Tag: Step 10

What Do I Do One Day At a Time?

 

What Do I Do One Day At a Time?

 

Picture Collage Maker 2013 Calendar
Picture Collage Maker 2013 Calendar (Photo credit: Squidooer)

 

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time?  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86)

 

In recovery circles, people often throw around the idea of living “one day at a time”.  This passage is one of the descriptions of what you do one day at a time and hopefully at some point what you do all of the time.  The passage is specifically describing Step 11 and is tied to Step 10, but is way more important than just that.  Recovery is not about being able to check twelve boxes that indicate you have completed twelve magic steps and then living happily ever after.  Recovery is a process of gaining much more than that:

 

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 58)

 

Recovery is not a matter of just doing a bunch of things; recovery is about “grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.”  The things you do in recovery have been designed to guide you to that end.

 

Working the Steps is designed to help each of us understand and to develop a way of living your life and that way of living is centered on being brutally honest.

 

The passage we started with gives us a key example of some of the things we are to be brutally honest about and by being brutally honest about these things on a daily basis we are working on making this the way we live our lives.

 

According to that passage on page 86, we are learning to live a life:

 

  • free of being resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid
  • where whenever you have done any of these things or anything that may have hurt another person you apologize to them
  • where you are open and honest with others about even the deepest and darkest areas of your life and you cease to have those secret destructive areas in your life
  • where you are kind and loving towards all people
  • where you not only live positively, but you are always looking for how you can improve
  • where you no longer focus on how comfortable you are or are not and live a truly unselfish life
  • where you check on these things in the morning, in the evening and throughout each day to quickly catch when you are messing up in one of these areas and fix the problem immediately.

 

In other words:  RECOVERY IS THE PROCESS OF CHANGE.  THE AMOUNT OF RECOVERY YOU EXPERIENCE IS EQUAL TO THE AMOUNT OF POSITIVE CHANGING YOU DO.  Areas in your life that you are not willing to change are areas in your life that are keeping you from recovery.  UNWILLINGNESS TO CHANGE IS UNWILLINGNESS TO RECOVER.  UNWILLINGNESS TO CHANGE IS A DETERMINATION TO STAY THE SAME.   If you are determined to stay the same you can only expect the same results.  If you stay the same, you will do the same and relapse is inevitable.

 

Change is an incredibly hard thing to do and few people have the desire to completely change the totality of how they think and act.  Most people are willing to change a few particularly bad areas of their lives.  Most people just want to change a few isolated areas and somehow live happily ever after somehow getting vastly different results while still living basically the same way they have been.

 

A key ingredient required for all of this is the “rigorous honesty” that is required for all of these things.

 

Not only do you need to be brutally honest with yourself about the all of these areas, but you need to regularly talk with others who are brutally honest with you.  I don’t mean periodically either.  That passage describes discussing these things with these people at once in an effort to gain their outside “rigorous honesty”.

 

A person who is incapable of this kind of rigorous honesty an particularly those incapable of being brutally honest with themselves are one of those unfortunates that will not experience recovery.

 

YOU CAN HAVE RECOVERY IF YOU CAN SEARCH FOR, FIND AND ACCEPT THE FACTS THEN DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO CHANGE ACCORDINGLY.

 

This describes one of the main struggles of recovery while at the same time describing the facts that are the hope for recovery.  Recovery is change and change is hard yet can be achieved.

 

Think of how all of this is tied to “The Promises” you hear recited at many Twelve Step meetings:

 

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

 

The question is not: “Are these things possible?”  The question is, are you willing to work for them.  That means are you willing to be brutally honest and are you willing to be completely changed in the process?

 

Make this year, make each day, make each minute, make each interaction, make even each thought an experience of brutal honesty and an opportunity for significant change in your life.  Live the new lifestyle “one day at a time” and one rigorously honest change at a time and have a rigorously honest, happy New Year.

 

 

 

Stay sober my friends,

 

Wade H.

 

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The Holidays “One Day at a Time”

The Holidays “One Day at a Time”

One Day At A Time
One Day At A Time (Photo credit: sidewalk flying)

Now that most of us are relatively sure that December 21, 2012 is not the end of the world, we have to get back to living one day at a time through the holiday season.  There are insane occurrences and problems in the news:

There are fiscal cliffs to fall off of, people freaking out and shooting people, children being horribly killed and on and on.  The problem we have is that we have to remain clean in spite of anything that is going on.

I wonder how many people who were in recovery and really believed that the twenty-first was the end of the world decided that it was okay to relapse before dying in global destruction.  The “one last party before I go” thing since “we’re all going to die anyway.”  Now, as we head into December 22, those people are simply people who relapsed over some “insanely trivial excuse”.

As for the rest of us, we still have to make it through the usual chaos of the holidays plus all the added stresses of the economy and all of the things going on around us.  Like I said, just like before our supposed end of the world and just like any other time that is not the holiday season, we have to take life “one day at a time.”

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86)

According to this passage, one key aspect of “living one day at a time” is to re-look each day and honestly look at your actions.

The first thing to notice is the implication that we are all going to mess it all up sometimes.  In all of our gathering together, fighting our way through shopping malls, fighting with holiday traffic and so on we still cannot allow ourselves to slide back into stupidity.  The problem is that at some point many (if not most) of us will slide back into stupidity.

It is not okay to let this happen, but at times we all fall short.  According to this passage we have to catch it as quickly as possible and fix the situation as soon as possible.

In the heat of the moment, many of us will feel justified in whatever crazy action we take and probably will not notice how crazy we are being.  The idea is to stop at the end of the day, step out of your current perspective and take a brutally honest look at your actions from the day.

The passage doesn’t stop there, it goes on to instruct us to involve someone else.  It implies that the “someone else” is not just anyone however.  The passage implies that it is a person of good sense.

I have seen many people pick such accountability partners, mentors, sponsors and various kinds of spiritual guides by looking for the person most likely to go along with whatever crazy trip that you go on without ever telling you you are wrong.

This person (or group of people) needs to be a person that can be brutally honest with you if you are being crazy in the moment and you need to be ready to listen even if you disagree.

That means a daily assessment of if you are being: resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid in anything.  Are you hiding something?  Were you kind and loving toward all people?  Do you owe someone (an immediate) apology for something?  Were you thinking of others or just yourself in all situations?

All of this is really just a part of Step Eleven which is really tied to working your Step Ten:

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

The same methods for reviewing the day are what you are supposed to be doing throughout the day.  If you do notice yourself drifting off into crazy land, stop right there, stop yourself, talk to whoever you have put in place to reality check your crazy moments and make any amends you need to make right then to whoever you owe them to.

These two things are key to our staying clean and to our staying away from our own self-destructive silliness.

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

These things are not just good ideas, they are major parts of the new way of living that is recovery.  In harder times (such as the holiday season) we simply work harder at focusing on these key elements of our recoveries.

We each have to have a means for honestly (brutally honestly) taking an inventory of our actions and be willing to fix anything that is discovered to be wrong immediately.

We are not only supposed to do these things, we are supposed to vigorously live this way.  The word “vigorously” is defined by Merriam-Webster as:

: done with vigor : carried out forcefully and energetically

We don’t just live this way, we force ourselves to live this way energetically.

Living one day at a time is not just about focusing on not drinking/using today.  Living one day at a time is about living your life in this whole new way each day.  Not only living this way, but assuming there will be challenges and failures and putting measures in place to stop and immediately fix these things when they come up.

We can all live our recovery one day at a time if we first know what that means.  Once we know what that means each of us must “vigorously” live this way and even more so during more challenging times.

All of this may seem completely unlike your normal personality, but member:  “If you keep doing the same things, you can expect to keep getting the same results.”  If you are going to get different results (i.e. recovery) then you are going to have to do different things.  The fact that this does not sound like who you are naturally is not necessarily a bad thing.  The idea is that there is “way of living” that is “commenced” because it is new to you.  You are trying to live a new way of life that is dramatically different than the way you have lived in the past which by nature is uncomfortable.

This is why all of this is carried out “vigorously”.  It is uncomfortable to do and at times, you have to force yourself.

The very next paragraph from the passage I just quoted contains what most of us in recovery call “The Promises”.

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 84 – 85)

This is the “way of living” that brings you to these promises and that can sustain these promises through the holiday season.  These are why you would force yourself to do things that are so uncomfortable.

If you do what the passage says will lead to these promises, you will then get the promises.  If you live this way one day at a time then you will get the promises one day at a time.

Live this way of living and you will get through the holidays one day at a time.  Live this way and you will also find yourself getting through every day one day at a time.

May you have the happy holidays as promised in the promises and…

Stay sober my friends;

 

Wade H.

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The Dubious Luxuries of Normies – But Not Me!!!

Anger Controlls Him

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 67)

This is a key concept that seems to be missed in many recovery circles.  I regularly hear people share that seem as though mad at everyone.  I don’t have a problem with a person in recovery experiencing those feelings, the problem I have is that nobody seems to feel that it is necessary to try to help these people find freedom from this or to even discuss the fact that these kinds of feelings are death to people like us.  That is a long, miserable, prolonged, sinking in quicksand kind of death.

If nobody has noted this important idea for all of us in recovery and for all people working the Twelve Steps to you, let me be the first:  ANGER, NEGATIVE FEELINGS AND NEGATIVE THOUGHTS ARE POISON TO YOUR WORLD AND TO YOUR RECOVERY!

That can be multiplied exponentially for one of our worst archenemies; resentment.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 66)

Resentment is a big killer for those of us in recovery.  We have absolutely no room for this ridiculous mess in our lives.  Not only can we not have this in our lives we need to take time at the end of each day to search out these kinds of feelings and desperately do all we can to be rid of them before we lay our heads on the pillow and transition into the next day.

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 86)

Whatever it takes, no matter how drastic the response may seem, we cannot allow ourselves to keep anger and resentment.  If you truly understand resentment as a terrible poison for your life then this statement will be painfully clear to you. Whatever it takes, no matter how drastic the response may seem, we cannot allow ourselves to keep this terrible poison in our system.

Sometimes when this is discussed, a few people come to believe that expression of the feelings is the cure and go off on a whirlwind tangent of crazy assaults on all unsuspecting passers by they deem to deserve it.  I am not saying that there will never be an instance where you might need to stand up for something or someone, but angry outbursts are simply the same poison in a different color.

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

And more clearly and directly stated:

We avoid retaliation or argument.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 67)

Did you notice how in the passage from page 84 “fighting anything or anyone” is directly tied to interest in relapsing.  Both are tied together with the concept of sanity.  Fighting anything or anyone and relapse are insanity and by the time a person gets to Step Ten sanity should have returned.  By Step Ten these kinds of feelings and outbursts should be a thing of the past and on the rare occasion that they almost come up, they cause a recoil.  The kind of recoil that a person has when they are not paying attention and their hand accidentally touches the hot stove.

Look at  these definitions from Dictionary.com for the word “recoil”:

  • to draw back; start or shrink back, as in alarm, horror, or disgust.
  • to jerk back, as from an impact or violent thrust
  • …to draw back in fear, horror, or disgust: to recoil from the sight of blood

That is not to say that angry, frustrated, resentful, etc. are not a part of you are now.  What all of that says and what I am saying is that those things absolutely cannot be a part of who you need to become to get recovery.

Who you have been is the problem and who you are supposed to become through the recovery process is the solution.  Staying the same is not an option.  If you stay the same inevitably you will do the same.  If you do the same, you will eventually get the same results.

This may be quite a tall order for some of us and I do not disagree with that assessment.  The fact it is hard to change or even hard to want to change however, does not somehow make it okay to stay the same.

As a matter of fact, many of the tasks of recovery are hard to change or hard to want to change (like the fact of using and the need for recovery itself).  If you are not willing to run towards these kinds of change and desperately work towards them at all costs, you can count on little if any recovery.  A person who will not change has decided to stay the same and can expect the same results.

There are also those who have found some degree of freedom and yet have not found the real freedom we are promised.  In many of these cases these attitudes are evident and often dismissed as the result of this lack of freedom yet seldom are these looked at as possibly the reason for the lack of freedom.

Before you can be free of the poisons that the world is trying to shove into your life you have to deal with the poisons you shove into your own life.  These angers, frustrations, resentments etc. are the luxuries of the people who do not use, but they are not for us.  For us these are among the most painful and prolonged forms of self torture and suicide there can be for us.  On the other hand, freedom from these may be your keys to freedom from many evils that poison and devour your life.

Stay sober my friends,

Wade H.

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The “No Matter What The Consequences” “Go To Any Length” Promises

Arguing

 The “No Matter What The Consequences” “Go To Any Length” Promises

Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 77)

I have discussed this before a few times in various ways (see Relapse and Recovery & Change The Past In The Present To Change Your Future. & “In The Face Of Expert Opinion To The Contrary, We Have Recovered”), but it seems to be a never-ending debate (especially with those who are supposed to be working Steps Eight and Nine).

It is always amusing to me how many people ask me, doesn’t the Big Book tell you to, “make amends unless making it will harm you or them?”  They always have this look as if I have suddenly had my mind wiped clear of all recovery knowledge when I firmly answer them with a flat-out “NO!”  Then they always want to convince me that it does say that.  Then I casually refer them to page 79 in the Alcoholics Anonymous book and read:

Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 79)

Then to page 59 which is the step they are terribly (and possibly fatally) misquoting:

9.  Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 59)

The correct quote is “except when to do so would injure THEM or OTHERS.  The Step and the book say absolutely nothing about avoiding the making of an amends because it might harm you.  As a matter of fact, the passage we looked at from page 79, we are to make all emends, “no matter what the personal consequences may be.” 

The conversation itself is an attempt to convince me of a path to recovery that is completely opposite to we are being told.

All those “Promises” that we are all taught through repetition to use as the carrot on our recovery stick.  These “Promises” are waved around as the big happy ending for us.   The point in our story where we got to the “and he/she lived happily ever after” part. 

I am not saying these promises are not true or that they are not a good goal to shoot for.  These are the truth and definitely an awesome goal to shoot for.  The problem is that people miss the fine print.  The disclaimer like the mumbling at the end of a commercial that tells you what is really going on with this contest, free gift or potential side effects of this medication.

The fine print that so easily slips by particularly clear in the first sentence of the paragraph containing these “Promises”.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 83)

For some of you that are reading this, it is not the first time you hear me discussing this, but it is important to ask yourself; “Which phase of my development is the “this phase” that is described here?”  That is because the promises are only for those who are painstaking about that “this phase”.

But before we get to that lets look at another passage that many of us may be familiar with, but often miss what it is really saying.  The paragraph after the paragraph containing the promises:

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

Notice the “work for them” part.  If there is a “this phase of our development” then that is really the focus of what we are working hard at to get these “Promises”.

The next two sentences are a change of thought but also a continuation of the same thought. 

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

The change of thought is that we are transitioning from a discussion about Step Nine and moving into a discussion about Step Ten.  The continuation of the same thought is the fact that it states that you started to really work on your Step Ten as you were working on your Step Nine.

Making your amends is not just a step you check a box for, it is a major part of starting your new “way of living”.  If you only do a partial job of making amends, you only do a partial job of starting your new way of living.  That means that the amends you leave out has left behind some of the old you and that is the old you that will drive you to do what the old you does.  That means a relapse or other fits of stupid. 

IF YOU ARE PAINSTAKING ABOUT STEP NINE – NO MATTER WHAT THE PERSONAL CONSEQUENCES MAY BE – THEN THE PROMISES ARE WHAT ARE BEING PROMISED TO YOU!  That does not mean however that not getting beat-up, not getting yelled at, not getting spit on, not going to jail etc. are promised to you.  Those are contained on the promises.  Freedom that comes from being an entirely new you is what is promised unless you only do a partial job of starting your new way of living.

So, to answer that question once-and-for-all (yeah right, someone will read this and immediately try to tell me I am not reading it right):  There is no passage that says to make amends unless it might hurt you or make you uncomfortable.

In fact the amends that will have the most effect in your life are the ones that are the most uncomfortable and the most risky.

That whole concept that you don’t do it if it is somehow uncomfortable or risky is a lie from the darkness of your root problem:

Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

Not making amends to someone you did something to is totally about protecting yourself from physical harm or from being emotionally hurt in some way.  It is a completely selfish act.  If you have so latched on to the root of your problem you are locked on to the very thing which is destroying you, but you don’t want to let go. 

There are awesome promises for you, but only if you are painstaking bout making ALL OF YOUR AMENDS!!!

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 83– 84)

Stay Sober My Friends,

Wade H.

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How To Survive The Holidays – Part 1

How To Survive The Holidays – Part 1Toilet Paper Trap

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

The holidays are a time of celebration, of receiving and giving, of family gatherings and when friends get together to celebrate.  For those of us in recovery there are any number of challenges that arise from all of this.  Some of us associate all of these things with using and get a strong urge to use.  Some of us get so angry or hurt by what we get as gifts or don’t get as gifts that we cannot function well.  Some of us do not have the heart or mind for the giving part, while others of us give for the wrong reasons and end up frustrated.  Some of us have a strong urge to relapse at the mere thought of family gatherings for all sorts of different reasons.  For some of us gathering with friends is a recipe for relapse and others of us are depressed by the idea because we do not perceive ourselves to have any friends to gather with.  Some of us just simply hate the “holiday season” altogether or find ourselves depressed for no apparent reason during this time of year.   A few will find ourselves enjoying the holidays only to find that all of a sudden we cannot handle the feeling of enjoying ourselves and will have the urge to self-destruct our own enjoyment.   The way we tend to see things seems to be amplified this time of year and may seem like an inevitable train wreck waiting to happen.

The temptation is to focus on the negatives and sink into some kind of pity-party or try to act like the thoughts and feelings don’t exist.  As far as focusing on the negatives, we know that many of us that have been alcoholics or addicts can’t seem to be able to stop ourselves from seeing the glass as half empty instead of half full.  The truth is that realizing that the half empty glass is also half full is a good start, but is not enough.  For us there needs to be action to fill the glass the rest of the way also. Changing how we see things is good, but changing the parts of the situations that we control (ourselves) is better.

One of the simplest ways to begin to work through the holiday season before it overtakes you is to focus on Step 10 all day every day starting right now.

  1. Carefully watch yourself for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
  2. When you notice any of these stop yourself; take a moment and ask God to remove whatever it is.
  3. Have mentors, sponsors, or wise persons of some kind that you can talk to regularly ready for your call, email or visit.  Whenever you feel one of these come up talk to one or more of them about it as soon as possible.
  4. If you did something that was wrong to someone else in that situation (even if that person did a whole lot more to you before you did anything and you feel he or she deserves what you did) you must make amends quickly.  Don’t let their crazy become your relapse because you are determined to prove some point (that would in reality be your crazy)
  5. Have somebody or a couple of people you are helping through recovery (sponsoring) during the holiday season.  You need to be the mentor, sponsor, or wise person of some kind that someone else can talk to regularly ready for your call, email or visit as well as working that person through the steps through the holiday season.
  6. When you perceive that someone else or some group of “someone elses” is throwing crazy into your world remember that love and tolerance is our code.  That means to respond lovingly and be as tolerant as is humanly possible of whatever it is that is going on.  Remember that other people’s crazy does not have to be contagious.  If they are in fact acting crazy, that is their sickness, if you get sucked in and start acting crazy also their sickness has spread like some plague to you with the potential of wreaking havoc in your world and possibly even causing your death.

A huge point to take away from all of this is that you have to start responding to the problem before it starts to build up.  Plan these things and make sure the people described are in place now.  Intentionally start living this way daily for the whole day so as the holiday season kicks into full gear you will already have the habit of living this way. 

…we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

Change your mindset about all of the things listed from some things you do or from a Step you have to do or finish and begin to think of these things as a “way of living”.  You have to be so in the habit of thinking and acting in these ways that they simply become who you are and what you do.  These not only become how you think, but these things become the reasons behind why you think what you think.  You have to progress from:

  1. Have to – You do these things because you are told to in recovery and you realize you have no other good choice
  2. Want to – You do these things because you have done them for a while and you have started to feel good when you do them and to be able to handle hard to handle situations.  Doing them begins to be associated with feeling good.
  3. Is you – There is no longer any thought that goes into doing these things.  You have done these things so consistently and for so long that they are as natural as breathing.  These things kinda just happen (even if you don’t feel like it)

Also, take a second to ponder the word “vigorously” used in the previous passage.  In that “have to” phase (when you first start trying to develop these habits) these things seem time consuming, like a lot of work and possibly silly to some of us.  It will seem like really hard work to many of us at first to do these things.  You are going to have to “vigorously” push yourself to do these things in spite of how you feel.  Keep in mind that our feelings are important, but are often not the best guides for our lives.  Just because you suddenly feel like using or like punching someone in the face, that does not mean you should.  Just because you don’t feel like doing some of the proven recovery stuff doesn’t mean you shouldn’t either.

In the words of some excellent tennis shoe marketers:  “Just do it!”

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Grow this way of living.  Why?  Here is one person’s answer:

I have since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before. My old manner of life was by no means a bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I would not go back to it even if I could.”  (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 42 – 43)

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“The Watch Four” to Watch For!

“The Watch Four” to Watch For!

This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

This passage is an overview of the process we are to learn to do at Step 10, but this is actually a brief overview of the way we are supposed to live year to year, day to day and minute by minute.

There is a brief process listed here that could be more detailed or more complicated, but what is listed here does a great job of summarizing it.  These things are not to be relegated to just a process, but are supposed to gradually become the way you live.

This passage lists a process; the process is just stuff until you take action.  Once the action is taken it is supposed to be repeated constantly.  Once the process has been repeated constantly for a period of time it will become a habit.  Once a habit has been with you long enough it transition from a habit to a part of who you are.  It becomes a part of your lifestyle.  It is a part of who you are.  That is the goal.

Lets start by looking at the process briefly outlined in this passage:

FIRST, we continue to watch for negative and destructive thoughts or actions.  If you are at Step 10 and working your steps as outlined in the Alcoholics Anonymous book, you probably have a good idea what destructive thoughts and actions are most destructive to your life and those around you.  The authors also included four that are often common to us working through recovery:

  1. Selfishness
  2. Dishonesty
  3. Resentment
  4. Fear

Even if you have your own personalized list, these four should be included.  We will call these “The Watch Four.”  These are the things that you are supposed to be on watch for at all times.  These (along with whatever other items you may list) are indicators that you are about to unleash crazy in your world or that you have already been unleashing crazy in your world.  If you are watching for these and see that one has begun arising in you, you are in deep trouble.  That is why it is imperative that you keep watch.

NEXT, you have to know what to do if you are watching and one of these crops up.  Before you respond or act in any way or even give all of this too much thought, STOP!  Ask God to remove the destructive thought, attitude or behavior on my part.  It does not matter who else is involved or what is going on, first I must stop my own crazy train.

AFTER ASKING GOD call, visit or somehow discuss whatever you have going on with someone helpful.  That means someone who is at wise enough to use common sense, far enough in recovery or in life not to give you stupid advice and strong enough to tell you the truth (even if it will make you angry). 

Too many people look for advice from people they already know will agree with whatever stupidity they are thinking or who won’t say anything they don’t want to hear.  It is helpful if you can find a few that have been through this process properly and understand.

The point is to test your thinking and get an outsider’s perspective and guidance.  For that to happen you need to be actively looking for these people and discussing this with them before something happens.  Then, when something like this comes up, these people will be expecting your call or visit and will know exactly what you are expecting.  (maybe you can prepare them by showing this to them)

AFTER TALKING TO SOMEONE, you need to take action to change.  If there was another person involved, you probably owe him, her or them an amends.  If this is the case do not put it off, do all you can to repair the situation as soon as possible.  Try to do anything you can as fast as you can to undo your part of whatever happened.

ONCE YOU HAVE MADE AMENDS focus on intensively working with someone else who is struggling with addictions, alcoholism or whatever you are struggling with.  This is the best way to deal with this sort of struggle (along with the other parts of the process).

PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics!  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 89)

Not only is working with others part of getting immunity from destructive thoughts or actions, working with others is part of ensuring immunity from relapse. 

This is the way we are to deal with the negatives and destructive things that enter into our lives.  I did skip one point from the passage on page 84 until now.  It is four very important words: 

When these crop up…  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 84)

We are not discussing something that might happen, we are talking about things that will be trying to creep back into your life at every turn.  At first all of this may seem tedious or annoying.  After you do all of this long enough it will just become normal and seem less and less of a tedious effort and eventually just become the way you think. 

The point is to stop letting ridiculously foolish things from pouring out of your life or to stop holding in ridiculously foolish thoughts and feelings and deal with these things.  This is all a huge part of learning love and tolerance and these things are the code of all things Twelve Step.

Learning to live like this is change and change is what recovery is all about.  Like I always say:

IF YOU ARE NOT CHANGED YOU ARE THE SAME AND YOU CAN EXPECT THE SAME RESULTS!

Wade H.

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Is Your Recovery Pointless? What is the Point?

Is Your Recovery Pointless?  What is the Point?

We have been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our Creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. We have admitted certain defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is; we have put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast out. This requires action on our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the Fifth Step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 72)

In the first sentence what we have is a brief summary of the purpose and goals of working the originator of all Twelve Step programs.  The list consists of three parts:

  •    a new attitude
  •    a new relationship with our Creator
  •    to discover the obstacles in our path

These three help take a deeper look at our goal in working the program and the destination.  Knowing what the destination or the goal for you at the end of your recovery is has great importance.  Consider these two quotes:

“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” – Author Unknown

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” – Seneca

The person in recovery who does not know what he or she is aiming for will not ever know if he or she gets there or even if he or she is still heading the right way or not.  If you have no goal, then it doesn’t matter how well or poorly you do things, because all of it is pointless.  This sentence from page. 72 is the compass for each of our Twelve Step recovery experiences. 

These are the goals, but they appear logically in reverse order.  Simply put: 

We start by looking for the obstacles in our path.  The obstacles to “what?”  Again, if you cannot answer the question and know what the “what” is, you would not know the difference between looking at the obstacles and actually stacking up more obstacles.  The “what” is the next one on the list:  The “new relationship with” God. 

We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 69)

We have been blocked off from God and it is tied to “self-will.”  We start to clear away what has been blocking us when we make a decision (Steps 1-3) and make an inventory (Step 4).  The “self-will” part is a huge part of all that “blocked off from God” stuff and a root to our addictions or alcoholism.

Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

Selfishness or “playing God” keeps us from a deep relationship with God.  Whatever we believe our relationship with God has been, we need to develop a new one.  We may hate the word God, kinda believe in God, believe, or be a highly trained member of the clergy, but if you are working recovery, “a new relationship with our creator” is needed. 

The steps are described here as cleaning up, or helping to clean up what has blocked you from Him in the past. 

Once you reach the end of the program portion of the Alcoholics Anonymous book (pg 164) you are turned over from the care directions of the process to the direction of God.

Still you may say: “But I will not have the benefit of contact with you who write this book.” We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must remember that your real reliance is always upon Him. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 164)

All of the Steps and all of the recovery information is admittedly a small amount of info in the lifelong process.   When a person reaches and is living out the “maintenance steps” (Steps 10, 11 & 12 which are steps that are carried out every day) a part of that process is being turned over to God’s guidance. 

When we backtrack to Step 10 we see how properly working the Steps is tied to the “New Relationship with our creator”:

Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. “How can I best serve Thee – Thy will (not mine) be done.” These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 85)

The reason we are supposed to “sense the flow” better if we “carefully followed directions” is because we worked at removing what has been blocking us from a deep relationship with Him.

Step 11 is far more directly concerned with deepening our relationship with God.  There is far more to this concept, but the basic idea is talking to and listening to God.  That is the building of the relationship.

11.  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 59)

Now think about the second part of Step 11; what you pray for.  We are to pray to know His will and for the strength to actually do what His will is.  This is the foundation of the “new attitude” we were talking about.  Couple that with the destruction of “selfishness and self-centeredness” and throw in the rest of the details covered in the “maintenance steps (Steps 10, 11 & 12) and you have not only a new attitude, but a new way of living.

As a new person, with a new attitude you will do new things.  As the same old person, with the same old attitude, you will probably do the same old things or worse.

All of us must look for the things that put distance in our relationship with God.  Then once those things are as out of the way as we each are capable of, we make a conscious effort to deepen the relationship with Him constantly.  Then we let Him direct our thoughts as the both the source of our “new attitude” and as the “new attitude itself.”

I leave you today with this strong message describing the importance of this understanding and about what we need to do to recover:

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Perhaps there is a better way – we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.
We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 68)

 

 

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