When one alcoholic/addict shares with another alcoholic/addict

[MajestyJo]

People are like magnets, they draw certain energies toward
themselves. I have noticed that anytime my focus turns
negative, it's because I have been focusing on what I might
be doing wrong, real or imagined! Must be me, right?
Nope! This is just those old tapes replaying in my head....

People with negative energy try to suck us in, pulling us into
that same black hole they live in. The only way to battle this
pull is getting back to basics, restoring positive energy and
balance in my life.

Unknown to me

I am a firm believer that we attract like energy. What I put out, I will get back. Negative things happen, but instead of "Oh woe is me!" I try to look for the positive and how I can change that negative into something that is good for me. I have learned that what is positive for me may not be good for someone else and visa versa.

I have had a lot of pain, felt kind of blue, and considering a pity party when the phone rings. If it is someone who is positive, I will hesitate to pick it up but if I do answer I let them know that it isn't really good for me to talk in the moment. Other times, when I know the person tends to be an energy stealer, a taker instead of a giver, I will talk to them and nine times out of ten, the negative energy around me is gone and I have feeling better.

When I get an message on my answering machine, I listen for their voice and if I hear sighs, oh woe is mes, along with a hard luck story, I answer when it is good for me.

Posted on another site by me in 2010

[MajestyJo]

Sharpen Your Ax

A young man approached the foreman of a logging crew and asked for a job. "That depends," replied the foreman. "Let's see you fell this tree." The young man stepped forward, and skillfully felled a great tree. Impressed, the foreman exclaimed, "You can start Monday."

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday rolled by--and Thursday afternoon the foreman approached the young man and said, "You can pick up your paycheck on the way out today."

Startled, the young man replied, "I thought you paid on Friday."

"Normally we do," said the foreman. "But we're letting you go today because you've fallen behind. Our daily felling charts show that you've dropped from first place on Monday to last place today."

"But I'm a hard worker," the young man objected. "I arrive first, leave last, and even have worked through my coffee breaks?"

The foreman, sensing the young man's integrity, thought for a minute and then asked, "Have you been sharpening your ax?"

The young man replied, "No sir, I've been working too hard to take time for that!"

Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy that we don't take time to "sharpen the ax." In today's world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but less happy than ever. Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to stay sharp?

There's nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But God doesn't want us to get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like taking time to pray, to read and study Scripture, or to listen to "the still small voice of God." We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow. If we don't take time to sharpen the ax,
we will become dull and lose our effectiveness.

Found this on another site, originally posted by BW in 2010

For me, it was my tongue that was sharp. Was so busy cutting everyone down, comparing instead of identifying my own problems.

We do need to be vigilant as this disease is cunning, baffling and powerful. You never know when it is going to raise it's head and try to take you by surprise. Many times I have asked myself, "Now where did that thought come from?" It is generally my disease telling me that things are okay, when in fact they are not. For me it was about self-honesty and letting go of the denial.

I can't, God can, just for today, I chose to let Him.

[MajestyJo]

Alkiespeak - Book - Quote

We're all here because we're not all there.- Fr Joe M.

In a way this is very true, because every time I picked up a drink or a drug, I gave away a piece of me. It just sounds hurtful, and although I liked to think I had thick skin, things like this bothered me.

Have heard that line many times over the years, and yet it is part of the saying we hear in the room that I find abusive. When we are new in recovery, we need affirmations and made to feel worthy.

One of the things that really got me going was calling sponsees pigeons. It might have been because there was an issue with them in my building, but I think they are the dirtiest of the dirty, and that is how I felt when I came in and I didn't like having it affirmed by someone trying to be cute.

I brought it up at a meeting once and was told, it was good for Bill and Dr. Bob so it is good enough for me. Well life changes, we have new awareness, and I don't think they realized in the 1930s that it was abusive. It is like the old saying, "Putting someone down to make you feel good.

In 1930, I don't think that there was any thought of young people coming into the program, and there were not many women, and all the alcoholics were good old boys.

Don't know where that all came from, but guess it needed to be said.

Wrote this in 2013 on another site.

Things are not so open and truthful in today. I am grateful that I was brought up with those long-timers. I still don't like the word 'pigeon' and that is me. When I think of pigeon, I think of stool pigeon which in Scottish, I was told was a clipe, or a tattle tale.

Maybe that is what I am, because what I heard and applied to my life are words that I heard in the rooms of recovery or on sites on line.

[MajestyJo]

The greatest fault of all is to be conscious of none.

Referring to my list again, I put out of my mind the wrongs others have done, and look at what my part is. (adapted from the AA Big Book, P 67)

- Pocket Sponsor

This was me in early recovery. I was visiting my friend who is living with me now. I said, "Now that I am not drinking, there is nothing wrong with me," and she proceeded to take my inventory for me. I was quite annoyed, but anger can be a great motivator and went home and added 6 more things to the list. I phoned my sponsor and she said, "Now find positive things to balance the negative." That was the hard part.

How can I know what to change if I don't know what is there? How can I change something I can't recognize or feel? It was a process for me. Took off the top layer, I inventoried things as they came up. I had used for so many years and stuffed things from the age of 3 when I saw my brother killed, so had a lot of practice, in shoving things down and now allowing myself to feel. I found that I had to feel it in order to be able to let it go.

Posted by me on another site in 2011

Smiling, was just talking to that friend. She no longer lives me, but we are still friend and see each other. There have been times in my life when I had to detach from her. We met originally in treatment in 1991.

It still applies today. I may not use alcohol to stuff in today, but I can use other substance that don`t seem as harmful, but they become a drug when they do for me what alcohol use to do for me. One is hiding in my bed or running away from home to avoid addressing an issue in the moment. I was glad I made it to my Al-Anon meeting today. It reminded me to take my eyes off the alcoholic in my life and remember this recovering alcoholic and focus on my own recovery.

[MajestyJo]

A Way

from: "You Are Not Alone"

"Alcoholics are experts at not being able to see their own illness. They are often the last to admit that they have a drinking problem.

"Help is available, but you must make the decision to ask for it.... [In A.A.] you will simply meet men and women who have found a way to free themselves from their dependence on alcohol and have begun to repair the damage it has done to their lives. Such freedom and recovery can be yours, too."

© 1976, A.A. for the Woman (A.A. Pamphlet P-5), pages 8 and 9

When I came into recovery, it was so nice to know that I wasn't alone. My thoughts were not original, and I was only unique in my journey to get to the doors of recovery, I was not so unique in the fact that I was the only one who had gone through what I did in their life.

What I say is not only my words, only the interruptation of what I heard around the tables at meetings, listening and sharing with others. My best thinking got me here. Sharing that thinking, allows me to let go and make room for new thoughts to come in. When I learn to identify instead of compare, I know I am in the right place.

Originally posted on another site in 2005.

One of the reasons to go to meetings, even though you have a few 24 hours under your belt, is to go and listen to newcomers. It isn't any better out there. We can't forget where we came from. They have a great message for us to hear. We need them as much as they need us to help guide them on a recovery road by sharing what it was like for us.

The first word of the first step is "We..." We can do what I can't do alone. When I go to a meeting, I am not alone. I call a meeting a God Village. A group of spiritual people coming together for a common cause, to stay clean and sober in today.

[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]

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]

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]

One night at my old group, we discussed Tradition Four. Ego and chaos is comfortable and not always easy to recognize when we are in it. Personally, I need to remember that it is part of my disease not my recovery.

I know I had ego when I came in. I enjoyed getting to read the longest Step or Tradition when they were passed around the room. I liked to put my 2 cents in and then I learned I wasn't suppose to cross talk. I had people disagree with me and I would say, "How can you disagree, you were not there, you didn't walk in my shoes." I learned people have a right to their opinion and just possibly, he had been in the same situations and he had some kind of enlightenment that I didn't receive.

There was a guy who always started his share with, "Keep an open mind." In truth it was an ego thing. He relapsed at 22 years sober after being in a relationship with a girl half his age. She stayed sober to the best of my knowledge.

We don't have a right to play God with someone else's life.

[MajestyJo]

I am reminded of the slogan, "Let it begin with me." I can't change others, but I can change me and I am a firm believer that we are often products of our environment. I need not only look at what and who is around me, but look at the energy I am putting out.

I was told there was no right or wrong, it was all energy and it was up to me to accept or reject it. What is good for me in today, may not be good tomorrow. What is good for me, may not be good for someone else.

[MajestyJo]

In A.A. we have to learn that drink is our greatest enemy. Although we used to think that liquor was our friend, the time came when it turned against us and became our enemy.

- 24 Hour A Day

Alcohol was my coping tool. It was made me feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof. I laughed when I heard that phrase. It is an exaggeration, but then, that is what alcoholic do! Drink and exaggerate. It isn't about a drink it is about how many an hour. It isn't about a glass but a bottle. For me it was did I have over 20 or under 20 when I went to the Legion. It wasn't about one hour or a time out. It was about a day or how long did I go this time?

What I thought of as my best friend became my worst enemy. I could no longer drink safely. When I wanted to stop, I couldn't!

I remember asking, "what do I need to change?" My reply was always the same, "Everything!"

It took me a long time to see my disease. I compared the drinking and the actions until I started to identify with the feelings and thoughts behind them.

I don't have a drinking problem today, I still have a thinking problem and that I why I continue to need this program. I have to work on my emotional sobriety every day.

Spirituality is a change in our attitude, sufficient to aid recovery according to the Big Book. It worked for me. Most of my problems were attitude problems and I had a lot of changing to do.

Getting rid of the old to make room for the new. Cleansing my body, mind, and spirit.

[MajestyJo]

(Humour me....but it's become abundantly clear to me how ingrained recovery becomes as a way of life....Feel free to add to the list.

I'd be thrilled to know I'm not the ONLY nutcase out here! LOL)

graced

You KNOW you're in recovery when...

** you have more self help books for overcoming addictions on your bookshelves than the public library but you read only two--the big blue one and the little blue one! (why I don't toss the rest is beyond me!)

**you give a thumbs up to the fella honking behind you cuz you're convinced it's about the 'honk if you're a friend of Bill's' sticker on your bumper and totally missed the fact that you're turning the wrong way onto a one way street. (true ...LOL)

**you stand up to address a group of professionals about work related topics and introduce yourself in the usual manner..."Hi, I'm ___ and I'm an alcoholic" (oops..LOL)

**you excuse yourself in a heated moment with another person to use the restroom to get ON your knees for surrendering purposes. (yep...people will look at ya funny..LOL)

**you tell the officer the reason you're in the park AFTER closing hours with some scared looking person in the car with you- is that you're "doing a fifth".......and promptly begin scrambling like mad to correct that statement! (oy....)

[MajestyJo]

1) I can respond to this thread, and actually see the humor for a change.

2) Know what they mean when they are talking about "Bill W." & Dr. Bob."

3) Not be "shaking & quaking" in fear at meetings anymore.

4) Sincere honesty doesn't bother me anymore (not quite there yet).

5) I find it easy to call anyone, day or night, on that list they gave me, if necessary. I'm still working on this one.

6) I tend to read recovery texts or daily meditations, rather than do the daily crossword puzzle from the daily newspaper in the morning.

7) I find "service work" humbling. I go to meetings early, so that I may help my sponsor set up for the meeting. I also stay late, for "the meeting" after the meeting. I need it.

8) I offer advice, even when it's not asked for. Grandiose thinking???!!!!

Thanks so much for a great post.

It is always good reminder that we can still have a since humor while sober. Hell, to be perfectly honest, I never had much of one while I was out drinking & using. Everything was pretty much dismal, to be truthful.

But my alcoholic thinking & ways is so very much selective. I tend to want to think of the way it was almost in the very beginning. Things weren't so bad then; I hadn't yet gone down that proverbial "slippery slope" of nearly no return.

I am a newbie. Though familiar with the program, after being in & out for several years, this a new start for me.

I never grow tired of hearing others who have been working the 12 steps for several 24 hours being able to joke around. I literally WANT what they have. To not take a back seat to anyone, yet humble enough for self-deprecating humor.

Anonymous

The greatest gift being able to laugh at myself.

All of the above!

[MajestyJo]

Yep, a day at a time...you stick around and great things will happen for you!

And the humour truly isn't self depreciating--far from it! I've learned to not take life or myself too darn seriously. When your worth and value isn't in your 'doings' but in your 'beings'......as a child of G-d, you don't get to depreciate the value no matter where your feet have landed....G-d loves ya in spite of it all, 'doesn't make junk' and has a purpose and a lesson in everything.

So......

You know you're in recovery when.....

**you find yourself in the recovery section of Barnes and Noble with your cuppa Starbucks coffee, looking for yet another daily reading book!

**you don't have to ask what you'll be doing this weekend cuz you know exactly which meeting you'll be going to and which pigeon you'll be working with.

**you stomp your foot, cross your arms and admit that you're tantrumming...and if folks will just wait, you'll be done shortly.. (yep..LOL...I still do this one)

**you find yourself chanting slogans and getting through moments that you used to drink over.

**you find yourself finishing the quotes from the Big Book that your sponsor starts and going "yeah, yeah, yeah...I KNOW....I AM my own problem....LOL"

Being able to take the words off the page and applying them to my life.