[MajestyJo]

An important part of my recovery has been getting active in service. It started simple, setting up the meetings, helping to clear up, but with my physical health not up to full par, the place I liked the most was being on the door and being a greeter.

I was told my a co-sponsor of mine in early recovery, "You are only half a hand shake you know!" and since then, I have always tried to remember to stick out my hand and say, "Hi, my name is..."

Sometimes that hello has all we have to offer. We can't give away what we don't already have. If I am living in chaos and turmoil, then I am not in a position to give away peace and serenity. Who I am in today, is the message I carry. I can't share what I haven't experienced, because then it is coming from the head and not from the heart. Yet this is a program of paradoxes, if the place I am coming from is my head and that is where I am at, that is okay. The longest journey in recovery is from the head to the heart. The ability to feel our true feelings and deal with them.

When I had two years sober, I got involved in work at the local jail and detox center. I also went back to the treatment center I went to at three months sober. I didn't have sobriety, because I just wasn't aware of me and my life. Sobriety means soundness of mind for me, but it also means more. It means be finding myself and being comfortable with me and who I am in today and not having to use outside sources to maintain my life style.

I have had several lapses along my journey where in the moment I know I have used food, work, relationships, television, books, my computer, etc. to escape where I was at in the moment, but thanks to the tools of the program, I am able to become aware and make the change to bring myself back to where God would have me be on this new road of living.

The relapse that would kills me faster than anything would be to pick up a cigarette. It would kills me faster than if I chose to go back to using my pills and picked up a drink. It would not only kill me physically but it would kill the spiritual and emotional sobriety that I have today. I know because I still have major craving after quitting five years ago. It has been the hardest thing in recovery for me to give up.

When I get these cravings, the best thing for me to do is to get out of self and do service. Whether it is to come here and post, to pick up the phone, go to a meeting, it takes me out of where I am at in a healthy and productive way. Service helped me with my self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect. But the greatest gift was self-honesty, because when I share with others, I remember when and when I work with others there are a reflection of my Higher Self. What it use to be like, what happened and what it is like today! I try to ask myself how much have I changed, and I generally end up with the self-knowledge, you are far from fixed yet, just keep coming, then you won't have to come back.

Thanks for letting me share.

This was something I posted in 2004. That was a long time ago. How time flies. So glad I am still here.

Keep coming so you don't have to come back.