When one alcoholic/addict shares with another alcoholic/addict

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning

Often God shuts a door in our face, and then subsequently opens the door through which we need to go.
—Catherine Marshall

We try and try to control the events of our lives. And not seldom the events in others' lives, too. The occasions are frequent when our will conflicts with God's. Then for a time we feel at a loss. Our direction is uncertain. But always, always, another door opens. A better way beckons. How stubborn we are! And how simple life would be were we to daily, fully, turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. God's help and direction in all things are always available. Turning a deaf ear is like trying to find a seat in a darkened movie theater unaided by the usher.

Every experience is softened when we face it accompanied by our higher power. Any past struggle, any present fear, is a testament to our attempts to do it alone. Too frequently we forge ahead, alone, only to have our way blocked. The detours need never be there. No door closes unless there is a better way. Divine order will prevail.

There is no need to struggle, today. I will breathe deeply and take my higher power with me, wherever I go. And the doors will be open for as far as I can see.

Posted on another site June 27, 2010

Control, the "C" word for me! I couldn't understand the word powerless until I substituted the word control.

As it says here, control is an illusion. I use to keep trying and trying, but 'it' just didn't work out. If they would just do that, "it" would be alright." If I could only do that, "it" would be just fine!

When I hear myself repeatedly saying the "I" word, then I know that I am back controlling my life. My life doesn't 'work' without my Higher Power. Until I could surrender to Him, my life was unmanageable, especially when managed by me. Through that surrender, I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself.

When I turn over the reins, those doors do open. If they appear shut, then I know that the time is not right and I need to learn to 'just be' and know that the door will open with the time is right. When I take my Higher Power with me, I will know what to do and what direction to do it in.

As they say, "If you have to control it, it is already out of control." This was such a profound and enlightening statement for me. It helped to get rid of a lot of denial, not just about my alcoholism, but about my codependency, my eating disorder, and my other addictions.

[MajestyJo]

Choice

from: "A Day's Plan"

"Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will. Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times, if necessary."

© 1990, Daily Reflections, page 80

This is a solution that has worked many times for me over the years. A day can start any time, each day is a new beginning, so have a great one.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can make the decision to stay stuck, to continue acting out in old patterns, and allow themselves to slip into depression and self-pity and not take action before it gets to the wallowing stage. This program is one of freedom. I don't have to live that way anymore.

How awful it would be if I woke up in a bad mood and could not change it? With the help of my Higher Power and the Steps I can change how my day starts and start it over whenever I need to.

I know I didn't know how to have fun. I didn't know how to "lighten' up" and not take life so seriously as it says in Tradition Four. I didn't know how to let my inner child come out and play, let alone anything about giving her permission to do so.

I didn't know I could choose the reactions, the actions and the moods, etc. that I had to people, places and things.

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book Twenty Four Hours a Day Hardcover (24 Hours)

A.A. Thought for the Day

Everyone who comes into A.A. knows from bitter experience that he or she can't drink. I know that drinking has been the cause of all my major troubles or has made them worse. Now that I have found a way out, I will hang onto A.A. with both hands. Saint Paul once said that nothing in the world, neither powers nor principalities, life nor death, could separate him from the love of God. Once I have given my drink problem to God, should anything in the world separate me from my sobriety?

Meditation for the Day

I know that my new life will not be immune from difficulties, but I will have peace even in difficulties. I know that serenity is the result of faithful, trusting acceptance of God's will, even in the midst of difficulties. Saint Paul said: "Our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may welcome difficulties. I pray that they may test my strength and build my character.

I can't drink safely!

I read these words or said them, not sure which it was, on another site.

If ever I was going to pick up a drink, it would have been in the last month. Again, I have been back in that sick and tired of being tired and sick, only to have something else put on my plate.

People say, "God tests us." I am not so sure, I am still of a second mind on this. I think we test God. I know that I made some unhealthy choices, especially where it concerns food. I also know that a few times I didn't listen to myself, I went with what I thought I should do, rather than what I thought I really needed to do.

I realized yesterday that I had forgotten my cholesterol medication a couple of times and that could account for some of the problem. When I don't sleep, I have problems remembering to take my medications on time and my eating patterns are off. It is all about me, it isn't about God, or my son, or my sister, or my noisy neighbor, it is about me and my sobriety.

Something I posted on another site in 2011. In today it wasn't cholesterol medication, it has been my blood pressure medication that is giving me problems. I don't see my doctor until the 20th. Life is so much, one day at a time. I need to go to the pharmacy and keep an eye on my blood pressure and if need be, go to ER or go to the clinic if things get out of hand, doing what ever it takes to maintain my sobriety.

[MajestyJo]

Prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening to Him.

- Unknown origin.

- Alkiespeaks

They might not who originally said it, I know I heard it many times in recovery and I try to pass it forward.

Sometimes I think we talk too much and don't do enough listening. I am a firm believier that if we have true faith, we don't have to ask over and over for the same thing, especially in the same day. Put it in God's Hands and leave it there.

Meditation takes many forms. As I have said before, "Osho says we can meditate doing dishes." It took me a while to get by the word dishes, but realize that what he was trying to portray, was we can talk and listen for God as we go through our day, listen for His message. I have to guard against being 'too busy' to hear what He has to say. I know I just can't sit on my rear and expect things to happen in my life.

We have a direct line, use it. You don't have to be put on hold unless the timing isn't right and it is your will not the God of your understanding. There is no waiting to pick it up, we can use it any time. We can call in the good times as well as in the not so good times.

[MajestyJo]

The mind is a powerful tool. It can talk you into or out of anything and everything. When I am not living God-centered, I become a product of that mind. It can tell me I am just 'fine' or it can tell me I am very sick and not worthy of love and care. It is so important to feed my mind with positive affirmations. I have to remember that all I have is today. Whatever label I choose to wear in today, is subject to change be it positive or negative. The choice is mine.

I am a recovering alcoholic/addict, who used alcohol and other mind altering substances, to deal with life. Today, when I hear someone say, "Well I am an addict/alcoholic you know!" I always ask, "So what are you doing about it?

A part of my mind was filled with blame and shame. Blaming other people for the conditions in my life and shame as to where I allowed myself to go as a result of my using. It wasn't just what I did but it was the fact that I lost my principles, put aside my beliefs, went where I said I would never go, and puffed myself into this prideful balloon full of hot air that was false and filled with a lot of things I had no reason to be proud of.

The things that I did as a result of trying to please others, looking for affirmation and acceptance, the letting go my integrity and principles that were such a big part of my life to end up an empty shell with no mind of her own with no will to live and completely void of feelings.

What a gift the program has given back. My sense of self, a new set of principles, and a sense of pride in who I am in today.

The picture is gross but it reminds me how easily I can get my nose all bent out of shape over the littlest things and forget where I come from, and forget how far I have come back.

[MajestyJo]

Good to reprint and give to someone else……….

On Dec. 14, 1934, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson was struggling with alcoholism at a New York City detox center. It was his fourth stay at the center and nothing had worked. This time, he tried a remedy called the belladonna cure — infusions of a hallucinogenic drug made from a poisonous plant — and he consulted a friend named Ebby Thacher, who told him to give up drinking and give his life over to the service of God.

Wilson was not a believer, but, later that night, at the end of his rope, he called out in his hospital room: “If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything.

Anything!”

As Wilson described it, a white light suffused his room and the presence of God appeared. “It seemed to me, in the mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing,” he testified later. “And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.”

Wilson never touched alcohol again. He went on to help found Alcoholics Anonymous, which, 75 years later, has some 1.2 million members in 55,000 meeting groups, while 11,000 professional treatment centers employ the steps.

The movement is the subject of a smart and comprehensive essay by Brendan I. Koerner in the July 2010 issue of Wired magazine. The article is noteworthy not only because of the light it sheds on what we’ve learned about addiction, but for what it says about changing behavior more generally. Much of what we do in public policy is to try to get people to behave in their own long-term interests — to finish school, get married, avoid gangs, lose weight, save money. Because the soul is so complicated, much of what we do fails.

The first implication of Koerner’s essay is that we should get used to the idea that we will fail most of the time. Alcoholics Anonymous has stood the test of time. There are millions of people who fervently believed that its 12-step process saved their lives. Yet the majority, even a vast majority, of the people who enroll in the program do not succeed in it. People are idiosyncratic. There is no single program that successfully transforms most people most of the time.

The second implication is that we should get over the notion that we will someday crack the behavior code — that we will someday find a scientific method that will allow us to predict behavior and design reliable social programs. As Koerner notes, A.A. has been the subject of thousands of studies. Yet “no one has yet satisfactorily explained why some succeed in A.A. while others don’t, or even what percentage of alcoholics who try the steps will eventually become sober as a result.”

Each member of an A.A. group is distinct. Each group is distinct. Each moment is distinct. There is simply no way for social scientists to reduce this kind of complexity into equations and formula that can be replicated one place after another.

Nonetheless, we don’t have to be fatalistic about things. It is possible to design programs that will help some people some of the time. A.A. embodies some shrewd insights into human psychology.

In a culture that generally celebrates empowerment and self-esteem, A.A. begins with disempowerment. The goal is to get people to gain control over their lives, but it all begins with an act of surrender and an admission of weakness.

In a culture that thinks of itself as individualistic, A.A. relies on fellowship. The general idea is that people aren’t really captains of their own ship. Successful members become deeply intertwined with one another — learning, sharing, suffering and mentoring one another. Individual repair is a social effort.

In a world in which gurus try to carefully design and impose their ideas, Wilson surrendered control. He wrote down the famous steps and foundations, but A.A. allows each local group to form, adapt and innovate. There is less quality control. Some groups and leaders are great; some are terrible. But it also means that A.A. is decentralized, innovative and dynamic.

Alcoholics have a specific problem: they drink too much. But instead of addressing that problem with the psychic equivalent of a precision-guidance missile, Wilson set out to change people’s whole identities. He studied William James’s “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” He sought to arouse people’s spiritual aspirations rather than just appealing to rational cost-benefit analysis. His group would help people achieve broad spiritual awakenings, and abstinence from alcohol would be a byproduct of that larger salvation.

In the business of changing lives, the straight path is rarely the best one. A.A. illustrates that even in an age of scientific advance, it is still ancient insights into human nature that work best. Wilson built a remarkable organization on a nighttime spiritual epiphany.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 29, 2010

An earlier version of this column stated that Alcoholics Anonymous has professional treatment centers, but the centers only employ the organization's program without being run by it.

Received with thanks from my friend Dave M.

Not sure if this is posted elsewhere, but came across it tonight on another site.

[MajestyJo]

We do have an option. We can pray and ask our Higher Power to help us overcome the cravings and obsession, or pick up a drug, no matter what form it takes, a drug is a drug. Substitution doesn't work. For me, in the end I had three substance to overcome, and then I had to deal with my smoking. My doctor put me on an inhaler, because he said for me to quit, because I was one of the really sick one, I would die. It took me 7 years in recovery to be open to the thought of quitting smoking, even though it was affecting my health. I finally came to a decision to quit, because I wanted to be clean, clear channel to carry the message of recovery. I didn't want to quit. I had to pray for the willingness to be willing.

When I get that feeling of using, I get that moment of pause that allows me to make a decision as to whether I am going to use the tools of the program, or call my dealer or go to the nearest bar, or pick up the phone to have something delivered. It is best to call my sponsor. If you don't have one, I suggest you get one, or some close friend or a minister/clergy/counsellor, that you can call. I know my sponsor saved my life many times over.

[MajestyJo]

We All Come Together

We all come together
With one common goal
To carry the message
God let us hold
When your stumbling drunk
With no where to turn
Comes to our program
Twelve steps learn
When all worn out
From your wild ways
We'll share our hope
Help you to find
Sober days
The ultimate goal
Is to pass
It on
We
Do our best
Before they're gone
Helping others
To get along
First we surrender to win
Then we clean house
Make amends
Where we can
Go to meetings
And then
Go again
This was is simple
But really hard
For we do the battle
In our own yard
When you look in the mirror
Who do you see
Your own worst enemy
Looking back at thee
Now don't be frightened
You're not alone
When you walked
Through our doors
You have a new home
Get a sponsor
Pray extra hard
I'll always remember
How soon I forgot
I thought I was different
But I was not
Real soon
After
That
I drank again
Real fast I remembered
Why I first came in
God saw fit
To give me
Another
Try
I
Had
To get
Honest
And
Not deny
Together we can
Have victory

Daniel M Corkery
1/12/2001

Originally posted on:

Alcohol and Addictions Recovery Help/Support Forums

[MajestyJo]

Today's Gift - 12/28/05

Today's thought is:

We need to let the old go, so the new can emerge.
--Peggy Bassett

When we first entered the program, we heard the saying "One door must close before another can open." That baffled us, even while it gave us comfort. It helped that people we looked up to found solace in the slogan. Their experiences, shared in the meetings, taught us understanding. Each time we fought against a changing condition, someone we admired was able to remind us of its value.

Now we are the truth-bearers for the newcomers. Over time we have come to believe that every experience has special meaning. When something new begins to tap us on the shoulder, that's our cue to let something else go. Newcomers need our demonstration of how it works. No doubt, before this day or this week has passed, we'll each have an opportunity to close one door and open another. Let's make sure we share what we learn with someone else.

I am someone's teacher today. I will not fight circumstances that are changing, but accept that their passing is my opportunity.
You are reading from the book:

A Woman's Spirit by Karen Casey

From my site Soundness of Mind

They say we have to give our recovery away in order to keep it. It was a difficult concept to understanding. I also had to remember to save some for myself. My sponsor said to me, "Top yourself up and only give away the overflow."

[MajestyJo]

Many people say, it is all in the Big Book. That may be, but what kept me sober were the Twelve Steps. Without them, I would not be sober today. I will be every grateful for the Twelve and Twelve, they are a blueprint to living for me.

Many people say, The Twelve Traditions are for the group. They are also spiritual tools which I need to apply to my own life.

Originally posted in December 2004 on another site

It is amazing, this was written in 2004, and it is just as true in today. This is a living program. It isn't just about the 12 Steps, it is about taking the program outside of the rooms and living it. The 12 Traditions are guidelines to help us live in our home, at work, and in the community.

I found myself in the Big Book. The 12 & 12 showed me how to live with the new me. I not only had to deal with my prescription drug and alcohol addictions, I had to look at my eating disorder and other shortcomings which developed in my life like my computer addiction and my pain. The 12 Steps are applicable to all areas of my life. They helped me to quit smoking and not substitute one addiction for another.

[MajestyJo]

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

First we work the program because we have to. Then we work the program because we are willing to. Finally we work the program because we want to.

Really like this, except that I would add, "Work the program because I need to."

I need the program just as much in today, as I did when I came through the doors of recovery. They aren't all the same reasons, although chronic pain has always been there in one form or another. Before it was a lot of emotional and physical pain, and I am so glad that I have the tools of the program to deal with it in today.

Life didn't get better, I did. I got better equipped to handle it. I have a relationship with a Higher Power and through His Love and Good Orderly Direction, I learned to love and help myself.

The big difference in today, back then it was God as I understand Him. In today, it is God as I understood Him to be by working and applying the program.

For me, the program is the 12 Steps of AA. Along with going to meetings, a sponsor, literature, helping others, there is prayer and meditation, to help me to maintain my connection to Him/Her.



http://www.whats-your-sign.com/anima...sm-turtle.html

[MajestyJo]

Fear
^*^*^
"Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied
drives us to covet the possessions of others,
to lust for sex and power,
to become angry when our instinctive demands
are threatened,
to be envious when the ambitions of others
seem to be realized while ours are not.
We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need,
fearing we shall never have enough.
And with genuine alarm at the prospect of work,
we stay lazy.
We loaf and procrastinate,
or at best work grudgingly and under half steam.
These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour
the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build."
1952AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 49
^*^*^*^*^*

Thought to Consider . . .

Fear is a darkroom for developing negatives




*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
F E A R = Forgetting Everything's All Right

=================================


Fear
^*^*^
"The practice of AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
in our personal lives also brought incredible releases
from fear of every description,
despite the wide prevalence of formidable personal problems.
When fear did persist, we knew it for what it was,
and under God's grace we became able to handle it.
We began to see each adversity as a God-given
opportunity to develop the kind of courage
which is born of humility, rather than bravado.
Thus we were enabled to accept ourselves,
our circumstances, and our fellows."
Bill W., January 1962
©1988AAGrapevine, The Language of the Heart, p. 268
^*^*^*^*^*

Thought to Consider . . .

Courage is the willingness to accept fear
and act anyway.



*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
F E A R = Fools Every Alcoholic Repeatedly

================================


Fear
^*^*^
"When, with God's help, we calmly accepted our lot,
then we found we could live at peace with ourselves
and show others who still suffered the same fears
that they could get over them, too.
We found that freedom from fear was more important
than freedom from want."
1952AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 122
^*^*^*^*^*

Thought to Consider . . .

Courage is the willingness to accept fear and act anyway.


*~*~*AACRONYMS*~*~*
F E A R = Face Everything And Recover

[MajestyJo]

I struggle with fear. I fear things that haven't even happend yet, if I let myself. I realize though if I let my fear consume me then I isolate, look at the negative instead of seeing any positive. I sit in my chair and watch TV and eat and complain because I have to get up and let the dogs out for the upteenth time. If I do that, what am I doing to make a difference? What am I doing as an example to my family much less the outside world? What am I doing to myself? I am allowing myself to wither and die a little at a time. I am so grateful for my Higher Power, who I call God. I can give him these burdens, I know I have to stay sober so I can trust and realize who is really in control...it is so freeing and I stop being a burden to myself and others around me. He gets bigger to me all the time of what He can do. That is a blessing. Jeanne

Great words of wisdom that I identify with.

There are healthy fears, fears that keep me from picking up and going back to where I came from. My disease progresses along with my recovery and I know that if I picked up, I would be back where I was or worse. It would mean death for me today, because of my diabetes, which I didn't have 24 years ago.

[MajestyJo]

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.

—Brendan Francis



Love this quote. It was true with a lot of my own fears. When I was able to grasp onto some faith, I was able to take that step. Things were not so dark when I brought them to the light.

One of the greatest tools was realizing that I didn't have to do it alone. I had support from my home group, my sponsor, my new recovery friends, many who had already been there. I was not alone. If I was, it was because I had put up the blocks and not allowed them in.

This is what happened with my Higher Power. He had been with me for years but I had turned my back on Him. I didn't think He had much faith in me. I had not lived up the what I saw as "His" dictates, which in truth was the interruption of others. My God in today is loving, caring, forgiving, all encompassing. He meets my needs. If He leads me to it, He will see me through it.

[MajestyJo]

Too bad this post wasn't responded to. Meditation is a big part of my own recovery and has been right from the beginning.

At first, I took my Bible (I would only use the New Testament, the Psalms and the Proverbs), and I would say a prayer, open the Bible and read where my eyes fell.

I also did this with the Big Book. When I came on line, I would say the Step 3, 7th, and the Serenity Prayer, plus a form of Step 11, because I couldn't remember it all. Prayer helps me to get out of the way, so my God can work through me instead of around me and over me. It has never ceased to amaze me how my God allowed me to match up pictures and text on so many occasions, things and words were just there.

I like the colour meditation they taught us in recovery. When you close my eyes, I see black, and then the colours start to come, red, orange, green, blue, etc. and asking for the white light. It is very healing.

http://www.meditationcenter.com/healing/color.html

I also put on music, preferably for me, music without words. I have found though that when I put on music to listen to, words come through that I need to hear. The problem with most of today's music, there are words that I don't desire to here.

Candle light and those little white lights that they generally have on only at Christmas helped me and remind me to take things out of the darkness and into the light so I can see them. A lot depends on my willingness to see and my willingness to deal with what I see.

A friend of mine suggested that I sit at a table with a blank piece of paper and a pen. Every time I got a thought, put it on paper, even if it is just a word. It generally shows a pattern and guidance as to where you need to go and what you need to do.

Prayer is asking for help, meditation is listening for help.