My struggle
with addiction is a struggle with reality.
I just don’t perceive reality in a reliable way. I don’t believe, or I’m unwilling to believe,
that the next time I indulge, I will feel what some literature calls “pitiful
demoralization”. I will feel that every time
I go to my addiction, and yet I continually return. The coming pain is real, but I cannot learn that
reality. Why do I go to my
addiction? Because of some unbearable
truth about myself: that I’m not good
enough, I’m not doing enough, I’m letting down the people I love, I’m unlovable,
I’m a source of shame. Those beliefs about
me are just as false as my hope that one more high is a good idea.
Reality at
all costs is not an easy road. That’s
why the program is based on me getting help.
I check out my thinking with my sponsor and my recovery peers and my
trusted advisors. I get support to feel the
feelings that I struggle with. I get
help to stop expecting milk from the coffee earn and I get reminders that my
addiction will sting every time.
I need to learn the reality
of addiction every day. I get support
from program and can pass that support along to others.
You had me at
hello. --Jerry Maguire
Program
teaches us to avoid contempt before investigation. It’s a simple enough proposition. I struggle with perceiving reality when I
have all the facts, how reliable can my hate be if I haven’t even looked at the
facts? And what about the other side -
how about obsessive idolizing before investigation? How many times do fall in love in a day, or
become convinced that this next diet, this next self-help book, this next fix
will be the final fix? I’ve found my “soul
mate” on the bus without even seeing their face, just catching a glimpse of their
arm or their hair or their shape.
I am
learning to save my caring and emotions and love for a receptive audience. I don’t have to throw myself at someone without
learning who they are and what they believe.
I don’t have to be a ‘cheap date’, I don’t have to make up for someone
else’s shortcomings. I don’t have to
take crumbs in my relationships. No one’s
perfect, I know that all too well looking in the mirror, but I am learning to
give myself to people after learning who they are.
I can learn about the
people around me before I decide who to give my time and emotions to.
How many
times have we said, “I’ve got it now”?
We come out of the fog of addiction, put some time together, and then we
really understand it. We get it,
finally. We know it took us a while, but
we finally get the program, we understand sobriety, we’re finally on track like
everyone else at the meeting. Cunning,
baffling, powerful. The truth is that
being an addict means I’ll never get it.
I’ll wake up with the same problem every day – a thinking problem, a
misconception that I can figure out this struggle, come up with a recipe and
then coast without having to work.
So, there’s
nothing for me to ‘get’. I can’t think
my way out of this disease. Whatever I
think up today does not solve my problems of tomorrow. My recovery work is never completed, because
I can always wake up with the seemingly sane idea that today is a good day to
get high. What is it that I do
learn? That my health is based directly
on my spiritual condition. There is
something for me to do every day in recovery.
That doesn’t mean I have to lead the world service organization every day,
but I do need to take steps in my recovery every day so that I can remain
spiritually fit.
Recovery work is
whatever I have to do to stay sober today.
Stupid is as stupid
does. --Forest Gump
They best
way to see how I’m doing in recovery?
Take a look at what I did today.
I can’t worry too much about what I think each day – my thoughts have
proven to be unreliable. But my actions
tell a pretty accurate story – especially when I check them out with my peers
in recovery. Did I walk past the bar
today? Why didn’t I take the longer
route through the park? Did I cover my
tracks today? Where did those tracks
lead and why wouldn’t I want others to know?
Who do I resent today? What am I
doing to stoke that fire? What am I
avoiding? Every day I can continue to
inventory my conduct, then I can realize I’m veering towards my addiction,
rather that wake up surrounded by drugs or booze or junk food or pornography
and wonder, how did I get here again?
All my life I've been
waiting for someone and when I find her, she's a fish -Splash
Sometimes
we are just convinced of what we need.
We set our expectations and will not let them go until they occur. I have to get this job; She needs to
understand what I mean; I’ll never be able to achieve this dream; or I have to
think this certain way. We’ve got it all
figured out and if things don’t go as we expect, we can’t even imagine the
result.
And
gratefully, the truth, we couldn’t even list all the possibilities for our
lives. The world is richer with more
options than we can fathom. And that
means whatever limits we have conjured up are our own limits. Faith in our higher power means that HP is in
charge, HP comes up with the options, HP controls outcomes, HP drives the
bus. How good a job is HP doing? When we think honestly and stay grounded in
reality, the answer is that everything happens in God’s world for a reason.
I don’t have to figure
out the answers, I just have to accept what they are.
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