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The Hunt, The In-Laws, and Moments of Tension

beyondtheendoftheroad — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:33:43 +0000

Dad….My hands are cold…..
Well that’s what you get for losing your fucking gloves…..I guess you’ll have to make do without.

That was my 1st hunting experience with my father, whom I’m sure was drunk, around the same age my son is now, 11. The second trip was when I was 15 and I did the same thing…lost my gloves while rabbit hunting. This time I would end up with frostbite on my hands. To this day if it is cold enough my hands will turn a blueish-red color. This past week was my 3rd hunting experience. Oddly I had no gloves for this trip either…….

My father-in-law awoke me at 3 am after 4 hours of sleep. My wife’s uncle, whom I just call uncle as well, was soon at the door chomping at the bit. My son was excited to go. He was even more excited to see guns with scopes on them. I am sure this due to BB guns and Call of Duty video games. We drove out to the middle of Nowhere, Louisiana and rode a 4 wheeler called a Rhino even further into the woods. We then walked a half hour after that. I was promptly whispered to…”This is your stand, will be back around 9…Good Luck”.

Great….In a stand by myself. My son had went with his Grandpa and I was left to fend for myself. I climbed into the stand with a 30-06 rifle and a damp chill that would soon set in on my bones. Here is a camera shot from the stand.

All in all I saw 2 squirrels, heard some noises, but more importantly I saw a fabulous sunrise. Hell I’m not so sure I would have shot anything if it came across my stand or not. I was more impressed with the scenery more than anything. At 9 I climbed out of my stand as my father in law and my son made their way up the “pipeline”. My son, whom had borrowed a pair of boots from one of my wife’s aunt’s, had sunk into mud and had the boots pulled right off his feet. Here is a priceless picture that I will use on my son at a later date for blackmail purposes. Please note the boots:

He will never live this down…….
A more important picture in all seriousness was one I snapped of him and his grandpa on this 1st epic hunt…..

This picture was worth the whole hunting trip itself.

My relatives are cool for the most part. After the hunting trip we came back, I showered and we just hung out. It seems that the phrase of the day was “Crack Head”. Now in their world this is used as a punchline for a joke or a description of someone’s poor decision-making capabilities. In the world I am from this is a stigma and can be hurtful label. My daughter in a fit of rage once called me this and told me the whole family would be better off if I just went and smoked. It has taken a lot of work and prayer to move forward and not allow this to dominate who I am today.
I was ok the first 5 times it was used, but by the 15th time I had lost my spiritual principles, sighed deeply and got up and left the room. My wife could tell I had more than what I could bear with this phrase. I took a walk, and gathered myself. It doesn’t bother them to use it and it wouldn’t be until later when searching for a meeting that things would be brought to light about my being in recovery. Most of the folks there had no clue. I never said to anyone not to use the phrase but to my astonishment it stopped as quickly as it started. I’m not sure if my wife said something or not, but it stopped. I am sure that it wasn’t on their own accord, they were having too much fun with it.

That evening we had all gathered at my one Uncle’s house only to have the door burst open at 9:30 pm with my Aunt staggering through the doorway announcing her arrival. It was easy to tell she had arrived somewhere with her wineglass in hand and slurred speech.
From what I understand she was at one time a southern socialite, a southern belle if you will. Now it seems she is nothing more than a kitchen drunk with a lot of old stories of years and friends gone by. This was my spin on her opera singing at 11pm.
She asked me the next day if I was having, “ The time I thought I would have”?
I said, “Oh yes, and more”.
What do you mean by that?
I mean just more fun than what I thought I could take.
I think she could tell I was being sarcastic. I never said my humor was 100% pure.

I went to bed that night full of mixed emotions. Most of it brought on by sleep deprivation and coffee. One detail I forgot to mention was that a half hour into our arrival was the first time of at least a hundred we were asked…
So when are you guys moving down here?!?!?!
Literally we were asked this question from the time we arrived till the time we left. More on that later.
I laid in bed only wondering what might be in store when 30 some of these relatives were gathered under one roof. Little did I know I would meet an 80-year-old man who looked like he was 60 who was stronger than me, a cowboy, and take rides on both a 4 wheeler and a boat. I got to see some of the most beautiful scenery, this would be my saving grace…….

Take Care….Bob D.

The Drive

beyondtheendoftheroad — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:07:12 +0000

I’ve never minded driving that much. I always thought I would make a good over the road truck driver. My dad was one for a number of years. Driving I have found is one of those yin and yang types of things in life. I can see some of the most amazing things that I wouldn’t get to see if I flew constantly, but I also have to deal with the frustrations of traffic and becoming tired from driving too long. The trip we took was 13 hours of driving each way. I drove every mile of it myself, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The kids have always been decent on trips. They have the uncanny ability to sleep most of the way there and still want to sleep that night. I guess we are fortunate in that regard. My wife it seems already had a plan in place. Although she said, “I’m ready to drive when you want”, the pillow and blanket had already given her away. The snoring was the nail in the coffin.

We headed out at 5am on Tuesday morning. My wife had made a decent purchase before we left. She bought a TomTom. I was not convinced on this small device. I’m still not quite sure how it is that they don’t charge some time of basic user satellite fee. My son even made a comment that we were resting our entire trip on that thing getting us from home half way across the country….Besides it could also be a Deceptigon in disguise.

The first few hours of the trip I was already familiar with, 71 south down thru Cincinnati then on towards Louisville, then towards Nashville. I’ve been able to go thru almost every state on the east coast so I do know a little about how to get places. We were making decent time until we got to the Nashville-Memphis corridor known as “The Music Highway”. This is I-40 that seemingly goes on forever, we ran into some traffic and a slowdown there but after that it was smooth sailing. I’m not going to bore you with every bump for the next 700 miles. Once we crossed into Louisiana everyone began to get excited.

I began to get tired. Everyone was tired at that point. I knew pulling into Monroe that we weren’t far. The TomTom has from mile to mile point and overall miles to destination and it seemed as if everyone’s eyes were glued to it. The last 15 miles were the longest I have driven in a while. We soon pulled up to my mother-in-laws house and after everyone fell teary eyed out of the car and hugged for minutes I heard the magic words I had been wanting to hear for the last 13 hours……..No it wasn’t would you like to lay down and rest…..It was let’s get in the car and go eat. So we did, but I didn’t drive. I rode in a new Escalade, with heated seats, to a Mexican restaurant.

It was nice to sit down and eat, well eat not sit anymore. After we finished eating I was informed we were then going to drive to look at some relatives Christmas lights. What Joy!!!! Although tired I told myself to go with the flow, and I did. We went and looked at the lights and came back to my in-laws place. I was then informed that I would be going hunting the next morning with 2 uncles. Deer season is already in and I couldn’t miss this opportunity according to them. What time are we getting up? 3 am. Great, I didn’t realize I would travel half way across the country to only get 8 hours of sleep for the next 3 days……..

Tomorrow I will tell you about the hunt, the in-laws, and moments of tension…..

Take Care….Bob D.

Standing On the shoulders Of Giants

recoveryboy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:07:38 +0000

I have always thought that, to borrow Isaac Newton’s analogy, massive achievements happen part

Just For Today

recoveringfromaddiction — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:35:18 +0000

“We believe that our Higher Power will take care of us.”

Basic Text pg. 55

Our program is based on the idea that the application of simple principles can produce profound effects in our lives. One such principle is that, if we ask, our Higher Power will care for us. Because this principle is so basic, we may tend to ignore it. Unless we learn to consciously apply this spiritual truth, we may miss out on something as essential to our recovery as breathing is to life itself.

What happens when we find ourselves stressed or panicked? If we have consistently sought to improve our relationship with our Higher Power, we’ll have no problem. Rather than acting rashly, we will stop for a moment and briefly remind ourselves of particular instances in the past when our Higher Power has shown its care for us. This will assure us that our Higher Power is still in charge of our lives. Then, we will seek guidance and power for the situation at hand and proceed calmly, confident that our lives are in God’s hands.

“Our program is a set of principles,” our White Booklet tells us. The more consistently we seek to improve our conscious appreciation of these principles, the more readily we will be able to apply them.

Just for today: I will seek to improve my conscious contact with the Higher Power that cares for me. When the need arises, I know I will be able to trust in that care.

____________________________________

All of this, all of this, is drivel. We have no Higher Power. We do not need one.

We stay clean by decision and action. We accept ourselves and love ourselves and some other people love us also. Sometimes, others have loved us until we could love ourselves. We learn how to lead a life of complete abstinence and to govern our actions through values, purpose, identity and common sense. We have to take care of ourselves, as no one else will, unless we find caretakers or get institutionalized. Then, we find ourselves at the mercy of our handlers and many times they can not care for ourselves as we can.

Here, God has become synonymous with “Higher Power”. Let there be no mistake as to the meaning and context, and let there be no mistake that the atheist and other non believers in a “God” get left out by readings such as these. But, we are given disdain if we object to this as we do not accept the party line and refuse to drink the poisonous Kool-Aid that poses for recovery.

This is why many of us do not read this drivel or believe the fairy tales. We give ourselves credit for a better life. The “program”, unfortunately, fails us miserably here, but we will not fail each other, and when we do make mistakes, we will choose to learn from them and take movement forward into a clean life without the need for a useless blind trust.

In my own recovery, I prayed diligently for seven years of clean time. I worked the steps, I lived them in my life. I prayed the serenity prayer, a third step prayer, a seventh step prayer, and in the eleventh step for the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry it out. None of these got answered. No God listened because this God does not exist.

Instead, I took care of myself progressively better. I learned from some of my choices and went forward into a different set of reality tunnels utilizing the power of stated intentions and manifestations using a psychological and energy model without the help of a “loving caring power greater than myself”. My life got much better because I made it so and asked other people for help. The “therapeutic value of one addict helping another” showed its unparalleled value. Progressively, I came into realities because I allowed myself to get cared for and because I care for myself.

When this bullshit comes out of peoples mouths, I usually get out of the meeting and go to one where I don’t hear this crap. It’s simply not true and it keeps people away from NA, and it keeps people getting loaded because they cannot get personally empowered very well believing this nonsense.

Resentment Boats

recoveryboy — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:37:25 +0000
One therapeutic process is to write a letter to someone you resent and then to burn it. Another idea

Twenty Five Years

recoveryboy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:26:53 +0000
She has twenty five years clean time and her chair was a warning against complacency. She reminded e

Step Six

recoveryboy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:04:23 +0000
My sponsor has decided to leave me in my defects for a while – he said that I will come runnin

Upward and onward

recoveringfromaddiction — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:01:32 +0000

5. We admitted to God, ourselves and another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

This one gets very easy. There’s no God.   So, we don’t have a God or Higher Power involved in this process.

Once again, we find a self-deprecating message in the wording of the step. The message perpetuates the idea that addiction and our behaviors create a moral dilemma, when in fact this contradicts what we see written previously. By the same token, we will not accept that we were hapless victims of a disease. We need to identify that which needs changing and change it.

This one works through seeing our integrity, reading the fourth step, finding the character liabilities that cause us harm and suffering and also identifying the root causes. We do this to change ourselves in the subsequent steps. This work relies completely on the therapeutic value of one addict helping another, since this is the true value of the program. We see that it’s not about bad or good. This works through understanding ourselves and finding what we do that hurts us and others versus what we do that helps us and others. We also do this part to find out what we need to reset and make right. We can redact all the God/Higher Power references out of the literature and proceed.

It might find itself rewritten as:

We revealed to ourselves and another human being, the nature of our assets and liabilities.

When we come to understand and accept ourselves, we can create a purpose and have an identity that suits the attainment and pursuit of that purpose.

Listening

recoveryboy — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:36:56 +0000
A friend had slipped three days ago and was feeling ashamed. I went to meet him for coffee and used

Getting our moral recovery straight

recoveringfromaddiction — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:38:33 +0000

Step Four

We made a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves.

This one gets very straightforward. The points I have to make here have to do with using the original fourth step guide of NA.

http://www.na.org/?ID=litfiles/us_english/IP/EN3110.pdf

In my experience of doing my inventories, and reading and listening to the inventories in the Fifth Steps of sponsees, I think that this guide has great superiority over that step in the NA Step Working Guide.

I won’t get too nuts and bolts on this, since the guide covers it very well.

The point I make here has to do with explaining and defining our morality.   We atheists and skeptics have accepted that that the term, “spiritual principle”, has no value for us. It’s just metaphoric language for the believers and the apologists in the fellowship. There’s a lot of addicts who profess atheism who still pray and use the terminology of believers. We think that this maintains the harm that these thought viruses cause to our beliefs and thinking. This type of thinking and belief goes back to the drift that came out of Alcoholics Anonymous in their Appendix II, the chapter to the atheist and the agnostic. It shows tolerance, but not acceptance, and uses the quote from the philosopher, Jeremy Spencer, out of context. It goes way out on a limb with secular Christianity. I am not here to deconstruct it. Read the AA bullshit for yourself if you choose.

We make a good case here to point out, that our the “addiction” therapeutic community has a lot of responsibility in creating and maintaining these damaging memes. Their poor success rate with clients, negates their credibility in our view. We don’t think that anything less than ninety percent success has much room to throw out anything other than idle conjecture. We have seen that our approach can have 100% success when the commitment is there on the part of the individual. We also see that complete abstinence can occur without relapse.

In our new day and new set of recovery beliefs, we ignore the “any old A will do” philosophy. We don’t have time to clean up Unnecessary Anonymous. We don’t believe in saving one at the expense of letting thousands of others die because they’re scared away by the wishy washy cultism heard in lots of meetings in our local fellowship. One of the reasons, actually the primary reason, we have constructed our alternate view, has to do with outside sources reporting that most seeking recovery get deterred from NA because of the absurd focus on God and Higher Power. People get very turned off by the obvious cult like fanaticisms spewed by this shit ball mentality in meetings and by the word viruses in our literature. We do this to help the non spirtual “addict who still suffers”, we leave the god crap to the kool-aid drinkers. The expanded approach to “Unity is Diversity”, allows us to do this so that many can recover without the pressure to kow tow to deterministic, secular Calvinisms and absurd magical thinking.

In reiterating that, we forge on. We realize that all moral systems have found their origins and evolution in societies and cultures, from mankind. Regardless of the religiosity involved, many will attempt to posit that there are universal “threads” running through all this. We have no interest in comparisons as such. We realize that most in NA will have a secular, quasi religious, or outright Judeo Christian religious bent to their moral beliefs, i.e. definitions of spiritual principles. Most of this has been derived from other antecedent moral codes, e.g. The Code of Hammurabi, and etc. We move beyond this into practical ethics and morals that do not limit our pursuit of pleasure and happiness within the boundaries of health and safety. For some, this simply consists of eliminating harm to ourselves and others. However, we do not necessarily have to “turn the other cheek”, unless it involves our health and safety.

We also recognize that anger, hate, resentment, fears, the desire for revenge, and etc, are normal, human traits, and that most religions in their codifying, simply created these moral codes to regulate the behavior of others. In this sense, it makes good common sense to not harm, or harm as little as possible, and above all, seek health and peace of mind for ourselves. In practice, we seek to avoid breaking the law of the land, as that will likely cause us harm via punitive actions by the state. We do not curse ourselves by thinking that because we feel anger, hate, or desire revenge, that this will cause us to resume the use of drugs and other addiction based actions and thinking. We know that we can create states that allow us to process these states and transform them as necessary in the next three steps of the program.

Thus, our assessment of our liabilities and assets as a person may essentially boil down to how we follow our moral guidelines/principles of recovery, in our daily lives. We discard the impractical and embrace the efficacious and practical. We embrace that which involves addiction free living and the pursuit of pleasure and creation of happiness. We do this while discarding perfectionism and embracing resources that increase the progress of our recovery. The Fourth Step Guide will not lead us astray here when we ignore the few religiosities present there.

Powerful

recoveryboy — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:57:51 +0000
He didn’t want to do the chair because he thought that no one would get anything from the shar

Night Life

recoveryboy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:01:30 +0000
I was walking back home after a meeting with an NA friend when we were stopped by a couple of pissed

My Role in Twilight:New Moon or Tweenlight:New Money

beyondtheendoftheroad — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:23:36 +0000

I saw the original ”War of the Worlds” on AMC last weekend. I forgot how good that movie was. I saw the remake and thought it was fair. I’m sure that the original 1938 radio broadcast was just as good. I’ve heard parts of it, I can only imagine what was going through people’s minds.
Kind of like with Twilight. I’m sure I’ve seen this story before. Wait….I have. …..

It seems in 1941 a young Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot introduced us to the Werewolf. I could go on about Bela Lugosi as the vampire we all know and love. I understand there is a remake of The Wolfman slated in production right now. I believe the release is in February of 2010.
Is it just me or is Hollywood running out of ideas?
I understand that Twilight really should have been called Tweenlight: New Money…….

My role in the new movie was simply this. A bystander caught up in some hooplah over a worn out idea that will make billions based on the dashing good looks of Hollywood’s young. I see the tabloids about these folks and I guess it could be jealousy or it could be stupidity. Stupidity on our part for creating a global phenom that has already occurred once in history. That’s kind of an oxymoron isn’t it?

We are heading out to Louisiana to visit family for the Holiday. I can’t believe it is Thanksgiving already. One of my dreams is to take my wife to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. My kids could really care less, but this is something her and I have talked about doing.
This would be the first time we have left Columbus for a Holiday away from home. Until her mother moved recently, all of both of our families have lived here. My wife’s father passed away 7 or 8 years ago now. She has a couple of half-brothers here but rarely see’s them. So this would be the first Holiday with no family.

Most of my family does their own thing. The go and see in-laws, those that are married anyway. My sisters have families of their own, and my Mom is getting too old to cook a big dinner for everyone. My dad would rather be with his friends or by himself so I have always attached myself to my wife’s family. I am a little apprehensive, just because it is outside of my comfort zone but I will be okay. I told my wife I would take her to see her mom, and I will. These are the kinds of promises I can make and keep today. What a gift.

I certainly hope you enjoy your Holiday with friends and family. For some in recovery Holiday’s can be an especially trying time. My suggestion would be if you are planning on going to an event to have a back-up plan. A back-up plan, not a bail-out plan. Take a phone with you and numbers in case you need to call someone. Locate an OPEN meeting in your area. Some meetings aren’t held because of the Holiday and the facility being closed. Take your book. It can be easy to slip away and read a few pages to help get our minds back in proper perspective. Most importantly…DON’T USE. It is amazing how quickly our minds can switch gears during events like these, and the social acceptability beckons us to be a part of rather than a part from. It would be easy to fall back into the old ways of thinking and old behaviors while at a family event. The feeling to use will pass.

Be Safe.
Take Care…..Bob D.

No need for a God or Higher Power-part two

recoveringfromaddiction — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:46:28 +0000

THE FIRST THREE STEPS…EXPERIENCE AND OPINION

In the NA fellowship, there’s a lot of what we call shit head thinking. Mostly, when people share, we hear a lot of self deprecating talk. People blame their disease and themselves for all their frustrations and living “problems”. They make a lot of erroneous generalizations about themselves and the progress of their recovery. Most profess the belief that their thinking is fucked up and that some Higher Power or God is going to lead them forward to the best outcomes.

Some do not buy into this at all.

Some of us know that we can form our pathway to an interesting and joyous journey, not without its tragedies and sadnesses-these happen in life. We have gone through the grief of leaving our addiction oriented lifestyles behind. Some of us talk about how when we live our lives with integrity and stay within the context of our defining principles of recovery, we get more consistent, satisfying results. We have found that when we interact with others, and in society at large, we have many factors coming into play that have nothing to do with a Loving and Caring God. These aforementioned factors, and our motivations and actions, determine the results, not a God. When others try to justify God consciousness in all of this, they really have no evidence to support their claim of answered prayers. Anything that happens winds up circumstantial or as a manifestation of their intentions in almost all cases that we have observed. Miracles are so commonplace that they do not warrant miracle status. We think this looks like the worst kind of magical thinking. We do not need miracles when we have learned to manifest healing and love.

We have found that most people seek that which seems familiar. Addicts tend to act, think, and believe even more to the extreme. We want to recapture the euphoria that propels our obsessions, but what most wind up experiencing it seems, according to their reports, appears as the same old familiar pain in living. Those us who move forward, get into new, more productive patterns towards happiness and realistic love, and will attract these things to us.The realization comes through honesty, surrender, and self acceptance. We see our addiction and leave behind the obsessions, compulsions, and self obsessed destructiveness. We use these principles to understand, love, and accept ourselves as we seem in our current perceptions. We do things that enhance our positive thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions. We come to believe that growth occurs when we let go of addiction and embrace health and wellness in a progressive manner. We know we do not need faith or trust, as these things wind up too fleeting and often get too idealistic to have real value. We know that our real value comes in loving ourselves and experiencing states of happiness from new vistas of living instead of a life filled with crime, self hate, and widespread harm to ourselves and others. We get new friends with similar purpose and leave behind those who want to wallow in the same shit that characterized their addiction.

We may not be cured, but we have recovered enough to know that we can move forward consistently without succumbing to patterns of addiction. We have found happiness without fairy tales, wrong headed thinking, and a Higher Power or God. We move forward into the real world with a new consciousness, a new perspective without our addiction to hamper us.

We continue to develop our will to recover into a purpose of life lived well.

Anonymity and The Clark Kent Saga

beyondtheendoftheroad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:33:56 +0000

My name is Bob D**** and I am an addict.

See you thought I would reveal my true identity didn’t you? I am under the impression that this is a form of press. I mean the site name is “WordPress” correct? I am told that I need to maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film. Why do we do this or not do it?
I see a lot of posts where people use their full names, some with credentials, others not. They disclose they are members of various programs. It really doesn’t matter to me if you want to do that. But I am reminded that I cannot associate my name with a particular fellowship because no one person represents that fellowship. I cannot speak on behalf of Narcotics Anonymous. That’s probably a good thing, I could say something that could embroil the fellowship in controversy and folks could die.

We talked a little bit about anonymity inside the rooms. Is it that important? We have “celebrities” that go to meetings and we know their last names because of who they are and what they do. There are people in my area who know my last name and where I work as well, I’m not a celebrity but it really isn’t that important to me. I understand there are jobs and positions it would be best not to have such disclosure. It could place people in jeopardy. Everyone has the full right to recover in a safe place, but let us remember that we aren’t a secret society.

With that being said our’s is a fellowship based on attraction rather than promotion. I could spend countless hours shouting to the heavens about what NA has done for me but it is more important to show folks what the program can do. This is done based on how we live today.
The flip side of anonymity is that there are some who attend NA events or wear NA clothing and make asses out of themselves in public and the general public see’s this and says…..”See that shit isn’t for me, or It doesn’t work”.

I know of a story of some folks who were at an event in Ripley, WV. They went to a Bob Evans and saw some folks there wearing NA shirts. They were carrying on loudly, swearing and so forth. The waitress looked at my friends who were in NA as well but not wearing shirts and said, “I’m glad those NA folks left. A family left because of their swearing, you’d think they would have better manners than that”. This is the perception left by a group of individuals at an NA event. Perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much at times about protecting our own anonymity and worry about protecting our fellowship from our own behavior.

Maybe I should just start using Clark Kent as my name and see if anyone catches on….The Saga Continues…….

Take Care….

Defensive

recoveryboy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:43:33 +0000
Someone shared in an NA meeting that they had started going to Al-Anon – they liked it yet fou

A Sad Case

recoveryboy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:40:44 +0000
Well a sad case in my mind. The last time I saw her she was insane and completely orange. After that

An Interesting Observation

recoveryboy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:37:54 +0000
The guy sharing said that he came from a crazy, dysfunctional, sick home. Both parents were alcoholi

Self-Pity and the Art of the Slow Dance

beyondtheendoftheroad — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:27:19 +0000

Self-pity is one of the most destructive of defects; it will drain us of all positive energy. – Basic Text Page 77

I always found it odd that when talking or writing to others that they would “send some positive energy” my way. What are we talking about here “The Force” or something?!? Is Yoda on the way? I understand now how negative energy, negative feelings, self-pity can play a vital role in recovery. Hell in life for that matter. The quote says “destructive”. That’s pretty deep. I believe self-pity eats us from the inside out. I can find the smallest of things and my feelings, my thoughts would lead me to believe that the end of the world has come.
We talk about making mountains out of mole hills and not just situations either, I believe our feelings do the exact same thing. They blow up to the point our actions and reactions are affected.
Some of us (myself included) want to slow dance with self-pity, take our time with it, either out of attention or just not having the tools to pull ourselves out of it. Too often I don’t tell those closest to me what is on my mind or what I am feeling. You would be hard pressed to believe that especially in what I write about but that is the answer in itself. The downward spiral begins and things seem to pile up. The old saying of measuring our insides compared to the outsides of others takes hold. It would seem that everyone in the world, except for me, is happy or enjoying their lives. That sense of “Why does this shit keep happening to me” turns from being a sense or feeling into almost a mantra. I see patterns in my self-pity. Attention mostly, as I alluded to before, which shows me even in the most negative of defects they are still self-centered.

I have found an outlet in writing. I have heard often in recovery that we should “journal”. This is my journal. Sometimes in writing it si easier to see the patterns of self-pity creeping in. My problems aren’t unique and I don’t consider myself cursed. What I do know is I have a relief valve in writing.

Sometimes I still don’t feel like opening up to others. It could be out of ego or pride. It could be I just don’t feel it’s necessary for everyone to know my business. I talk to my sponsor on a regular basis about things. He knows all there is to know about me. I trust him, even at times, when I don’t trust myself.
I talk to my HP about things. I just voice my concerns about things, people..events. It works out.
I talk to my wife more. Early on it was difficult for her to understand where I was coming from. I believe she has started to see how the addict mind truly works. We have gotten past the “You shouldn’t feel that way” talks from early on to more of just listening. I have always said it is not up to me to tell someone how they should think or feel. Your thoughts and feelings are valid to you, they may not necessarily be in line with reality, but they are still yours.
I don’t like dancing with self-pity much these days. I did it for too long. I get to see a lot where I work at, especially self-pity, and it allows me to be grounded. I could be in far worse circumstances and really haven’t that much to complain about. The kids seem to be our main source of peace disruption these days. But everything is temporary….they can’t live with us forever. I see now why my parents were so anxious for me to leave….Maybe they were tired of dancing as well.

We are making plans to travel next week for the Holiday to Louisiana to visit my wife’s family. Friday will probably be my last post for a week or so but I will post a couple of more times and who knows, maybe one from the road….with pictures…..commentary….all that shit!?!

Take Care…..Bob D.

Step 12 and The Real World

beyondtheendoftheroad — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:42:05 +0000

I just started reading the 12th Step. In NA I was taught that the steps were not a foot race to “feeling better” or “getting better”. Too often I see folks trying to do a 4th and 5th Step with under a year clean who are not ready for the emotional aspects of Stepwork. This is what I was taught and it has worked so far so I don’t question it.
So I am reading the 12th and, for me, it had a practical approach at what living this Step was really about. It simply for me is doing what I learned in the preceeding 11 Steps and the results show in how I live my life and help others.
While in recovery I have put aside my belief in coincidences and luck. I came into work this morning and talked with a co-worker who has a friend who is in trouble. The details aren’t important. I got together a schedule, some literature, and circled some meetings in the area.
I knew in doing this that it would disclose that I was in recovery, that I was an addict, that I attend NA. All of that seemed less important than the person who needed help. This for me is the essence of our program. I did nothing special, nor do I need any recognition for it. I reminded myself that someone made themselves available to me to receive help, and I can do the same.

This person looked at me and said they would have never have guessed that I was an addict, by the way i carry myself. Not using it as an excuse. It took awhile for that to sink in. I was speaking about this to one of the guys I sponsor last night. There is a line in our Text that says:

We are not responsible for our disease, we are responsible for our recovery.

Too often we want to use this line as a free pass. To act the way we want to, and then blame it on being an addict. This is bullshit. Whomever is teaching newcomers this thought process, has had their own recovery stop.
What this line means is that I did not do anything intentional to get or deserve this disease. For the longest time I thought I had done something wrong, that I had inherited this maybe genetically, or circumstantially. In the end, what does it really matter? I ended up in NA one way or the other, so why spend countless hours examining and re-examining my life to find out “where it all went wrong”?
Our loved ones did not see some cloaked, mysterious figure and said……

Look…There goes the disease of addiction again, destroying our lives!!!!
What they said was…..
I don’t know where your Father is kids.

I have to move forward and take some responsibility for my own actions. This is what we mean by being responsible for our own recovery. This is accomplished by staying clean, going to meetings, doing stepwork, being involved, and making ourselves available to those in need.

Moving forward with the addiction recovery program

recoveringfromaddiction — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:31:37 +0000

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

This is where the fun begins for the atheist view. First, as we will go beyond any self esteem issues dealing with our addiction, we have to deal with the insanity of our disorder. The definition of insanity in NA literature is, “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results…Insanity is using drugs day after day knowing that only physical and mental destruction comes when we use. The most obvious insanity of the disease of addiction is the obsession to use drugs.”

What we see in the context after this seems like a preoccupation with the phrase “a Power Greater than Ourselves”, this all leads up to Higher Power and ultimately, “God”.   We need to go beyond the self loathing to the sanity of participating in complete abstinence versus that of using drugs. After the obsession clears, and it can and does in many, we see that we have the will to recover, and that this is our “spirit”. The will to live and the will to thrive and grow, surpass the will of addiction, which is the will to self destruction. What we really need here is Power greater than our addiction. For the atheist and the nonbeliever, this can be the “therapeutic value of one addict helping another”, since it is “without parallel. We can give ourselves and the support we give each other here complete credit as we made the decision to get clean and make a regular decision to stay clean and this is within our personal power to love and heal, ourselves as a group and as individuals. When we nonbelievers in God and Higher Power see this process of coming to believe in our own recovery as coming from us, we can give ourselves credit and feel confident in the process we have willingly become a part of. At this point, we accept that it works in the lives of ourselves and others and we grow to trust the collective wisdom of this experience. Then we can have positive expectations. These transcend the value of hope and act like a Sun rather than just a light at the end of the tunnel. In realizing this, we have utilized openmindedness.

Now we begin to see that this can work for us without a “God” or “Higher Power” and that the process generates from within us and between us and has no greater power than us. Truly, healing powers greater than our addiction instead of imaginary friends or pseudo religious fairy tales that we here clichéd in meetings. We become more and more, free to create an addiction free identity, basking in the light of recovery.

The Domino Effect

beyondtheendoftheroad — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:32:51 +0000

I stayed home on Friday because I wasn’t feeling well, and I had to clean out the basement. I’m laying on the couch a little after one and the front door pops open and it is my daughter with 3 friends behind of her. Her eyes got as big as half-dollar coins and she blurted out..”What are you doing home?”
The better question in return was…”What are you doing home at 15 past 1?”
Long story short she was skipping school, I took her back, she got 2 days of detention and 1 week’s grounding. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She wanted to be bitchy because she couldn’t see her boyfriend (whom I don’t care for) and wanted to pick fights all night Friday. I sent her upstairs and her mood had changed by the end of the weekend.

Last night the stove fried out and I have been working with the landlord on finding a replacement because it is not a freestanding unit but rather a drop in type. He seems to be having difficulty finding one, so I will help look.

I wanted to talk about something that goes on a lot in our fellowship. I call it the “Domino Effect”. What it is, is how one person can affect another person(s) recovery in a relapse. This is prevalent especially with newer members.
I was speaking to 2 members after the meeting last night whom were obviously upset over someone relapsing. The person who relapsed we will call Jane.

These 2 individuals were crying and upset because Jane is calling them not only telling them of the relapse but how NA is to blame for their problems. As newcomers we often stick together, sometimes like blind sheep trying to lead one another, perhaps because we are intimidated by people with time because we feel like we can’t relate or the person with time treats us differently. It can even be as simple as members with time not making newer people feel welcome. We become too involved with cliques.
This leads newer members to huddle together to weather the storm. All too often as in the case I saw last night the relapse of one person is now affecting 3 people because they stuck together and don’t know how to deal with those feelings.

I reminded them that we do not get to make choices for others in our lives. I don’t get to pick who stays, and who leaves. That all I can do is be supportive by telling the person…”I will be at this meeting tonight if you want to meet me there”. I can’t save anyone. Just as loved one’s in our lives watched us disintegrate we are now forced to put those same shoes on and watch new acquaintances do the very same thing. We have the opportunity to see the insanity of our own disease at work in others.

I have learned, painfully, as well as others that no one stays clean for anyone but themselves. I told these folks it sucks, it hurts, but there is nothing I can help with until the person wants to help themselves. That moment when the desperation becomes so great they are willing to change. I told them that the feeling wasn’t foreign to them, that they had went through it themselves and know what I’m talking about. I knew that I had come to the end, I am grateful there were folks that helped me sort things out like this, watching people who sat beside me in a meeting one night and were found dead 3 days later.

There is something more to be said than….”Don’t fucking talk to them”.
There is something more than that. If this were just a disease of talking we would all be in trouble, but it is a disease of thoughts and feelings which help contribute to the Domino Effect.

Take Care…..Bob D.

Feelings vs. Principles

mg95762 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:17:00 +0000

In her book Walking with God through the 12 Steps Frances Jay states that “feelings are only symptoms or expressions of opinion or sentiment.” As addicts, we have lived our lives letting our feelings run the show. This has caused us to harbor resentments, isolate ourselves from friends and family, and live lives full of shame and anger.
By working through the 12 steps we have been able to let go of many of our past resentments and learn to live a more spiritual existence-at least this was the goal. If we have been successful in our efforts and not taken the “easier, softer way” mentioned in the Big Book, then we have developed a method of living where we let our principles and not our emotions run the show. This has resulted in us dealing with people, places and things in a more patient and less reactionary manner. We have developed the serenity that comes with acceptance. While this may not always be the easiest path to follow when things around us are falling apart, it is the path towards recovery and a more peace-filled life where feelings don’t become facts.

Related Links:
http://johnptroy.hypermart.net/aaprayers.htm
http://www.hazelden.org/web/public/has61016.page

Living in the Moment

mg95762 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:49:00 +0000

There’s a saying amongst people in recovery that goes “If you have one foot in the future and one foot in the past, you can do a real good job of pissing all over today.” Staying in the moment is sage advice for anyone, but it’s even more important for people in recovery because we can have a tendency to castrophize the future and dread our pasts-both of which can lead to feelings and emotions that can cause us to pick up a drink or drug.
By celebrating the gift of today (our present from God), people in recovery can let go of regrets of the past and fears of the future, and we can do a better job of focusing on what we can impact. This is especially important around the holiday season. For many, the holiday season is laden with unrealistic expectations that can add stress to our lives and threaten our sobriety. Also the “Ghosts of Christmas Past” can be especially difficult for people in recovery because the memories can be less than cheerful.
So consciously practicing to stay in the moment will allow us to accept each day on its own merits (good or bad) with the knowledge that the past is in the past and the sun will always come up tomorrow.

Related Links:
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/holiday/a/uc_hamish.htm
http://www.newleaf-resources.com/index.cfm/livinginthemoment.html
http://www.forhealing.org/inthemoment.html

The First Three Steps

recoveryboy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:40:12 +0000
I heard a nice summary of the first three steps: Step One: We’re all fucked. Step Two: There