Defects of Character

[MajestyJo]

"Faith supplies staying power. Anyone can keep going when the
going is good, but some extra ingredient is needed to keep you
fighting when it seems that everything is against you"

-Norman Vincent Peale

Never realized how much of my life was fear based. It was there in different ways, and lots of times was overcome by bravado and with an defensive attitude, not wanting others to know.

I would not be alive or clean and sober today if I allowed fear to run my life. I think the most difficult part is recognizing it for what it is when it comes creeping in. The biggest difference in today is that in today, I know that my God has my back.

The biggest challenge is my short term memory because I sometimes misplace Him or forget to take Him with me on my travels and have to go back for Him.

As they say, fear and faith can't occupy the same space. I have heard a lot of people disagree with this. I know I have felt fear, and held on tight and not wanting to let go. The fear of the unknown is my biggest obstacle, I have always wanted to be 'in the know' and often hold onto the old because I don't know what is going to replace it.

In today I prefer "Face everything and recovery" to the old way of "Fear everything and run."

Fear -or- Faith

"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is." - -German Proverb

I know that when I came into recovery, I learned to have faith in the program and know it would work for me. Through the program, I regained a faith and trust in my Higher Power which led to having trust and faith in myself as a woman.

"As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no
longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will
flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your
great delight and benefit". — Emmanuel

Control is an illusion. Sometimes I think it is faith, but on perusal, it is still fear based and conditional. A part of me is still saying, "Don't tell me, show me."

[MajestyJo]

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

Oscar Wilde

When it comes from the heart, it is always sincere. Sometimes when it comes from the head, it can be also with the right intention and motive.

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”

~ Edward R. Murrow

"Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless
contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment."

— Anthony Robbins

If I am not sincere, I am not being honest. Often actions speak louder than words.

[MajestyJo]

Hopeful/Despondent

This is where I have been the last few days. My son has been talking about going into detox and then going back into recovery. That gave me hope, that finally, he was willing to do for himself.

The hope was followed by despondence, because like before, it has been talk and no action.

Today I spoke to him and asked if he had called detox. He said, "I can't smoke there." I am not going there until I have smoked my last cigarette, and I have no cigarettes to come back to.

Hope is there, because I didn't find recovery until I was 49. He will be 48 next month.

It is much easier listening than hearing him talk suicidal.

With my own pain, plus the stuff I was taking on that wasn't mine, not being able to detach completely, I was back thinking of stop the world, I want to get off. I was losing hope for myself, because if it wasn't one thing it was another. I am aware that alot of it is emotional and me having problems letting go and accepting that one more thing that seems to be added to the load.

As they say, never fear, God is near. Let go of my son and his issues. Let go of my own pain, turn it over to my Higher Power, and pray for healing, awareness, acceptance, and the removal of all blocks and barriers.

How can I have hope, if I don't go to my God, I am powerless over my own dis-ease and that of my sons. How can I have hope if I don't trust.

[MajestyJo]

Peace/Chaotic

n the past, if things were not chaotic, I thought something was wrong. I was use to that chaos. If it wasn't chaotic, I generally was the one who stirred things up.

The gift of recovery is the fact that I can go within and find peace within the chaos, be it mine or someone else's. The first time I felt serenity, I called my sponsor and was told, do you think you just might have found a little bit of peace and serenity. I said, "Is that what it is? It feels strange."

A nice kind of chaotic. I call it "Everyone wanting to be heard over everyone else and you can sit back and detach and watch the scenario unfold"

I don't have to feed into or buy into other people's games.

That doesn't mean I am an angel, just a Child of God, who is a spiritual being, trying to live on this Earth.

[MajestyJo]

People - Pleasing

"...approval-seeking behavior carried us further into our addiction..."

NA Basic Text p. 14

When others approve of what we do or say, we feel good; when they disapprove, we feel bad. Their opinions of us, and how those opinions make us feel, can have positive value. By making us feel good about steering a straight course, they encourage us to continue doing so. "People-pleasing" is something else entirely. We "people-please" when we do things, right or wrong, solely to gain another person's approval.

Low self-esteem can make us think we need someone else's approval to feel okay about ourselves. We do whatever we think it will take to make them tell us we're okay We feel good for awhile. Then we start hurting. In trying to please another person, we've diminished ourselves and our values. We realize that the approval of others will not fill the emptiness inside us.

The inner satisfaction we seek can be found in doing the right things for the right reasons. We break the people-pleasing cycle when we stop acting merely to gain others' approval and start acting on our Higher Power's will for us. When we do, we may be pleasantly surprised to find that the people who really count in our lives will approve all the more of our behavior. Most importantly, though, we will approve of ourselves.

Just for today: Higher Power, help me live in accordance with spiritual principles. Only then can I approve of myself.

pg. 107

This was one of my biggest defects of character. I lived my life through others. I was out to please you so you would love me because I didn't love myself.

My addiction was Other People. The more I had in my life, the more people I had who loved me.

I gave up a piece of me, every time I picked up a drug. People were part of my drug, getting new people to accept and love me. I needed you to validate me because I could never find it within myself.

Thanks to this program, I no longer have to do that. It is okay to be me. I have a Higher Power who loves me the way I am, warts and all. I had to learn to accept myself, so I didn't keep looking outside of myself to make me feel better.

[MajestyJo]

Some times we don't realize that we have a defect of character, either we have had it for a long time or it seems normal, because we grew up with it and they match our old tapes.

http://realisticrecovery.wordpress.c...acter-defects/

http://texandave.blogspot.ca/2005/08...r-defects.html

Sometimes we have trouble getting honest and pull on the blanket of denial or turn a blind eye and have selective hearing, sight, and feel like if we don't acknowledge it, it isn't there, or just maybe, it will go away.

[MajestyJo]

What are your thoughts on "Behavioral Addictions", are they
addictions, or bad habits that we enjoy?

Please share your thoughts.....

A good question! My first thought was they were behaviors that developed as a result of my addiction(s). My love for attention, for validation and approval, my people pleasing, my looking for someone to love me and willing to go to any length to receive that love. A lot stemmed from my need to get comfort or a high and what I needed to do to attain it and maintain it.

Behaviors can be changed. Behaviors can be modified. Behaviors can no longer stand me in good stead and have to be revised to fit my life in today. Behaviors are often as a result of my action to others, which becomes my issue not theirs.

Again, when I see the contol word, I think "if I have to control it, it is out of control." For me, the only way it can be controld is by surrendering it and asking my Higher Power for help. Control for me is an illusion. An example of this is me buying myself a treat. I tell myself I will have it a piece at a time. I have it a piece at a time but the problem is, it generally ends up being two pieces. As much as I give myself a talking to and tell myself I shouldn't eat it all at once or I shouldn't buy it at all, it ends up in my fridge. Until I find the willingness, to turn it completely over and ask my HP to take away the craving and the need, it isn't going to happen if I am truly honest with myself. I am telling tales on myself so perhaps, this will be the beginning of the first step on this matter.

I went today to check my Lottario ticket, I thought it was last night and it told me results were not available. The ticket is for tonight. A woman came to stand beside my and said, "I like those, I spend $20, sometimes I win but most times I lose." She was referring to Nevada Tickets. I told her that I allowed myself $3. and if I win I win, if I don't I don't. She said, "Lucky you!" There really isn't a difference, no matter what we spend, we still have the desire to buy. My $3. is a result of asking my Higher Power for help because they were out of control. I no longer buy every day and there are days that I can walk by them and not buy any, that in itself is a miracle from where I was before.

I choose not to spend any more than I can afford to lose.

Is it an addiction, a bad habit, a behaviour pattern, or all of the above?

Again, it isn't the substance that is the problem. An addiction is a mental obsession and an allergy to the body, mind and spirit, we do not metabolize or think the way, most people do. The chemical imbalance is different between different people, but it isn't the substance that causes it, I firmly believe a lot of it is in our genes and we are more often than not, products of our environment. We don't have to take on other people's stuff, but we often do without realizing it. Just another aspect of our dis-ease.

Originally posted on another site on 2010.

I was told that anything that I put between me, and who my God would have me be in today. Anything that will take me out of a space I don't want to be in. What I use to shut down and shut off. It may start as "just this time" and yet, when I start thinking more, I see it as part of my dis-ease. My addiction is the thinking behind the substance. What is my motive and intent. I had to learn to give myself permission to have a nap when my body needed it. In the past, my bed was my place of escape for life and what was around me. I didn't want to eat, even though I was hungry. I was thinking fat, so would pick up a cigarette. I would want to go to a certain event, but kept telling myself it was alright to run away from home. The only problem is that wherever I go, I take me with me.

[MajestyJo]

Cooperative -or- Domineering

It has been my experience that we all bring different gifts. As the saying goes, "If you only have one thought in a room, only one person is doing the thinking.

So many people don't do because they compare instead of identifying. If we all did our small part, and contribute what we can, we become part of the whole.

When I was posting the daily quotes from the Eporium, I was accused of copying and pasting too much, so I have tried to cut back and only post a couple a day. When something speaks to me, I share on it. I have found that all things don't speak to all people and as a group we are varied in our origin, addiction, and our journeys to the doors of recovery. Rather than post too much at one time, I try to spread my posts out over the course of the day.

My primary purpose is to carry the message to the addict/alcoholic who still suffers. When i couldn't come here to this site and the others I attend, because I was in the hospital, I found a big change in my attitude.

I personally, need the help of one addict, sharing with another, to stay clean and sober.

These are certainly part of my disease. Even when I am co-operating, am
people please, looking for attention, wanting to be part of the crowd that fit isn, or am I my own personality. I always feel like I have a right to express my opinion, when others do not agree, that is okay. I can agree to disagree.

I figure the best way to test group conscience, is to look to see if you have newcomers walking in your door. Are they coming back, are members taking a part in service, or all the faithful few doing all the work. Are they faithful, or are they controlling. Do they have singleness of mind, do they want what is for the Higher Good or for their own personal Gain and Goodness. Look at me people, look at what I do, am I not wonderful.

This is what people thought I was doing, and yet I was working with the new people, and when they went to another group they were told to stay away. They thought I was holding the meeting in my apartment. I didnèt even live in the building. It took about 3 years before members with some sobriety starting coming out and supporting the group.

There were 7 meeting in 6 years, and we held them for 7 years. I started them at 3 years sober, they worked for me. I went back to school and passed the group onto two others, one who got sober in the group.
I took a course to learn how to operate a computer and ended up with a certificate for business administration on computers. I learned that I did not want to go back to that kind of work, had done it for 22 years. All I wanted to do is go to meetings and carry the message. The course opened the door for me to come and share on line when I was not well enough to go to meetings.

I do not have the power to control others, unless they give up their power. I can not lose my power, unless I give it over to others. It is not my power, when I surrendered to the program, I was empowered to do what I needed to do one day at a time, to stay clean and sober.

All I can do is sew the seed, what others do with it is not up to me. All I can do is share my experience, strength, and hope. I was made to think, become aware, experience and enjoy life in a new way.

The program works, when I work it. When I do not work it, I go back into the illusion of control. In today, I choose to co-operate with others, but not at the expense of my recovery and my own personal self awareness. I can allow others to be themselves. They may not have gotten to where I am, or they are in a place, I have been to, or I have been and decided on a different journey or have been led elsewhere.

Through my God, I am guided and directed, led and given freedom of choice. I choose sobriety and my God Will. Without Him, I have nothing.

We can do what I can not do alone. I tried my way for 8 years, my way did not work. I do not want to be that person again.

[MajestyJo]

DISCIPLINE/UNDISCIPLINED


This is something I am trying to work on to put some structure back into my life, so I can let go of some of the clutter of things I need to let go of, things I need to detach from, habits that need to be reformed. I am sure that this is something God and I will be continuing work on this.

I have always been a person who tends to bend if not break rules to fit the occasion and tend to ignore and hope things will go away if I ignore them or put them on a shelf until such a time as I feel up to 'dealing' with them. The shelves need dusting, the piles are too big too ignore, and some of my habits are keeping me from living a responsible life.




Organized I am not, although I can do things in my head, putting them into reality is another matter.
Thanks for letting me share.

[MajestyJo]

In early recovery, I didn't think I had any faults after I quit using. After all, I was raised to be a good Christian girl.

It took me awhile to recognize that to err is human. I didn't want to admit to being human let alone the error. When I heard people say, "Well I am only human you know," I would get a resentment. I felt as though they used the saying as a cop out. They use their humanness to not change.

In today, I tell it as it is. What you see is what you get. As a friend said to me on Messenger the other night, "g/f you are just 2 2 funny. I never know what is going to come out of your mouth next."

Before recovery, it was all about the blame game. It was every one elses fault and the world owed me a favor as I was so hard done by.

Today I embrace change. I don't want to be that person any more. She was not very likeable. She still has a lot of work to do on herself. God and I work on it one day at a time.

Before recovery, I thought I was the best. I thought I was being the best me I could be. I also learned that you can't know what you were never taught. I was very isolated on the farm growing up and didn't have a lot of people skills. I didn't have a best friend until I was 17. When I met her, I was the follower. As my disease progressed, I became the leading authority.

So glad that it is progress not perfection.

Posted in 2011

Caught myself the other day blaming my son. I know that when I do that, it is about me and my attitude and it is time to take my own inventory.

Liken this little angel, I am not in tune with my God. When you find yourself talking just to hear yourself, talking to be the leading authority, talking to project your stuff onto others, talking to manipulate and change someone else, for the most part it is a lot of hot air.

I know if I find myself there, I know it is time to have a little talk with my God. If it is all of the above, then I have to have a BIG talk and then make sure I stop talking and listen.



Hope I don`t come across like that, it is not my motive and intent. I am just trying to share my experience, strength and hope with others.

[MajestyJo]

Willing to admit faults/self-righteous:

"If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?"

-- Erma Bombeck

When I saw this, I thought it read, "What am I doing with the pits?"

Both are worth thought and require action on my part. The 12 Steps are applicable to both.

Am I practicing the principles in all my affairs? Do I work the Steps into my daily life? Do I just think program in meetings and leave my program at the door when I go home, to work, or out into the community?

Do I think, oh woe is me? I am an alcoholic. I am so hard done by, forgetting that I should be grateful that I have found this new way of living. If I wasn't an alcoholic, I wouldn't have known that there was a chance at recovery.

Do I sometimes need to eat my words? Do I give others a second thought? Am I so caught up in self that I don't have time for others?

Originally posted in 2011, it takes self-honesty in today to find that you can still go there in today, that is why it is a one day at a time program. That is why I have the tools of recovery, the 12 Steps to fall back on, which helps me to get honest.

Silent Gratitude is not much good to anyone! I am grateful for the rooms of recovery that showed me a better way of life.

[MajestyJo]

TRUST -or- SUSPICIOUS

“Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions,
then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart.” - - unknown

Tend to trust until it is broken, regaining it can be a real issue. I try for others, because people had to learn to trust me. Wasn't aware of how much I stretched the truth or lied by omission. I told people what I thought they wanted to hear and didn't tell them things that I thought would 'upset' them.

At the moment, going through with my son. I take every thng he says with a grain of salt, and then generally end up throwing it out as being not being the truth. I have found that the truth doesn't matter, it is not his reality at the moment.

I trust my Higher Power. At first I thought that everything that I was lead to was good and never thought of it being for my Higher Good and I have a lesson to learn. Often it looked good and I had to discern if it truly was good for me. I don't think God tests me, I know that I have tested God, not always consciously, but in all honesty, my attitude is generally, "Fix this!" or " Fix this if you can." I think there is sometimes there is a belief it won't turn out the way I want it to and I am challenging Him to see how He does it!"

I try to walk in my truth today. Learning to trust my instincts took me through a lot of trials and tribulations.

Wrote this in 2011

Had to remember that my truth may not be someone elses. If you want to get me upset, call me a liar. It was a great relief when I learned that I could agree to disagree. I think we all try to be as honest and as trust worthy as we can be in today. Some days we fall short and other days, we exceed ourselves and we are surprised.

[MajestyJo]

The following link tells the difference between defects of character and short comings. For me, one is thought and the other is putting the thought into action.

http://www.texasdistrict5.com/defect...ortcomings.htm

[MajestyJo]

"Cultivating patience helps us tremendously with our program.

We grow in patience when we give God control of our lives and decide to live according to His timetable."
- - Food for Thought

Most times I am patient! NOT!!! This is something I have to practice daily and have had to do so for all my years in recovery. I do admit to it getting better and as much as I hate the saying, "Progress not Perfection" on this I am willing to apply it to because I am not sure I will ever master this.

With my health issues and sleeping patterns, they would surely test the power of Job.

Eating dinner at midnight. Waking up at 5 p.m. All things that are not good for my recovery. True, I am not on a timetable and I don't have anyone else to please or be there for but myself. Yet these hours, don't really give me the time I need to do for me.

It is not healthy to sleep the sunny hours away. I know people do it when they work nights but I am a person who needs sun. Yet having said that, I have never wanted to go to bed at night and I never wanted to get up in the morning. No wonder my body is mixed up, I can't even make up my own mind! LOL!

I am quite patient with others, especially if I see them trying. It is when they don't try and even less patience if I see that they want me to do the work for them.

As I have posted before, I use to push the automatic doors and try not to push them open, but to stand their and wait for them to open. This was at 3 years sober. Today, I have to wait for them with my walker. People are nice and hold door open and I always say thank you, yet I always seem to have problem accepting it, and tell them, "That is fine, I am use to opening and handling doors." It will be a great day when I can just say "Thank You" and leave it there. I am not saying I don't, I am learning, but the old me can still creep back in. I no longer have to justify my existence. It is okay to be me. It is at times like those mentioned and many others, that I lose patience with myself.

Posted originally on another site in 2010

This may seem like old news, but this is one day at a time program. It is better, but I can still go there.

Just because you work on a defect of character, it does come back. I think this is because we happen to be human.

[MajestyJo]

Perceptive/Judgmental

Certainly didn't have perception when I was using. It was always about the other person, never about me. In today, I know it is all about me, it isn't about what the other person is doing. It is a program of reflection, and if I am ever in doubt about who I am judgmental about, I just have to look at where I am pointing the finger, be it at myself or another.

The times I find that I am lacking in judgment is when someone, especially someone with many years in the program, being judgmental of others and are putting them down. I know we are all human and can go there, but hopefully, don't stay there.

Today I heard someone doing that, and the difference was today, I didn't react to it, I listened to her and said, "Sounds like you need a meeting." She is going through a difficult time and not getting enough sleep. She needed a friend not someone who was going to attack her and reminder her to work her program.

I know for me, when I get like that, I need a meeting too.

Posted in 2011 on another site.

Perception and asking for it's healing for today, was part of my daily routine, and I realized I got away from it, I have been asking for clarity, but need to stretch my recovery to cover more.

Perception is not a recovery tool, but part of our disease, and I need to ask for cleansing and an open mind.

Was very judgmental in the beginning of recovery, if you disagreed with what my sponsor told me, you were wrong. Unfortunately, I was quick to inform you. If you judge me, I will judge you. Glad I don't have to go there in today. If I find myself there, I know to turn it over to my God and ask for it to be healed and removed.

May me eyes be cleansed, my vision broadened, and acceptance of others. If I am told "It is alright, you are right where you are suppose to be," then the same is good for others. It is alright, if I have been working my program, cleaning my side of the street, and walking with my God. If I doubt myself, I am doubting and not trusting God.