As an addict, I’m looking for a
deal. I’m looking for a way out that
free and easy. I want half measures that
actually work. I think this way because
I want some guarantee of the future. I
want to know that there will be enough, enough joy, enough food, enough
numbness, enough safety. I want a secure
tomorrow so I can live without obligation or limits today. I want sobriety for free.
That’s not what the program
offers. The Twelve Steps are not about
how to get high without getting high. The
Twelve Steps are about honesty, surrender, inventory, becoming ready, amending,
service. No one promised us an easy
program, just a simple one.
My recovery and my
higher power give me all I need.
What would you do if
you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing
that you did mattered? –Groundhog Day
As an
addict, it’s very easy for me to resort to black and white thinking. Truth is sometimes bad stuff does
happen. Life has issues and troubles and
hardships. I was never promised an easy,
trouble-free life – that notion came to me early in recovery when my addict
brain tried to interpret the 12 Step Programs and determined that the hope of
the program could be translated to promises of a fantasy world. How do I know that my addiction tried to
corrupt that hope? Because, at the end
of any such stream of thinking, I would get to drink or smoke or trip or eat or
sex with impunity.
Reality at
all costs shows me that while there are troubles, that does not mean my life is
hopeless. The issues every person faces
in a day, and the unique issues that every addict faces in a day, are not the
full sum and total of my life. Even if the
troubles continue on into a monotony of pain, there is evidence of my higher
power holding up the earth beneath my feet.
And that’s where I find hope that at the end of today, it’s worth it for
me to put my head on my pillow.
My higher power gives
me recovery and the chance to fill my life.
++++++++++++++++
Roy: Hey Herb, how’s life?
Herb: Takin’ forever.--Kingpin
My
addiction, unchecked, is a suicide.
Likely not even a slow suicide.
My addiction ends in insanity, institutions, or death. Which ultimately means, my addiction ends in
death. That death can come as fast as my
consequences chase me. In active
addiction, I am one hazy, intoxicated decision away from causing my own
demise. Whether it’s following a dealer
into a dangerous looking building, going home for sex with a total stranger, or
pushing my high jamming my fingers down my throat a little further, any
decision I make in my addiction can always be my last.
Even out of
active addiction, am I embracing life, or waiting for death? Do I have a sobriety plan that includes
self-care? If I have a bottom line, do I
have a top line as well? What am I
filling the hole of my addiction with?
It matters, not because I used to be “bad” and now I have to be “good”. It matters because the hole of addiction is a
hole in my self and my soul, and it’s worth filling with self-respect and
self-love. How do I know that? My higher power tells me so.
Being me is good.
Phil: What if there were no tomorrow?
Gus: No tomorrow.
That would mean there would be no consequences, no hangovers, we could
do whatever we wanted.–Groundhog Day
Throughout
my addiction, I believed in the fantasy of denial. I believed that if I was willing to lie to
myself, if I believed my lies, then everyone else would too. And maybe they did, or maybe they were in
just as much denial as I have been or maybe their self care involved not saving
the unwilling.
The lies do
not hold up. To believe there are no
consequences is to believe a lie. In
fact the only way for no consequences to be the truth is to let addiction win
and give up on tomorrow, literally. I
have walked that circle of thinking many a long and lonely night in my
addiction. And all the while there has
been a side door for me to escape. The
door is surrender, surrender the lies, give up the fantasies, find another
addict and follow a new path. My new
path is straight and it is paved with the truth and leads directly to my higher
power.
If I think there’s no
way out, I just might be wrong.
++++++++++++++++
Although you’ll never
know all the steps, you must learn to join the dance. --Prince of Egypt
I
procrastinate a lot. I often say, I will
do that thing, I will take that risk, when I get a sign. I will engage in self-care when it’s proven
to me that I should, that I’m worth it.
I will call my peer when I feel better about myself, when I feel like I
have something meaningful to say. I will
share at a meeting when I am good and ready.
What am I waiting for? I’m
waiting for perfection. I’m waiting
until I can guarantee myself that I won’t make a mistake, won’t sound stupid,
won’t embarrass myself, won’t get it wrong.
But that
thought process ends in continual self-denial.
The truth is I will never know all that I need to know, I will never be
without mistakes, I will never achieve perfection – even if sometimes I
accomplish exactly what I dreamed about, that doesn’t make me perfect. So maybe I can take a chance, maybe the next
time I’m at a wedding or a christening or a bar mitzvah, I can get up and join
the dance, not because I will be perfect or even be good, but because it’s okay
to be me, as God intended.
‘Mistake” is not a bad
word.
++++++++++++++++
I’ll give you a winter prediction – it’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be gray, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life. –Groundhog Day
The winter
can be relentless. It can be bleak. It can be long. It can seem interminable. Why?
Because I am human, and an addict, and so I have a hard time perceiving
reality. I easily forgot the truth and think that the frozen world will persist forever. I believe that I will never get out from under, never feel free, never win.
No matter how cold it gets, no matter how bone-chilling the winter, the isolation, the pain, there is one guarantee that our higher power gives us. Change. The very sidewalk that is covered in snow, and the very wind that penetrates every layer of my protection from the cold, will someday bring sunlight and warmth and life and joy. Green leaves will come again. The flowers will perfume again. The sun will rise tomorrow and I can be there for it. All I have to do is be willing to do the next right thing.
All I need to know about tomorrow is that it will come.
No matter how cold it gets, no matter how bone-chilling the winter, the isolation, the pain, there is one guarantee that our higher power gives us. Change. The very sidewalk that is covered in snow, and the very wind that penetrates every layer of my protection from the cold, will someday bring sunlight and warmth and life and joy. Green leaves will come again. The flowers will perfume again. The sun will rise tomorrow and I can be there for it. All I have to do is be willing to do the next right thing.
All I need to know about tomorrow is that it will come.
