When one alcoholic/addict shares with another alcoholic/addict

[MajestyJo]

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final Good-bye."

From the poem: I wish you enough love

Love the poem. The first paragraph describes my life prior to recovery and my life the last two years. The nice thing is that I don't have to pick up to cope. The program allows me deal with life on life's terms. When I get to that place of being sick and tired of being tired and sick I know that I have to make some changes in my life because I am in a danger zone.

The difference between the person who came into recovery and the person who is in today is night and day. That person just does not exist any more. I keep coming because I know the answers are in the rooms. So many times I have been in pain, gone to a meeting and gone home pain free. Today there is more pain in my life then there has ever been in my life and yet I don't have to use and abuse myself because of it.

This was written and posted on another site in 2009. The pain over the years has been worse. A different kind of pain, but still I look it as life as it is in the moment.

When I come online and share with others, it helps me to get out of Self so I am not sitting in my pain. It isn't just about me, others are hurting too.

[MajestyJo]

...“bad faith” is a phrase which justifies the lack of belief in free choice.

Toxic Antithesis for Clair Drucker

Read this on a post this morning and I thought it could use some perusal.

Just how bad is my faith? Is it justifiable or just fine thank you.

I believe in freedom of choice. Do I exercise that belief and get the most out of the power that is available to me? Or, do I just know, and do nothing about it?

Always thought of faith as a positive thing. I know a little goes a long way. I whole lot strengthens me. I have faith in the AA program. I have faith in the 12 Steps. I believe they are a tool that fits any nut that walks through the doors of recovery. I thought that was very derogatory when I first heard it but found it to be very true. I was one of the biggest, it fit me so why wouldn't it fit someone else.

My hope turned into faith. My faith turned into a connection to my Higher Power. Have I maintained that connection or have I turned it into an Ego?

Faith without works is dead. Work without faith, gets me nowhere.

Very much walking in faith in today. A lot going on that needs a diligent walk with my God. Both my sisters are in poor health and my son still chooses to walk in his disease.

[MajestyJo]

From "A Small White Card":

"Yet I had a spiritual experience the night I called A.A.,
though I didn’t realize it until later. Two angels came,
carrying a real message of hope, and told me about A.A.
My sponsor laughed when I denied that I had prayed for
help. I told him that the only time I had mentioned God was
when, in my despair at being unable to get either drunk or
sober, I had cried out, 'God! What am I going to do?'

"He replied, 'I believe that prayer was a pretty good one for a
first one from an atheist. It got an answer, too.'
– Brighton, Colorado, USA"

Came to Believe, 30th printing 2004, pg. 25

I really like this. How many times I took or spoke God's name in vane. How many times, I ignored His presence and chose to do things my way.

Looking back over the years, He was there. There were many times, that I should have been dead or hurt much more than I was.

I could really identify. It was taking more and more, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't until I stopped to think about where I was at and reached out for help, that my life changed.

I had faith and lost it. I had to regain in. I had to find out who God was to me. I had to make God personal. I found God to be an old tape. The difference was not the God people told me He was, but God as He revealed Himself to me in today.

[MajestyJo]

About Grief

You may feel foolish crying over events that happened so long ago. But grief stays stored up until you have a chance to express it.

The way to move beyond grief is to experience your pain fully and honor your feelings.


Grief has its own timing. You can't say, "This is it. I'm going to grieve now." You have to make room for grief as it arises. You need to give yourself the time and space to let go:

"I had been in therapy for several months and I began to feel safe. There were weeks when I entered the building, went up the stairs, and checked in, all with a smile on my face. Then I'd enter the office, and my therapist would close the door. Before she could even get to her chair, I'd be crying. Deep within me I help those feelings, waiting until I new there would be time and compassion."


However your grieve, allow yourself to release the feelings you've been holding inside. Grieving can be a grief relief.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Many times over the years, especially the last five years of recovery; I have sat in meditation after asking for what I needed to heal, and the ability to let go of what I didn't need, want or desire. I have sat there with tears just streaming down my face. Most times, not knowing the source, but other times, as a result of something that had triggered me in today.

Tears are a great healer. They cleanse the soul.

Sharing with others, helps us to recover, especially when it is someone who has gone through the same thing.

[MajestyJo]

Grieving is such a big part of recovery. I looked at a couple of topic discussion books I have and no reference was given.

Just walking into the doors of recovery brings about a loss. A loss of illusion, a loss of a way of life, the losing of walls and survival tools, which no longer serve us in today. Many were more blocks and hinderance, and as we make changes in our life, every changed thought and pattern, puts us through a grieving periods in our life.

I took over the parent role at 14, but I was being trained for the job at 10. I say 10, because that is when I was aware. I have no memory prior to five years old, and that memory came two years ago. The next memory is me with my mother at the age of six, and the next one was 8, and then they start coming in about ten.

I believe that my fibromyalgia is a result of stuffed emotions and pain that was never dealt with as I grew up. We are products of our environment I believe more so than heredity, but it could be in the genes as well as the jeans. I know the jeans seemed to do me more harm that the genes. I was brought up to be a lady, a good little Christian girl, and as a result I got a whole lot of mixed messages.

The first person to rape me was my first husband. I didn't know I had a right to say no! I didn't know I was suppose to enjoy sex, I thought I was just a recepticle for a man's use and my way of serving him! As I type that, I shudder and I can feel the anger. That marriage lasted three years and I have a beautiful son as a result of, I had a year relationship after that which I ran from, and it wasn't until after another four month relationship, that I met a man who became my friend and lover and showed me that God had intended me to enjoy life, sex and was deserving of love.

He wanted me to move to the city of TO and I wouldn't go there, and as a result I was to be sexually abused by a doctor and raped twice before I made the decision at 41 to give up men because they were my problem.

I had to grieve those lost years. When I came into recovery at 49 there were no men around to blame my problems on, other than the ones in the past, but they were long gone and I had to face me in today.

Many times I was the victim of other people's choices, and hurt because of choices I made which put me in a position to be hurt.

Thanks to recovery I have been able to let a lot of that pain go, but I didn't get sick overnight and it takes time. I am not who I was in active addiction. My disease took over, and I got left behind or I gave away myself looking for the love, affirmation, and the courage to live. I had to morn my loss of self, and make an amend to myself for abusing me.

I try not to keep anything a secret today, as I remember I deal with it. I can't afford to keep it there because it just festers and grows and shows itself in ways that are not condusive to serenity, peace and love.

What brought me here will take me back. If I don't break the cycle, it will keep repeating itself. Feeling the feelings, allows me to let go, it is part of the grief and even in today one of the hardest things for me to do is cry. It is only when I sit in meditation and ask for healing and spend time with God and ask for that healing that I have sat alone and in the dark and have had tears just roll down my cheeks. I haven't had a clue as to what the origin of them are, but it is just like a cleansing of my soul.

So much nicer when we have tears of joy.

[MajestyJo]

Practice makes progress.

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

That makes more sense than what I heard all my life, "Practice makes perfect." I was always looking for that perfection. Always in competition, with myself and others, trying to out think and out do what I always did. Then when I failed, even though I tried to do the work of three people, it gave me reason, to my way of thinking to use. I used alcohol and dried-up alcohol (pills) which ever was available, often using both.

If you had my boss, if you had to work for the people I do, if you had a husband like I have, you would drink too. Perfection is part of my disease, not a healthy part of recovery.

My sponsor has told me from day one, "This is a program of practice, practice, practice...."

For me, it is one day at a time. All I can do is the best I can do in today. I practice the principles each day. I apply the steps as needed. Some days I fall short of my expectations, yet I know my Higher Power loves me unconditionally. I really don't think He has too many expectations of me, although He has kept me around this long, He must have plans for me, or I just haven't figured things out yet, so I have to keep practicing until I get it right.

Posted on another site in 2011

I practice the principles each day to the best of my ability. Some days I fall short and then I need to do a Step Seven. For me Step Six is the thought, Step Seven is following through the thought with action. More often it is acting out than acting on a thought that I need to be watchful of, which is what I did today.

So glad that each day is a beginning, so I can practice again tomorrow.

[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 wollowing stage. This program is one of freedom. I don't have to live that way anymore.
So many people don't know they have choices.

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.

posted in 2004

Each day I am faced with a choice. Do I stay clean and sober in today? For me, there is no one without the other. I can choose whether I have a good day or a bad day. I can choose to make the best of each day as it comes. I don't have to do it alone.

I have been blessed to have had continued contact with the newcomer that I met a few weeks ago. I saw her yesterday at my group. Last week she made it to my group and I didn't.

[MajestyJo]

Feelings come and go. If we are not afraid to let them have their moment, we will not be afraid to express them.


Have shared this many times before; it was such a freeing statement for me. "Just because you have a feeling you don't have to act on it."

It seemed like I was acting out on them for most of my life. Either I kept them inside or I blurted them out often at the wrong moment or in a way that was good for me or the people around me.

So many feelings were stuffed and became a jumble and I didn't know what was going to come out. I often labeled it fear and anger. Later to learn that there was sadness, hurt, rejection, abandonment, resentments, etc. I had to learn how to deal with these feelings by letting them out in a healthy way.

The best way for me was sharing with a sponsor or friend. I also did a lot of journaling.

Learning to identify a feeling and labelling it can still be an issue for me in today. I just pray and ask for help, I don't have to know what it is, I just have to let it go if it is hurting me. I have to acknowledge it before I can let it go.

As I have shared many times, I shut down my feeling since a child when I saw my brother killed when I was 3. I have had a lifetime of stuffing, and I have to be ever watchful that I don't do it in today. I am so grateful for this program.

Thank you for being a part of my recovery. This site has been my home group for years. As my sponsor said, "You can learn two things. How to work your program and how NOT to work your program." Length of time in the program means nothing if you don't live and use it in today.

[MajestyJo]

What I said never changed anybody; what they understood did.

--Paul. P.

How often have we given our all to change somebody else? How frantically have we tried to force a loved one to see the light? How hopelessly have we watched a destructive pattern - perhaps a pattern we know well from personal experience - bring terrible pain to someone who is dear to us?

All of us have.

We would do anything to save the people we love. In our desperation, we imagine that if we say just the right words in just the right way, our loved ones will understand.

If change happens, we think our efforts have succeeded.

If change doesn't happen, we think our efforts have failed. But neither is true. Even our best efforts don't have the power to change someone else. Nor do we have that responsibility. People are only persuaded by what they understand. And they, as we, can understand a deeper truth only when it is their time to grow toward deeper understanding. Not before.

Today, I will focus on changing myself and entrust those I love to the Higher Power who loves them even more than I do.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

Such a good reminder, I am not the Power. My God works through me, and hopefully what I say helps others. I just pass on to others what was given to me. This is from my site "The Five As."

The heart below reminds me of how I felt when I came into recovery. I felt very fragmented and the program helped me to become whole. The fellowships loved me until I could love myself.

Nothing changes, if nothing changes. I try to embrace change today, although lately, my feet have been lagging.

[MajestyJo]

Someone put this together and they sure worked hard.
I really enjoyed this I hope you do as well.

AA = Absolute Abstinence
AA = Attitude Adjustment
AA = Altered Attitudes
AA's -R-Us = Alcoholics Anonymous-Recovery -Unity -Service
ABC = Acceptance Belief Change
ACTION = Any Change To Improve Our Nature
ACTION = Any Change Toward Improving One's Nature
ALCOHOLICS = A Life Centered On Helping Others Live In Complete Sobriety
ASK = Ass Saving Kit
BIG BOOK = Believing In God, Beats Our Old Knowledge

BUT = Being Unconvinced Totally
CALM = Can Anger Leave Me
Care = Comforting And Reassuring Eachother
CHANGE = Choosing Honesty Allows New Growth Every Day
COURAGE = Cause Of Using Recovery As Great Effort
DENIAL = Don't Even Know I Am Lying
DETACH = Don't Even Think About Changing Him (or Her)
DRY= Doing Recovery Yourself
DUES = Desperately Using Everything But Sobriety
EDI not DIE = Easy Does It NOT Does It Easy
EGO = Easing God Out
FAITH = Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him
FAITH = For All I Trust Him
FAITH = Facing An Inner Truth Heals
FEAR = Face Everything And Recover
FEAR = Failure Expected And Received.
FEAR = Forgetting Everything (is) All Right
FEAR = Feelings Expressed Allows Relief
FEAR = Frantic Efforts to Appear Recovered
FEAR = False Evidence Appearing real
FINE = Frantic, Insane, Nuts & Egotistical
FINE = Free, Independent, New, & Energetic
GIFT = God Is Forever There
GIFTS = Getting It From The Steps
GOD = Give Others Dignity
GUT = God's Undeniable Truth
HALT = Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired
HELP = His Ever Loving Presence
HELP = Hope Encouragement Love & Patience
HOPE = Happy Our Program Exists
HOPE = Hearing Other People's Experience
HOPE = Hang On Peace Exists
HOPE = Honest Open Positive Environment
HOW = Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness
KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid {Sweetheart}
KISS = Keep It Simple Spiritually
LOVE = Living Our Victories Everyday
NUTS = Not Using The Steps
PMS = Poor Me Syndrome
PROGRAM = People Relying On God, Relaying A Message
PUSH = Pray Until Something Happens.
RAGE = Real Angry Gut- level Ego.
RID = Restless Irritable Discontent.
SLIP = Sobriety Losing Its Priority
SLIP = Still Living In the Past
SOBER = Son Ofa pregnant dog Everything's Real
SOBER = Staying Off Booze Enjoying Recovery.
SPONSOR = Sober Person Offering Newcomers Suggestions On Recovery
STEPS = Solutions To Every Problem In Sobriety
STOP = Sicker Than Other People
SWAT = Surrender Willingness Acceptance & Trust
THINK = Today Happiness I Now Know
TIME = Things I Must Earn
TRUST = Try Relying Upon The Steps
WILLING = When I Live Life I Need God
YET = You're Eligible Too

Love this, some things get lost, buried, not only in our home but in our mind, and it is good to be able to reference them and have them to go back to.

There are a lot more in between. I just love the ABCs of Recovery.

[MajestyJo]

“How come you don’t drink anymore?” a renewed acquaintance from long ago asked the other day.

“Anymore than who?” I asked.

“I mean any longer. How come you don’t drink anything these days.?”

“Drink? I drink…coffee, milk, tea, soda pop, water, fruit juices…”

“I mean drink,” he said, “you know booze.”

“Oh, booze. No, I don’t drink booze anymore, you’re right” I said. “I couldn’t trust it anymore. It turned on me. Once my friend, it became my enemy.”

“Maybe you got a bad batch,” he said.

“No the sauce is the same, I changed. Because I have this illness of alcoholism, my tolerance weakened. Alcoholism doesn’t come in bottles, it comes in people.”

“Sounds pretty confusing,” the fellow said.

“You think you’re confused,” I said, “You should have seen me. I drank for happiness and became unhappy…I drank for joy and became miserable…I drank to became outgoing and became self centered…I drank for sociability and became argumentative and lonely.”

I drank for sophistication and became crude and obnoxious…I drank for friendship and made enemies...I drank to soften sorrow and wallowed in self pity…I drank for sleep and wakened without rest.”

I drank for strength and felt weak...I drank medicinally and got sick… I drank because I thought my job called for it and I lost my job… I drank for relaxation and got the shakes… I drank for confidence and became uncertain…I rank for courage and became afraid… I drank for assurance and became doubtful… I drank to stimulate thought and blacked out… I drank to make conversation and it tied my tongue. I drank for warmth and lost my cool. I drank for coolness and lost my warmth… I drank to feel heaven and came to know hell…I drank to forget and became haunted… I drank for freedom and became a slave… I drank for power and became powerless…. I drank to erase problems and saw them multiply… I drank to cope with life and invited death…or worse… I drank because I had the right and everything turned out wrong.”

“Gosh!” my friend exclaimed, “That must have taken a bunch of booze to get you in that shape.”

“Just one.” I told him. “the first one… For me one is too many and a thousand is not enough.”

“So that’s why you don’t drink anymore”

“Yep, I make it a rule, I DON’T DRINK WHILE I’M SOBER!”

Posted by BW on another site. Original author unknown.

[MajestyJo]

My idea of social drinking was: "If you are going to have a drink, SO SHALL I!"

Never had a concept of one or two. I was quite shocked to find that we don't metabolize the alcohol like other people do. They drink and it disappears, we drink and hang onto it. Sounds like most things in my life.

Love this, briing it back up as a good reminder that it is the first one that get me. It is the engine that kills you, not the caboose. As someone shared not long ago, "I didn't know it was the first one, I kept saying, "I shouldn't have had that last one." I think this applies to all substances. The substance is but a symptom of our disease, the problem was always me. It is a disease. It is a drug that is cunning, baffling and powerful, and I too, can't drink safely. I don't know where it is going to take me.

In today, I like those natural highs in life. Those priceless gifts that come when I look for them.

[MajestyJo]

So when I remember to live in today, do the best I can, then things will unfold as they should.

haven't been able to be on the computer much now because of swollen feet and they get worse when I sit for very long.

It is the last line of this post that is important for me in today. I have to live in the moment, taking life as it comes, one day at a time.

It is ironic, tomorrow I go to see my doctor about the swelling of my feet and I got up this morning with no signs of swelling and I don't have much pain. It is very likely that they won't stay that way, but if they do, I will sure be grateful to have some of my pain taken away, even if it is just today.

I think it is Bugs Bunny or Porky the Pig who use to say, "That's what it is folks, have a great day, or something close to that.

[MajestyJo]

It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world. —Dorothy Dix

The storms of our lives benefit us like the storms that hit our towns and homes and wash clean the air we breathe. Our storms bring to the surface the issues that plague us. Perhaps we still fear a job with responsibilities. Perhaps we still struggle with the significant other persons in our lives. Possessiveness is a particular storm that often haunts our progress. Storms force us to acknowledge these liabilities that continue to stand in our way, and acknowledgment is the step necessary to letting go.

Recovery is a whole series of storms, storms that help to sprout new growth; storms that flush clean our own clogged drains. The peace that comes after a storm is worth singing about.

Each storm can be likened to a rung on the ladder to wholeness, the ladder to full membership in the healthy human race. The storms make climbing tough, but we get
strength with each step. The next storm will be more easily weathered.

If today is a stormy day, let me remember it will freshen the air I breathe.

From the book: Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey

For many years, I didn't allow myself tears. My ex-husband told me to turn them off because I used them as a weapon, so I did. I didn't realize how much I was hurting myself. Tears cleanse the soul, they are very healing. I didn't properly grieve things as a result of shutting down and not allowing myself to feel.

I need to remember to breathe in a new day.

[MajestyJo]

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

Some people are so successful in AA they turn out almost as good as they used to think they were when they were drinking.

So true, but the ego can follow them into recovery. I can remember thinking and saying, "I've forgotten more than you'll ever know about AA. I went to two meetings a day for 2 years." It didn't mean I was an authority, it just meant that I was one of the really sick ones.

I use to say about my ex-husband, "If he was half as smart as he thinks he is, he would be a smart man."

So grateful that my God's Love is unconditional.