way of life – Wade H. Recovery Net

More Than Willpower

End No Alcoholic beverages. — (Photo credit: Eleventh Earl of Mar)

More Than Willpower

I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date, favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. xxix – xxx [4^th Edition “The Doctor’s Opinion”])

This is a very interesting concept that must be considered by all of us in recovery, all of us who work with others in recovery and all of us who are around alcoholics and addicts.

There is a common idea that is often verbalized that people who are alcoholics/addicts are basically people who do not have the willpower or are not focused enough to use their willpower to stop using. Amongst many of us that are working recovery many of us focus on the idea that I have to just decide not to use and if I am about to use I just need to decide harder.

I am not saying there is not some truth to this, but I also think there is more to it. It does strike me strange that so many people think that that is where a person is going in recovery when it is also where most of us start in recovery. For example most recovery programs require you to use your willpower to stay sober while in the program yet they also assume you still need the program in spite of the fact that you are “willpowering” sobriety from the start.

It seems ironic that so many people decide that the very things that were the bare minimum to start recovery are to become the finish line and magic cure also.

The real problem is that quite a few of us have enough willpower to abstain for periods of time, yet periodically, without warning we relapse. Some of us have a knack for waiting til the worst moment imaginable to relapse.

He has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept. He is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish. He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes, and has a promising career ahead of him. He uses his gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself, and then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 21)

People think it must be a stupid person or a person who should just be put away in a padded room somewhere that cannot willpower himself/herself sober. That goes double for a person that is doing great on his/her willpower then suddenly at the worst possible moment relapses. Take a glimpse of how this was worded in the 1930s:

How many times people have said to us: “I can take it or leave it alone. Why can’t he?” “Why don’t you drink like a gentleman or quit?” “That fellow can’t handle his liquor.” “Why don’t you try beer and wine?” “Lay off the hard stuff.” “His will power must be weak.” “He could stop if he wanted to.” “She’s such a sweet girl, I should think he’d stop for her sake.” “The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again.”

Now these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time. Back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding. We see that these expressions refer to people whose reactions are very different from ours. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 20)

These statements contain some truth, and most of us who have lived through the worst levels of alcoholism/addiction have had to admit at times we have been stupid and probably should have been in a padded room for our own protection.

The truth is that we are not stupid (although there is probably a good case for temporary insanity) and there is hope outside of a padded room. The problem is that that hope cannot lie solely in our ability to use willpower or whatever abstinence we do get will break down sometimes at the worst possible moment.

Willpower cannot be the solution because there are parts of your mind that fight for that one more buzz or high while other parts of your mind are mortified by the idea. There are things going on in your body that make you want to use sometimes desperately. There is obviously more to all of this than just changing your pattern of thinking and using willpower more. We have to change whatever causes us to think the things we think and to act the ways we act. There has to be some kind of change at the core of our being that leads to changes in why we think what we think which means it causes change in what we think.

The doctor said: “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you.” Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

He said to the doctor, “Is there no exception?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, “there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 27)

The ideas, emotions, and attitudes which have been the guiding forces of our lives have to be cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives has to dominate us. IF WE ARE NOT CHANGED WE ARE THE SAME AND CAN EXPECT THE SAME RESULTS! The alcoholic/addict who is still the same but is using willpower to remain abstinent has not found the answer. That is a person who is just making the first baby-steps towards beginning the process. Abstaining by willpower is not the end zone. Abstaining by willpower is more like getting dressed to get on the field and hopefully, get in the game.

This change has to be a massage change of everything about the person from the deepest level’s of his/her being. This is the measure of this “vital spiritual experience” that Dr. Jung is talking about in this discussion.

Recovery cannot be measured by how sober you are: YOU CAN RELAPSE AT ANY MINUTE AND HOW SOBER YOU WERE THE MINUTE BEFORE WILL NO LONGER MATTER! How deep you are changed and how changed you are is a better measure.

There is more to the process and a lot more detail to getting to the depth of change we have been describing here. The main point is that just using mind control to force yourself to do something that your mind has probably failed miserably at on previous occasions is absolutely not the solution to your problem of alcoholism/addiction. We are talking about a completely new way of living that includes abstaining from alcohol and drugs as a byproduct of the change:

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)

I beg of you, if you are seeking recovery seek more than just abstaining by willpower.

Stay sober my friends…

Wade H.

The Crux of the Problem: Obviously (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)

The Misleading Mindset

The Misleading Mindset

We told him what we knew about alcoholism. He was interested and conceded that he had some of the symptoms, but he was a long way from admitting that he could do nothing about it himself. He was positive that this humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired, would keep him sober the rest of his life. Self-knowledge would fix it. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 39– 40)

This passage is an excellent description of the mindset that misleads many people in recovery. There is this crazy idea that the memory of the problems that using has caused in the past and attaining a whole lot of information about using, recovery and myself will keep me sober.

There are some people who use heavily who can think themselves sober and in reality, there are some people who are pretty messed up from using that don’t need to learn, think or any of that; this (small) group of addicts/alcoholics just decides to stop and never uses again. The problem is that many of us in recovery (more like most of us) are not in either of those categories and need to come to terms with that before we can even consider ourselves having started recovery.

Thinking and learning in and of themselves are not enough for most of us to remain abstinent (although they are important parts of the process).

Look at the conclusion to the story we started with:

“As soon as I regained my ability to think, I went carefully over that evening in Washington. Not only had I been off guard, I had made no fight whatever against the first drink. This time I had not thought of the consequences at all. I had commenced to drink as carelessly as though the cocktails were ginger ale. I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me, how they prophesied that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come – I would drink again. They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 41– 42)

There are moments when your body and some parts of your mind will have such a desire to use that the parts of your mind that you would like to use to force yourself to stop will not be strong enough to overpower the desire. One desire within your self will be trying to resist a desire that is in your body and mind and that is often also driven by your social and spiritual health (or lack thereof). Recovery has to be approached from all four of these areas to have any hope or to even be considered recovery. The authors of the Alcoholics Anonymous book (the authors of the Twelve Steps) knew this to be true:

We have concluded to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we see it. We shall bring to the task our combined experience and knowledge. This should suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem.

Of necessity there will have to be discussion of matters medical, psychiatric, social, and religious. We are aware that these matters are, from their very nature, controversial. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 19)

There is hope for those of us who are at the most desperate levels of alcoholism/addiction. This hope relies on us not getting sucked into the flawed idea that “information is what will keep me sober.” INFORMATION WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO KEEP YOU SOBER!!! Information is just one of the tools that is supposed to help get you to what will keep you sober. Look at the information that the early A.A.’s gave to the man in the story we started with when he relapsed:

“Then they outlined the spiritual answer and program of action which a hundred of them had followed successfully. Though I had been only a nominal churchman, their proposals were not, intellectually, hard to swallow. But the program of action, though entirely sensible, was pretty drastic. It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window. That was not easy. But the moment I made up my mind to go through with the process, I had the curious feeling that my alcoholic condition was relieved, as in fact it proved to be.

“Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. 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)

The solution is described here as “a way of living” that is more satisfying than anything before. The hope of recovery rests in finding a completely new way of living. A new basis of life that will result in changes in the way you think and why you have those thoughts, changes in what feelings you have and why, all of this leading to changes in what you do. In other words: RECOVERY IS ABOUT ENDING UP BEING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON THAN WHO YOU WERE WHEN YOU STARTED. IF YOU ARE NOT CHANGED, YOU ARE THE SAME AND WILL GET THE SAME RUSULTS.

If you do not plan on being changed completely, then you do not plan on getting recovery. If you do not aim towards a new way of living that is infinitely more satisfying than any way of living you have had before you have decided to stay with the same way of living and have decided to continue to live the life of an alcoholic/addict.

I beg you to move beyond knowledge to the desperate desire to be a completely different person, because that is where your hope lies.

Stay sober my friends…

Wade H.

Learning Yourself Sober?

But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 39)

The idea that you will be unable to stop using by gaining information alone is a very important point that must not be ignored. It is amazing how many people are interested in learning themselves sober.

: Information (Photo credit: heathbrandon)

Don’t get me wrong, I obviously think that learning alcoholism/addiction information and recovery information have an important role in the recovery process, but I am not under the misconception that if a person gets enough information that the fact they have enough information will magically keep that person sober.

This is one of the grave errors that many of us in recovery and many of us trying to help others through recovery often make. We assume that somehow the right amount of information will keep you sober, it is just a matter of getting you to swallow enough data.

My brother-in-law is a physician, and through his kindness and that of my mother I was placed in a nationally-known hospital for the mental and physical rehabilitation of alcoholics. Under the so-called belladonna treatment my brain cleared. Hydrotherapy and mild exercise helped much. Best of all, I met a kind doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.

It relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects. My incredible behavior in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained. Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. For three for four months the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even made a little money. Surely this was the answer – self-knowledge.

But it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more. The curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski-jump. After a time I returned to the hospital. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 7)

This man (Bill W.) understood himself and why he did what he did. That knowledge made him feel like he had struck recovery gold. He was filled with information about alcoholism/addiction but was not able to abstain from using for long even with that information. He actually felt worse after relapsing with all of that information than he did without the information.

Here is the truth:

INFORMATION WILL NOT KEEP YOU SOBER!!!

My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 13)

Notice the words “way of living”. The information does nothing unless you end up with a new way of living. How good or useful the information is to you can be measured by how much the information creates positive change in you. If the information does not create change in you it is merely occupying space between your ears. In one story the result is described this way:

This is the objective: A new way of living more useful and more satisfying that the one you had before, no matter what your old life looked like. Information is simply one of several tools used to get you there, but the attainment of information is not the destination.

Your goal in recovery is to be a different person than you have been, so you will do different things than you have been so you can end up getting different results than you have been. If you stay the same, you will do the same and get the same or worse results.

How much you know does not necessarily come into play. For example there are people who are highly educated, well educated in recovery information, who have been in and out of programs of all kinds who are somewhere getting lit at the same time as you are reading this. There are also people dumb as stumps that getting the same kind of high at the very same moment (possibly they are together). I suppose one is smarter about doing something incredibly stupid and one is stupidly doing something stupid, but they are both doing exactly the same stupid act: Destroying their own lives. The amount of information retained has not even come into play, nor has the lack of information. They are simply to people who are intoxicated or drunk or high or “on one” or whatever.

I obviously think information is a great help to those of us working through recovery and to those around us. The key is that I feel it is only helpful if you can use the information to help you change.

I suppose a great method to use whenever you take in any recovery information is to ask yourself what I should change about myself or do differently because of what you learned. If you are serious about these changes, you ought to write each one of these things to change about you down and really work on changing these things. You might also get others to help you with each thing you think you should change. And remember:

EITHER YOU ARE CHANGING OR YOU ARE STAYING THE SAME!

Stay sober my friends…

Wade H.

Only Two Options – Sober or Not Sober! (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Surviving The Holidays Pt 4 (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)

How To Survive The Holidays pt 3 – Action in the Way of Life

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 85)

One of the best ways to ensure your recovery survives the holidays with family, partying, Black Friday and Cyber Mondays, crowds, expectations and so on is to be proactive. There are many reasons that can come up that might cause a person problems with his or her recovery, but the most dangerous are the subtle changes that we do not notice in time to respond to. If you are waiting until you have a problem with your recovery to take action, you are resting on your laurels as described in this passage. That means you are headed for trouble.

Let’s take a few minutes and look at one aspect of the subtlety of addiction and alcoholism before we go on with discussing what kind of action we are talking about.

They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 42)

No matter how far you are along in recovery you are there is a fact that remains true of those that are the most severe addicts and alcoholics. WE ARE POWERLESS! If you have trouble with this concept and you are working a Twelve Step program, you are stuck. You are stuck on Step One:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 59)

Understanding this idea and responding correctly are incredibly important during this time of year. A time of celebration for many, a time of incredible stress for many, a time of drinking and using for many, a time for great depression for some, and so on. Few people go through the holiday season without some profound change of emotion, good or bad.

If you are totally relying on yourself to remain sober through all that a person encounters, experiences, and feels during the holiday season, you are at terrible risk.

So what is this “powerless” that the Twelve Step information describes?

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 24)

The reason that I put both of these paragraphs here is because most people hearing the word “powerless” have an understanding that lines up with the first paragraph but that misses the ideas detailed in the second paragraph (as well as a few details in the first paragraph).

Most people only think of “powerless” as “I cannot stop myself.” With that limited understanding the next logical thought is that if “I cannot stop myself, then it is not my fault and it is useless to try to stop.”

Let’s look at that concept in detail:

In the first paragraph there are the words “at certain times”. So whatever is going on here happens periodically and is not a constant. The idea that; every time I get around someone that is using I just jump in and use, is not a part of the concept of powerlessness as described here. As a matter of fact, what makes what the authors are describing here so sinister is the fact that it is something that only happens sometimes and you never know when it will happen.

Think of having something electrical that has a short-circuit. Whatever it is usually runs okay most of the time, but every once in a while the short-circuit takes over and cuts off the power and whatever it is stops working or has terrible problems. This can happen with little or no warning and sometimes at the worst possible moments.

The best example of a short-circuit that stands out in my mind is from a car I have that has a short-circuit in the headlights. Every once in a long while I’ll be driving at night and the headlamps will just cut off. When this happens, I just simply reach under the dashboard and jiggle the wires until the lights are on again.

One night I was comfortably driving up the freeway minding my own business and then at the very same moment that I noticed a California Highway Patrol officer on the side of the freeway watching for speeders, my lights cut off. I hurriedly reached under the dash to juggle the wires which then made the lights flash on and off until they finally went back to normal. Could there have been worse timing?

Without warning and in this case at the worst possible moment, the short-circuit took over. This is how the “Strange Mental Blank-Spots” mentioned on page 42 are. They happen without warning and can happen at the worst possible moment. The biggest difference however is that most of the times that my car lights short out, very little happens and I can just jiggle the wires and move on. When the strange mental blank spots happen there is usually a full blown relapse to follow.

Every once in a while there is a moment in our thoughts, emotions and resulting actions that will make it impossible to “bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.” Bluntly put, there are moments that come up randomly, where our minds will not think about the reasons we shouldn’t use with enough force to keep us from using.

Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out. Next day we would ask ourselves, in all earnestness and sincerity, how it could have happened. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 37)

You may be one of the most disciplined people on earth in other things and may think yourself out of using most of the time, but in the short-circuit moments (the “Strange Mental Blank Spots”) those thoughts will either be a distant whisper or will not come up at all.

Why that is such a problem is that many people in recovery develop only one true defense system and don’t even know it. That defense system is: “If I think I am about to use, I will force myself to think about all the reasons I shouldn’t and that will keep me from using.”

What makes the Strange mental Blank Spots so insidious is the fact that they allow such a defense system to work much of the time so the person gets the idea that the defense system he or she has built works great. Then without warning it fails miserably and there is this relapse and in some cases there is no sensible reason for the relapse.

…there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 37)

The truth behind the “powerless” idea described in the Twelve Step Information is that it describes a person whose ability to reason sometimes shorts out and at those moments does not have the power to stop the person from absolutely destroying himself or herself.

Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 43)

You may be new to recovery or you may have been in sobriety since well into the last century, but either way this is something that must be at the very foundation of all of your recovery and ultimately your whole life. With the changes that transpire in the world around us and within each of us in our own lives during the holiday season it is time for a recovery foundation checkup.

You may hate the words “Higher Power”, you may be working out the idea of a Higher Power, or you may believe you have the whole Higher Power thing all worked out, but it is time to make sure that your defense is founded on a Higher Power idea that will really works even when your brain doesn’t. A good place to start is to rework the first three steps as you are heading into the holidays and rebuild your foundation as strong as it can be built.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 59)

Something else to do at this time is to go back to the basics. Go to Twelve Step meetings. Get together with a sponsor, with mentors, with others in recovery etc. regularly throughout the holiday season. Be open and humble about your problems with those around you so that there is not confusion and discomfort if you chose to leave situations where everyone is drinking, using, or that are otherwise troubling to your recovery. In other words the holidays are not a time for taking a break from recovery related activities. ‘Tis the season to increase your recovery activities.

There is one activity I failed to mention that you hear me mention quite regularly…

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)

Who are you sponsoring and working through recovery. If you need more recovery efforts during this holiday season, so do others in recovery. If you are sponsoring someone, that person needs more focus on recovery and particularly the first three steps just like you do. If you are not helping someone through recovery, now is the time to look. Be proactive and look for solutions to the challenges to your sobriety before there is a problem (and teach your sponsees to do the same). Don’t wait till you are desperate and barely holding on to decide to start trying these things.

I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 8)

The things I have suggested here and many more things mentioned throughout the Twelve Step Materials are not magical activities that if done in a certain order will align the Rubiks Cube of recovery. They are the elements of new way of living your life that creates the environment that allows you to remain sober. The holidays are a time for us to focus or refocus on living the way of life that provides the wonderful gift of recovery as a byproduct of that new way of living.

Either you take action as part of your new way of living or you are resting on your laurels and heading for trouble.

Seek the New Way of Living,

Wade H.

How To Survive The Holidays – Part 1

How To Survive The Holidays – Part 1

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.

Carefully watch yourself for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.
When you notice any of these stop yourself; take a moment and ask God to remove whatever it is.
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.
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)
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.
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:

Have to – You do these things because you are told to in recovery and you realize you have no other good choice
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.
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:

“The Watch Four” to Watch For! (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Recovery: More Than Information and Memories (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)

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