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09-09-2014, 09:01 PM | #1 | |
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Drinking and Thinking
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Love always, Jo I share because I care. Last edited by MajestyJo; 08-10-2015 at 12:44 AM. |
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09-09-2014, 09:06 PM | #2 |
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I Drank'
I drank for happiness and became unhappy. I drank for joy and became miserable. I drank for sociability and became argumentative. I drank for sophistication and became obnoxious. I drank for friendship and made enemies. I drank for sleep and woke up tired. I drank for strength and felt weak. I drank for relaxation and got the shakes. I drank for courage and became afraid. I drank for confidence and became doubtful. I drank to make conversation easier and slurred my speech. I drank to feel heavenly and ended up feeling like hell. -Author Unknown-
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Love always, Jo I share because I care. |
09-09-2014, 09:06 PM | #3 |
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Sobriety
What has been going through my mind, partly because I have been going through my recovery site Soundness of Mind, but I always think the phrase when I see the word sobriety. Many people say that it is an AA word. For me, it is a word for anyone who does not use in today. There are very few pure alcoholics. As much as many of them like to think so, there are those who get addicted to work, gambling, food, pills, etc. or refuse to give up their joint or a rigid exercise routine that becomes obsessive, or they become obsessed with religion or the internet. I often ask, "Am I an alcoholic because I am an addict. Or am I n addict because I am an alcoholic. It doesn't really matter. What matters for me is sobriety. For me, sobriety means soundness of mind. As I heard many years ago from a dear long-timer, "He got his physical, mental and spiritual healing many years ago. He still went to meetings for his emotional sobriety. He was 25 years sober at the time. I had about 2 years in recovery and here I am, as of yesterday, 2 months away from my 22nd anniversary. I too need to work on my emotional sobriety, one day at a time. It is a living program. It isn't about the drinking and drugging (my pills were like dried-up alcohol to me and I had the same symptoms using them as I did drinking), it is the stinking thinking that can creep in and the daily dealing of feelings in a healthy way. It is about making healthy choices. I no longer want to drink to someone else's health. I want a new sober life for me. It isn't about putting the plug in the jug. It is working the Steps and getting those extra gifts that allow me to be a new me; instead of the old me, acting out in my disease even though I am not drinking. Peace on your journey.
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Love always, Jo I share because I care. |
09-09-2014, 09:17 PM | #4 |
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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 meant 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 had 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 drinks, 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 controlling, 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 a 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 knowing. 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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Love always, Jo I share because I care. |
09-09-2014, 09:18 PM | #5 |
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WHAT'S YOUR SCORE?
KEEP THIS AND CHECK YOUR GRADE EACH MONTH GIVE YOURSELF FROM ONE TO FIVE POINTS ON EACH QUESTION 1. Has my past been a mess and am I EARNESTLY DETERMINED TO ESTABLISH A BETTER WAY OF LIFE, and am I willing to make the effort? ______ 2. Do I admit BEYOND ANY DOUBT that I am powerless over alcohol - that if I use it, it will destroy me? ______ 3. Do I sincerely believe that there is a power greater than myself in which I WILL PUT MY TRUST regardless of what happens? ______ 4. Do I realize the importance of talking A.A. and attending all A.A. MEETINGS POSSIBLE, or do I hedge and make excuses? ______ 5. Am I really willing to MAKE RETRIBUTION where possible to those I have harmed, or am I just kidding? ______ 6. Do I SINCERELY OBSERVE daily moments of constructive meditation, thinking of my humility and desire to understand? ______ 7. Am I TRULY HONEST with others, or will I chisel if I get a chance? ______ 8. Am I PATIENT in waiting for the rewards of my efforts? ______ 9. Am I FRIENDLY and do I TRY TO OVERLOOK the shortcomings of others, regardless of who they are? ______ 10. Am I tolerant - do I show consideration for those whose beliefs, practices or habits differ from my own? ______ 11. Am I a gossip - do I repeat rumors or chatter about people's affairs? ______ 12. Am I GRATEFUL for ALL HELPFUL THINGS and DO I SAY SO? ______ 13. Do I have REAL COURAGE and am I FREE FROM FEAR OF ALL KINDS? ______ 14. Do I really have CONFIDENCE IN MYSELF and others, or am I filled with doubt and suspicion? ______ 15. Do I cooperate with others and HELP PROMOTE constructive ideas? ______ 16. Do I practice SELF-CONTROL, and really forget and forgive differences? _____ 17. Am I neat in my appearance, and do I keep as clean as I can under the circumstances, both in body and mind? ______ 18. Am I extending any effort to help others with their problems? ______ 19. Do I realize that my problem is NOT MONEY, but mental and physical? _______ 20. Am I making any reasonable effort to OVERCOME any other undesirable habits or CHARACTERISTICS I may possess? ______ Total ______ A total score of less than 50 is regarded as poor; 50 to 60 fair; 60 to 65 low average; 65 to 70 high average; 70 to 80 excellent; over 80 "impossible in this world." January 1947 AA Grapevine
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09-09-2014, 09:23 PM | #6 |
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If carrots would do what alcohol did for me, I'd be a carrotolic.
- Al A. From Alkiespeaks Love this, It is one of my saying revised a little, "I am a bridgeaholic." Love playing bridge. Maybe I should say I am a gameaholic, but then I only play about 3 on the computer, and although bridge is a priority, I do like cribbage, scrabble, and Yahtzee. I was sharing with my friend last night and said, "If I could drink safely, I would drink." Everyone once in a while, the old tape, "If you can't beat them join them" comes to mind and I tell myself I really didn't have a problem. I would tell myself that I could have one drink, many times only one or two. What I put to the back of my mind was the fact that I had some heavy duty drugs in my body and didn't really need the booze. I was told that anything that I put between my and my God, became my new God, because I lost connection to mine. My drug of choice, can be anything I have in front of me. It isn't the substance that I use(d) that is the problem, it is the thinking. When my thinking says more, I need to turn it over to my Higher Power, no matter what substance is available in the moment, be it my computer, books, games, and I am reminded that it is people, places and things, something or someone who will take me out of myself. I need to go within, instead of looking outside of myself for that quick fix, that seemingly saving grace, which in fact is a control thing, an illusion, and I have daily reprieve, only through the Grace of my God.
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Love always, Jo I share because I care. Last edited by MajestyJo; 08-10-2015 at 12:46 AM. |
11-20-2014, 09:56 PM | #7 | ||
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11-26-2014, 07:23 PM | #8 | |
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Love always, Jo I share because I care. |
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11-28-2014, 10:19 PM | #9 | |
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Remember talking to a guy on the elevator one day and he said, "Why me?" He use to live in another senior complex that I lived in. I responded to him with what my sponsor said to me, he is not program and from all accounts, qualifies for it. She said, "Why not you?" He looked at me shocked, at bit stunned, and then he started to laugh, and said, "You are right, "Why not me." What makes us think we have right of passage through this life without trials and tribulations, and thing everything should be a free ride and handed to us on a silver platter and just there because we feel it is our due and our right, just because. I seem to recall the alcoholic mind, and thinking "well I am so hard done by" or it was no thought at all, just rough shod over everything or everyone and just taking with no thought of giving and/or sharing. The only pity would be "Too bad I drank it all last night and didn't save some for today, but then who does that?"
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12-12-2014, 08:14 PM | #10 | |
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We so often limit how our God can work in our lives by our narrow outlook as to who He is and to what He can do and we do not surrender our 'whole' life into His Care.
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