was. It wasn't the alcohol,, it wasn't the prescription drugs, it was the thinking that was the problems and I have even more issues to deal with.

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Who am I in today? Who do I want to be? Who is the God of my understanding? Do I build a daily relationship with Him/Her? Who am I keeping company with? They say, "Stick with the winners. Any one who stays sober for 24 hours is a winner. Winners are also people who put together, one 24 hour on top of another.

What I did 20+ years ago, is still applicable in today. What I did 20 hours ago is needed in today. This is a 24 hour a day program. Just for today, I choose not to use people, places and things. Who I was in the past, isn't who I am in today.

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They say non-alcoholic beer, but in truth there is .05% alcohol
My husband may have got drunk, but it isn't up to me to say he is an alcoholic. He got drunk, he got violent, he had black outs which I never had. I remembered everything, often I wished I didn't.

I stayed in my denial about my own disease because I always compared myself to him and my dad and I didn't want to wear a label I had put on them. In today, it doesn't matter whether he is an alcoholic, or my father was an alcoholic who died as a result of his disease (he had angina and his nitro glycerine were all over the dresser and the floor when they found his body) in it, just enough to start a craving.

I have known several people who have relapsed because of it.

Personally, I hated beer. Never drank more than one from the time I was ten and tasted my first drink (communion wine I stole) and my last drink a glass of white wine with my dinner on August 20, 1991.

It helped nurture my denial, I can't be an alcoholic, I don't like beer! Yet when my husband was too drunk to finish his last beer, I would empty the bottle rather than leave it on the table. Today I know he was a drunk, I am the alcoholic with the stinking thinking.

A friend in a time of need, is a friend indeed as they say.

That is our disease. It tells us we don't have it. We are just "fine" and if you don't know what that means, the polite words are, "Fearful, insecure, neurotic and enjoying it!" There are varying versions, but it all means the same.

We are our own worst enemy and no one hurts us more than we hurt ourselves over the years. It is time to stop running, stop hurting, and let go of the past, a day at a time. We don't pretend it didn't happen, in fact in recovery, it is one of our biggest assets. Been there done it, don't have to go back there, but we can share with someone else what it was like, what happened and what it is like today.

I am not my actions when I was in active addiction. When I came into recovery, I didn't know who I was. One of the greatest gifts I was given were the words, "God doesn't make no junk!" I am not a bad person trying to get good; I am a sick person who is suffering from a disease over which she has no power over, who is trying to heal and get better.

Through the Grace of the God of my understanding, the Fellowship of the Spirit of several Twelve-Step Programs, I am healing one day at a time. I try not to look at how far I have to go, but how far I have come, and that I am a walking miracle, who hasn't drank or drugged for one day, I haven't used another person or place (my bed) to escape my own reality, and I have learned to live in today, one day at a time.

This was on my site The Spirit of Healing

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

--The Wicked Queen

"Ugly, ugly!" This is often what we think as we look in the mirror. There are days when we feel ugly no matter how we comb our hair or wear our clothes. There are days when we feel like mistakes dressing up as people.

Criticizing ourselves on the outside is usually caused by the way we feel inside. When we measure ourselves by our physical appearance, we will always feel let down. No one can always be the fairest of them all.

Slowly we are beginning to understand how our real glow comes from the inside. We are meeting people in recovery who aren't beauty contest winners on the outside but who shine because of their personalities and their positive energy.

Today let me accept myself as a lovely person, inside and out.

One day I was walking to the doctors, and I passed two mentally challenged people sitting on a park bench. One said to the other, "Remember one day at a time!" I told my cousin, "I found this new concept! You just live one day at a time!" and she said, "Doesn't everybody do that?"

One day last fall I came limping into my building, very much into the, "Oh, Woe is Me" Syndrome, " and a woman was sitting in the lobby. Her first day out of her apartment since she had her foot amputated. She died as a result of that operations just after Christmas.

I must remember to be grateful, I have a leg to swell. I have a program to live, and I too have special people in my life who love me, even when I have those fat and ugly days.

Written in 2004.

Heard a girl share, "How many times did I drink to someone else's health?"

How little I was aware of what it was doing to my own. My father fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and a glass or bottle in the other, I lived in fear with him for ten years. My husband became loud, abusive and violent when he drank. I compared myself to them. If you didn't see me drink it, unless you knew me really well, you wouldn't have known I drank.

The reality was, I could out drink them both and I had the resentment when the booze was gone, they were passed out, and there was nothing left for me.

I had the thinking problem, not a drinking problem like they did!

I had to learn to give myself permission to do certain things, AFTER I examined my motive and intent behind what was happening. My friend says nothing is good or bad, it is the intent and motive behind the thought and action which makes it good or bad for you.

I used my bed for years. Whenever I couldn't deal with life, reality and the situation at hand, I would crawl into my bed and hide, or I would run away from home with the attitude of "make me an offer I can't refuse" so I don't have to stay here and face me!

The same happened with food, work, computer, and meetings.

"Happiness, love and peace are where the heart are!" We have put our heart in some very unhealthy places and situations, and we wondered why we weren't happy; but worse still, blaming it on the other people instead of being responsible for our own choices.

Always looking outside of ourselves to make 'me' feel better. I can still do it in recovery, although not in so many unhealthy ways. It is certain a pattern I have needed to change in my life.

90/90 is good, but one day at a time, and living each day is more important. A lot of people project to the 90 and don't live in today. At the end of 90 there is no cure, there is no quick fix, I think the term was probably one of those 'old timer's' slogans or old tapes that refers to Step One, if you decide you don't like us, you can go back out and we will refund your misery.

I was one of the sick ones, I did two meetings a day for two years. Then with service and my program maintenance I was still doing 7-10 meetings a week. Now I am no longer as active in service if you don' count the number of times I come here, then I get to one or two meetings a week now that I have twelve years of living this program one day at a time.

A sponsor is important, the steps are crucial for serenity and sobriety, and the traditions have spiritual principles which we can apply to our own lives to help us with living. It helps within the groups, but it helps when you apply them to your home.

Monday at noon (est) we are doing Step One. To date we don't have a Monday night meeting, but I hope someone will be able to do one in the near future.

There are meetings every night. I am a recovering addict who used alcohol and pills to escape life, and I have a son who is out there practicing, and I have been going to Al-Anon for twelve years. Al-Anon helped me to find myself. It helped me see where my roots were and to identify old tapes and has been the basis of my recovery program. Twelve Steps are Twelve Steps, and it is about living clean and sober in today and letting go of the past, with a hope for a better tomorrow. Al-Anon and Nar-Anon help me with that. I am also an adult child of an alcoholic and the daughter of a mother who qualified for Overeaters Anonymous.

I am a recovering workaholic and just about any other program you want to put me in. My drug of choice is more. I can use anything to escape life and where I am at and not take the time to stop and look at me.

The First Promise says we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. I have the freedom of bondage from active addiction; but I was granted another great gift. I was given the freedom to be myself.

Written in 2004

When I am hurting, it is always back to basics for me, because it generally means I am not working my program to it's fullest.

I had a friend say once, "She went out and bought all the self-help books she could find, then she did a Big Book study, and found everything in there that she needed for living and for what she had spent time and money on, looking for 'outside' of the program.

Basics for me? Don't pick up! Don't use! Go to a meeting, talk to my sponsor, read my recovery literature from whatever fellowship material I need in today, apply the steps to my life and live the traditions so I can live with myself and my fellowman.

Keep it Simple! If sayings help you to remember all of the above, please use them. If you have some of your own, utilize them. It is about doing whatever works for you, in today.

I have twenty-two years of one day at a time. I sometimes hesitate to say I have that much sobriety, because some of those days my soundness of mind was questionable. I am clean and sober, but I strive for sobriety in today, this is a living program.

Through my Higher Power, my program is my anchor and foundation.

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Dried-Up Alcohol
 

Because I was raised to be a good little Christian girl, stealing didn't come easy for me, even when I was using. I would often try to justify it or talk you out of it but generally did it to your face.

I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I didn't have black outs, I could walk a straight line and had people tell me they never saw me drunk. All things that affirmed that I didn't have a problem.

When I got sober, I didn't realize how stoned I really was, especially when I drank and took the pills too. I would say, "Well I only had 5 drinks, that is nothing, I can't be drunk forgetting that I had a belly full of pills prior to drinking.

Even in my 'drinking' days, before I tried ti quit my way (substituting pills), I took two 222s before going to bed to prevent a hang over or so I said, not sure if I believed it.

I had black outs with the pills. Things I didn't remember doing or saying. I was taking medication that had a street name so it couldn't have been good. I heard people tell there drinking stories and I would think I didn't do that. Then when I got honest, I realized I had those same symptoms when taking the pills. As my drinking decreased, my pill intake increased. I had never heard about AA. When I got there, I found the solution. Don't drink and don't drug! Substitution doesn't work.

It took me a while in recovery to learn and believe that it doesn't matter what the substance is, it all leads to the same soul sickness.

When my mind started to think "more" it didn't matter what it was, what ever was on hand. i.e. food, computer, reading and shutting out the world, TV, bed, etc. all these things allowed me to hide and put up blocks to what I didn't want to face in the moment. I justified it all by saying it wasn't my drug of choice.

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Have been the brunt of a lot of gossip. It has made me look at myself and take my own inventory and take responsibility for myself, and leave the rest. I was told that for ever finger I point at someone, I have three coming back at me.

So if they speak about me, I always pray that the spirit of my program goes before me and those that know me and those that really care, will know I walk my truth to the best of my ability.

If I find myself judging others, then I really need to dig deep. It takes one to know one, whether it is good or bad. It is a very negative thing, yet I can change it into a positive for my recovery.

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