Made a Decision

(65)

    Alcoholic Parents and Children; Both Sides of that Fence.

Fairly early in my sobriety my Home Group brought in a Big Guns AA Speaker to share with us. We usually met in the church hall, but for this event we packed the main church itself. 

It was a gala occasion.

Big Guns got up and his opening line was: "I have yet to meet an alcoholic who didn't grow up in a dysfunctional family." 

And I remember that so well because my immediate thought was, "Well, here's one."

It took me a long old time in recovery to come to grips with the illusions I held about my childhood versus the actual reality of it. 

 SLOW-briety, remember?

To any child, their surroundings and the people around them are their normal. Some of us become aware when very young that other families operate in a different and perhaps even better way; some of us never question our "normal."

. 

The children in my home were taught that "Yes, we're different in our family, but that's because we are superior ... Well, maybe YOU aren't, kid, but all the rest of us in this family are."

That probably wasn't the message my parents intended to send, but it's the one I received. And I don't think my two older brothers got a different one. And they, in fact, in many ways had a much tougher childhood than mine. 

It is to my brothers' credit they didn't grow up resenting their pampered baby sister, so that in later years we could come to understand our different levels of difficulty adapting in life, following the lessons we learned in our family home.

While my parents gave me an appreciation of those things I still most enjoy, like reading, poetry, writing, art, gardening, adventure, people, cooking, baking, the maritime industry (odd, but true), nature, pets, and much more. 

They also instilled in me a deep sense of guilt, insecurity and anxiety, along with teaching me to lie, fear intimacy, and become a first class people-pleaser. 

My dad also taught me, since my mother had cornered the market for perfection in women, I should concentrate on things where I might actually be able to succeed. From that I gained a workaholic career drive and a lifelong insecurity about my own femininity.

In other words, while my parents were wonderful, intelligent, interesting and loving people, they were not necessarily the best parents for three sensitive children. 

And nor was I to my own four children. 

We all just did the best we could with what we had to offer. And the same is true I suspect - to a greater or lesser degree - for each and every one of us.

Some of us in recovery had truly dreadful parents, but they often had truly dreadful parents, too. No one had ever installed good parenting skills in them, so the beat - literally and figuratively - went on. 

Parenting is hard work. This is especially so for those given a faulty blueprint for parenting. Throw addiction into that mix and the recipe is guaranteed to cause harm. I'd love a do-over for my children, with me as a better parent. So would most alcoholic parents I know, but the best we can do is to stay sober and be supportive of our now older children - if they want that from us.

Neither one of my parents had much of a childhood and in both cases it had ended early. My Dad was working in a coal mine by the age of 13. My mother at that same young age was working as a nanny 150 miles away from her own family. 

So when I was born they gave me the childhoods they'd missed out on, and I'm sure never once considered if the perfect childhood they envisioned was a good fit for a timid little girl.

I was given ballet lessons, made to act professionally on stage before large audiences, give radio and newspaper interviews, study piano, and perform in music recitals. My Dad, an avid home movie buff, filmed me scaling tall (scary) ladders, riding big (scary) horses, and otherwise behaving like the Shirley Temple I wasn't. They regularly turned me loose in strange cities while they visited art museums and similar places. When they went out of town, my brothers and I were left for weeks at a time (separately) with people our parents knew. Sometimes we knew those people, sometimes not.

There's no doubt that the above made me into a stronger person as an adult, but it all scared the hell out of me as a kid. 

And, even though both my parents died in the 1990s, I still feel a twinge of guilt at writing everything you've just read. Family loyalty gets hardwired into us long before we ever step inside a school room. It's still there in me, but at least today I understand it.

As recovering adults we need to examine all aspects of our life, including what we learned in our families of origin, so that we can keep the good stuff and work on eliminating the not-so-good. Learning to separate out the many real gifts our parents gave us from some of the "issues" we learned, is an important part of our recovery. Especially when we can do so while remaining (mostly) guilt free.

Most children of recovering alcoholics - once they realize a parent is well and truly into recovery - can reestablish a good relationship with them. That's true in more cases than not. They come to realize their mother or father was both physically and mentally ill while drinking and has become a new person in recovery. The frightening parent they knew has become the person they were meant to be before alcoholism took over. 

Others, and sadly for all concerned, never recover from the trauma of their drunk-drama childhoods, especially if their parents divorced and they grew up with an embittered ex-spouse. Young minds are, after all, impressionable. These kids grow up hating the alcoholic for what he/she did to their family home. They remain hard and cynical, unable to forgive.

Learning and healing take time. Forgiveness takes both desire and effort. Estrangement usually ends, but not always. Acceptance of whatever develops remains the key. 

Hanging onto our own parenting guilt isn't helpful either. I had a lot of guilt over the fact that, of my four children, my eldest was wanted at birth in every sense of that word and my youngest, born less than five years later, arrived into the turmoil of a fracturing marriage and my escalating alcoholism. In other words, my baby got the short shrift. 

It took a very wise woman in AA to point out to me that each of us has our own lessons to learn in life and that the conditions for our growth have to exist from the beginning. 

"Call it Karma if you prefer," she said, "But each child gets the design they most need for their own soul's development and eventual fulfillment."

I took some real comfort from that. I hope you can, too.

 

Made a Decision 

(64)

              Alcoholism and Codependency                                                      

Feelings of guilt, pity, and obligation are to the codependent what the first drink is to the alcoholic. Beware of what happens next! - Melodie Beatte

What? Why are we not talking about alcohol? What does codependency have to do with drinking? 

Quite a lot, actually, at least for many of us, along with all the other addictions we can easily slide into after putting the plug in the jug. Things like overeating, overspending, over-lusting, and just plain over-doing in general. 

But we usually don't slide into codependent behaviors for the very first time when we get to AA - we arrive with them fully in place.

And the difference is, all our newly-adopted over-the-top behaviors will fade away as we learn, over time, to rely more-and-more on surrendering them to our Higher Power.

 (And then leaving them there.)

 But codependency is truly in a class by itself and deserves a closer look. 

Recovering alcoholics/addicts eventually often discover codependency is one of their key underlying issues. That's because substance abuse and dependency lead to guilt and shame, the same two emotions that can also lead to codependency. 

And, like alcoholism, recovering from codependency can be hard work. It requires our full attention and commitment, but it's worth it because it can take us to a more fulfilled and joyful life. There's also the fact (and motivator) that codependency, just like alcoholism, can be a killer. More about that in a minute.

I made the discovery that I was a raging codependent in my ninth year of sobriety. Up until then I had been sailing along, happily sober, sponsoring other women and active in other kinds of service work. Only gradually did I notice the women I sponsored were becoming healthy enough to enjoy supportive and loving relationships. Many of them married, had children, moved on ... I hadn't.

Then, one night while waiting for a meeting to begin in a treatment centre where I had gone with my group to carry the AA message, I glanced at a pinned-up notice on a cork board. It was a test on the "laundry list" outlining codependent behaviors. I was amazed to find that, just like in those written tests offering symptoms of alcoholism, I passed the codependent test with flying colours, too.

I brought the matter up with my sponsor. 

She told me I was very codependent, but that she hadn't confronted me with it because I was sober and seemed happy. 

I was happy.

But I was also lonely. 

In those days I still hoped for a loving relationship, but was afraid to become involved with anyone. I had already painfully learned getting out of any relationship was nearly impossible for me. That's a classic codependent symptom for some of us, by the way. One of many. 

Here are some others: People pleasing; lack of boundaries; poor self-esteem; caretaking; reactivity; poor communication; lacking a positive self-image; difficulty making decisions in a relationship; difficulty identifying our own feelings; valuing the approval of others more than valuing our own, lack of self trust - and that's just for starters.

Codependent givers and takers have a lot in common, but their differences make for unhealthy - even toxic - relationships, ones that can lead to desperation, depression, despair, abuse, violence and even death (homicidal or suicidal). 

A codependent person tends to give continuously to a narcissistic partner who takes. They're both codependent, just flip sides of the same coin. 

(They can sometimes also, in a different relationship, play the reverse role!)

Blackouts are one symptom of alcoholism (not all alcoholics have them, but no non-alcoholic has them!) and domestic violence is one symptom of codependency (not all codependents get caught up in domestic violence, but many, many do). 

Codependents don't all grow up with alcoholic parents, either, but they also don't grow up in healthy and nurturing conditions. Codependency is almost always rooted in adverse childhood experiences. And those who do grow up in an alcoholic home are exposed to a full slate of negative conditions. Here they learn while very young to neglect their own needs for the sake of their parents' needs and demands. 

To survive their traumatic upbringing such children become shapechangers, able to immediately take the temperature of any emotional atmosphere and adapt to whatever is found. (We never lose that superpower, either. I still have it.)

Growing up this way, having no one listen to us, or otherwise affirm us, leaves us feeling isolated and emotionally abandoned. 

And when we grow up with one or both parents being alcoholic, we're probably going to have at least a few codependent issues surface when we establish homes of our own. This is particularly true for those of us destined to also go on to become alcoholics ourselves.

As adults, we see others having safe intimate relationships and we long for that same experience. But our attempts at relationships devolve rapidly. We carry into them a sense of shame, along with fear, that leaves us unable to share who we really are. 

We often don't have a clue about who we really are anyway until we're well into long-term recovery from other addictions. Shapechangers, remember?

Some question calling codependency an addiction, but therapists don't. They often even use the term "codependency" interchangeably with "relationship addiction." When we lose ourselves in a relationship, make our "significant other" the most important part of our lives in every way possible, and compromise our own beliefs and values in the process, what else can we call it other than addiction?

We did the same with our drinking, after all. We made alcohol the most important part of our lives in every way possible, compromised our beliefs and values over and over again to keep on drinking, and eventually lost ourselves in the process.

We codependents find no lasting joy in a relationship other than in doing things to make our partners value us. We're in it for the long haul, too, even when knowing our partner is hurtful, even dangerous. We'll do anything we can think of to please and satisfy them, no matter at what expense to ourselves. Our relationship becomes more important than anything else, including our own well-being.

And here's where people who are not codependents become baffled and often wade in with advice to, "Just leave the bastard," or "You are too nice a person to let someone treat you that way, get out while you can." or - and this is the one that once broke my own heart - when the best friend I'd ever had walked away after telling me: "I can no longer be your friend and watch you self-destruct because of him. We're done."

There's an obvious (to me) similar situation created by our drinking, because we  hear the same kinds of messages from friends and family:  "Why don't you just have a couple of drinks and then stop?" ... "Why can't you see what your drinking is doing to you? To us?" ... "It's either the bottle or me. I can't stay in this any longer and watch you kill yourself."

Now step back and think about how we felt when those same kinds of comments were aimed at us over our drinking. Then consider what it means to judge anyone about anything. People are formed from such different circumstances, motivated by different situations, shaped by their own personal suffering. We cannot even hope to understand the behaviors of even those closest to us. 

We see all things in one dimension. Only our Higher Power sees things from all sides, inside and out. Our relationship with a Higher Power is the one that can bring about lasting positive change.

Even so, I have never personally experienced a healthy intimate relationship.

The last time I ventured to attempt one ended, as always, in painful failure. It took me to the edge of suicide before I finally surrendered that intention, on my knees, to my Higher Power.

I have never stepped back into the relationship arena again, and now I've left it too late. That's a shame really, because I'm a pretty nice person today. But when I was of an age to be in a relationship I didn't have enough recovery from my own codependency to operate safely in an intimate partnership. 

So I will suggest you don't do as I did. If you think codependency is one of your issues, get honest about it now. There is help available. 

Get a copy of the book Codependents Anonymous for a full outline of what you are dealing with and the tools needed on how to recover.

 Get a support system. Join a group to find the experience, strength and hope you'll need to heal from your codependent issues. 

Every internal conflict has many levels, but over time our emotions can be healed  - unless we avoid them or try to hide from them. 

Most of the time what we want and need is just to feel listened to and understood. Go find those people who will give that to you. We're all miracles of recovery from alcoholism. It may now be the time for you to go get yourself another miracle. 

 

Made a Decision

(63)

           Guess What? It's Gratitude Week!

We're right now in the middle of AA's Gratitude Week that began on 9 June and ends June 15. But it's not too late to celebrate right here in the middle! 

Way back on June 10th, 1935 (nine years before I was born), Bill Wilson and his friend Dr. Robert Smith, set out to find the best way to reform alcoholics - and Alcoholics Anonymous was born. 

We acknowledge this 85th birthday anniversary by taking part in AA's Gratitude Week. 

AA members celebrate by holding gratitude meetings in their home groups, or by making a special donation to the General Service Office (either as an individual or by having a separate passing of the pot to send in labeled as your group's gratitude contribution), or by our just taking time every morning this week to be grateful for all that AA has given us personally.

Before our founders cobbled together our amazing program of recovery - drawing on medicine, religion, science, and their built-in first-hand knowledge of how alcoholics think and behave ... 

        ... there was NO SOLUTION for drunks like us.

 To be diagnosed as an "alcoholic" before 1935 was a death sentence. Alcoholism meant suffering a long, slow, painful decline into insanity, followed by death. So living in a time when AA is readily available is truly a miracle for every single one of us. 

            Stop and just think about that for a minute. 

Remember when you hit the last stage of your own drinking? Remember the fear, the hangovers, the self-disgust, the scornful looks and remarks from friends and family, your own bafflement at not wanting to drink, but continuing to do so? 

Or can you recall your denial you even had a problem until the cell door slammed behind you, or the family left, or you got fired? Or all of the above? Remember? 

What if there had been no way out for you? What if the hand of AA hadn't been there? What if there hadn't been AA members to show you the way out? What if there had been no AA meeting to become your safe place?

               Think about that for a minute, too.

As our book says, we are people who would not normally mix, coming as we do from different countries, political, economic, social and religious backgrounds. But mix we do, and we are saved because of the common solution AA offers to, and through, each one of us. 

Every single member of AA has something to offer our fellow alcoholics (yes, this means you, too). Our presence alone is a comfort, our experiences resonate, our strength supports, our hope is contagious. And even when we're struggling we contribute, because by sharing our torment we open the door for others to help, and we clarify our own minds in the process.

Give a thought to what our AA friends offer us, of their caring, friendliness, understanding, support, and when we most need it  - a jolt of truth - delivered with an honesty seldom found elsewhere. And we do the same for them. We are needed! 

We, who were once slaves to our drink, have become free in AA. Freedom is what recovery is all about. We are free in sobriety to become who we were meant to be before our addiction(s) derailed us. We have become free to enjoy all that life has to offer. 

Does being free mean we'll always get our own way? Uh, no. Sorry. We learn, we grow, and then we get more opportunities to learn still more. Many of our sober lessons will be difficult, because that's how we continue to grow to become better people.

We are where we are for a reason. Growth is work. We must be willing to do the simple things that our newer understanding asks of us. That's how we get to that "more will be revealed" part of our recovery.

All of us pray when we are hurting. In recovery we learn that if we pray regularly, when we continually try for that conscious contact, we won't have cause to be hurting as intensely, or as often.

Recovery - like old age - isn't for sissies. It's all about continuing to do-the-doing in both good times and bad. "Slowbriety" will get us where we need to go - one day at a time - and best of all, we'll get there sober. 

Recovery is also all about being and remaining grateful for ALL our sober experiences and not just the ones we like. There is much to be learned about living from both joy and from pain. Both offer us reasons for gratitude. 

When we are active in our recovery we change every single day … one day at a time  This growth is not the result of wishing and hoping, but of action and prayer. 

And science now tells us we cannot hold a negative thought and a positive thought at the same time. So making a gratitude list is a guaranteed path out of the doldrums. Try it. It works every time!

"We are not saints," and we will never be, but it's a healthy sign of our recovery when we really wish we could be ... when we truly want to be better and are willing to do everything it takes to become the best person we can be.

What an amazing gift AA is to people like us who, without it, would be doomed to an almost certain ugly and painful death.

Your disease wanted you to die alone and unloved at the bitter end of a shortened life. It still does. It doesn't want recovery for you. 

Your disease wanted/wants you isolated, lonely, depressed, suicidal - and dead. Recovery in AA is your salvation. Recovery is also an ADVENTURE. So put on your pith helmet and be willing to explore all the many aspects of it. 

Above all, never ever stop being grateful that you are alive and sober in - and because of - Alcoholics Anonymous! 

 

              No new Blog Posts will be made until sometime 

                in June (or possibly July) as I am currently in the 

        process of moving house from England          to the mountains of northern Portugal. 

Feel free to scroll down and have a reread on some of the earlier blogs until my return to blogging. 

Stay safe, sane and sober till then. 

Cheers, OKay 

 

Made a Decision

(62 )

                      A.A. IS NOT A RELIGION

       

                       (No Kool Aid served at Meetings, either.)

"Oh, man! Did you know she has gone and joined that AA thing? I've heard it's some kind of a religion that makes people quit drinking. How weird is that?"

"You've done what? You are going to AA meetings to stop drinking? You know it's a cult, right?"

Such were some of the comments made behind my back and to my face when I surrendered my drinking problem to the higher wisdom of you folks in Alcoholics Anonymous. 

I'm sure there were other comments made then, too, but that religious cult belief is still circulating around in society and - sadly - it keeps a lot of frightened people from investigating what AA has to offer.

The dictionary states a religion is a personal or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

A cult is defined as a group held together by a shared commitment to a charismatic leader who offers answers to all life's questions, but demands specific rules be followed. 

Although the term cult has negative connotations through buzzwords over tragedies as when "They drank the Kool Aid," several of today's powerful world religions began as cults. 

AA isn't one of them.

But newcomers run right into that God Word at their very first meeting when they hear read out the "suggested" steps of recovery. There's no doubt that the God Word is all over the place, but so is that word "suggested."  

Novitiates are "suggested" to find a God of their Understanding to help them stay sober, but nowhere are they told they must find one.

 

And our literature also tells us to make use of what others have to offer, while plainly stating AA isn't the only path to sobriety even though we do have the best track record in that arena. 

So clearly, AA is not a religion nor a cult.

AA began when two low-bottom alcoholics (but very intelligent men) discovered they could stay sober by helping other alcoholics stay sober - and then they set about doing so, with gusto. 

Over time these newly sober alcoholics figured they were really on to something and, supported and encouraged by their doctors, shrinks, ministers, nuns, priests and doubting Thomases, they cobbled together a written program of recovery that rapidly spread to the entire world. 

Both of AA's founders were Christians and believers in God's power to get and keep alcoholics sober, but they never - ever - pushed that down anyone's throat.

 

Even though the language used in the Big Book of AA is often very Christian in tone, those who wrote it knew their target audience. They knew no one could make an alcoholic do one single thing they didn't want to do, "Stubborn" being our collective middle name.

So AA gently nudges us toward faith by assuring us prayer and meditation will help us have a better life. In meetings we learn how others have applied these - and all the other tools in the AA toolbox - to reduce or eliminate their life problems.

The purpose of prayer is to give our Higher Power the opportunity to bestow the gifts He will give us when we are ready to accept them.  

Meditation is a more advanced spiritual act than merely saying our prayers. It eliminates from our life the things that hinder our union with God. 

Meditation is also more difficult than prayer - after all, prayer involves talking and meditation involves listening, and we alcoholics are great talkers! 

But if I have one regret along my AA journey it is in not getting serious about regular meditation much sooner. My monkey mind takes a lot of settling down and for a long time I wasn't convinced the effort was worth it. 

How wrong I was. Now that I meditate daily I wouldn't willingly give it up for any reason. The benefits have been far too surprising, encouraging, inspiring and powerful. 

So, once again, AA's founders knew exactly what they were promoting when they promoted prayer AND meditation. They also knew drunks would continue in both once they'd discovered the benefits to themselves and others. It wasn't about rote and ritual, it was - and is - all about results.

In their age of letter writing and not twitter, Bill W. and Dr. Bob shared their thoughts with one another, and others, on far-ranging topics, including religion and AA. Here's are a couple of samples written in the early 1950s:

"Beyond a Higher Power, as each of us may vision Him, A.A. must never, as a society, enter the field of dogma or theology. We can never become a religion in that sense, lest we kill usefulness by getting bogged down in theological contention."

"The really amazing fact about A.A. is that all religions see in our program a resemblance to themselves. For example, Catholic theologians declare our Twelve Steps to be in exact accord with their Ignatian Exercises for Retreat, and though our book reeks of sin, sickness, and death, the Christian Science Monitor has often praised it editorially. Now, looking through Quaker eyes, you, too, see us favorably. What happy circumstances, these!"

A.A. offers us a spiritual program. The fundamental basis of A.A. is belief in some Power greater than ourselves.

If you are still wondering, however, what AA actually is, since it is neither cult nor religion ...

"Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism  ... "

You know the rest of this above quote by now - and if you don't, you might consider getting yourself to a few more meetings.

 

Made A Decision

(61)

    The Discipline of Kindness

My courageous first sponsor, Mary Z., met and guided me through the early days of my AA journey. She had her work cut out for her, too. I wasn't above physical violence against others in those days and sarcasm often dripped like acid drool from my lips. 

In those early days I subscribed whole-heartedly to the advice of master comedian Billy Connolly - "Hit them before they stop talking." 

So I'm always amused when people think I'm a nice person. I am not. Left to my own devices I am an irritable, restless and discontented woman who wouldn't hesitate to hurt you if it might benefit me. You should be very pleased you have met me while I'm striving to stay under the influence of the God of my understanding.

After Mary had taken me through all twelve steps she told me my remaining ugly go-to behavior when stressed was neither smart nor attractive. She suggested I would benefit greatly by adopting "the discipline of kindness." (Being one smart old lady she didn't tell me I'd be working on this for the rest of my bloody life.) 

In explaining how the discipline of kindness works, Mary told me the spiritual life is not a theory, that we have to live it. She quoted things said by poets like Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "This is the unpardonable sin, to talk discouragingly to human souls hungering for hope." 

Mary gave me the words of journalist Bob Goddard who said: "Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these."

Mary explained that having spiritual vision meant looking at life and people as God does. And she assured me that "God can make all things new, even you."

AA literature tells us more than once that we alcoholics are undisciplined people. But instead of thinking of discipline as a dirty word, we might consider thinking of it as it actually is - a way to bring order to our lives so that we can live in a more sane and happy way. 

Would you like the tolerance and wisdom to avoid having a knee-jerk reaction to what other people say and do? Ask your Higher Power for it - and then practice, practice, practice having it.

This isn't a new technique or new advice. The late medieval German-Dutch Canon,Thomas à Kempis, said: "Thou must learn to renounce thy own will in many things, if thou wilt keep peace and concord with others."

And seers from all the major religions have one way or another said: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

So when my sponsor pointed out I was often unkind and needed to reign that in, she pointed me to earlier teachings and said I should strive for kindness toward others whether I thought they deserved it or not. 

"The sun doesn't shine on some flowers, but not others," she said. "Love cannot be exclusive." 

I've learned since that loving in that way is all about listening to others and truthful sharing. It's about accepting others just as they are and not as we would have them be. And it's about trying to view others through God's eyes and not through our own very limited vision.

When we work on living a disciplined life we stop competing with others. Our only competition is with ourselves as we seek each day to surpass being the person we were yesterday.

It has been written many times and in many ways that our thoughts become our words; words become our actions; actions then become habits; habits become our character and it is our character that creates our destiny.

When we learn self-discipline - especially the discipline of kindness - we let go of our resentments, hates, fears, gossip and pride. People in our lives who continue to hang onto those things will slowly exit, stage left. But people striving to become better people will arrive. 

We take out of life what we put into it and the satisfaction we earn through sober self-discipline becomes the ability to live a good life. Our battered world doesn't need super heroes, it needs people willing to get rid of the self in their lives and let their Higher Power work through them. With enough people willing to be used by God for His purposes He could remake the world.

These days I often tell complete strangers in passing that I love what they're wearing, or that they have a great smile that has made my day, or how stylish their hairdo is, and other things like that. A small minority of those people will look startled and scurry away. Most, however, light up with delight like candle-lit pumpkins. Best of all, we both feel happier!

Our fellowship in AA teaches us how to care about what others are feeling and hoping and praying for. It begins to matter to us when our friends are hurting, or troubled, or ill, or not getting to meetings, or sad, angry or confused. We learn to reach out to them. I didn't do a whole lot of that before I got to AA. Even if I had wanted to, I wouldn't have known how to even try. The fellowship of AA, and our Higher Power, teach us how to do these things. More importantly, they teach us to want to and they support us while we learn.

As Bill Wilson said, "We recovering alcoholics are not so much brothers in virtue as we are brothers in our defects, and in our common strivings to overcome them." 

Whenever I allow my own inherent selfishness, dishonesty, fear or resentment to remain rooted in me I block out the sunlight of the spirit. To remain in that light I must practice being helpful and friendly to all who come near me. I must search to find something about them to love, welcome them, and help them if they ask for my help.

Above all, I must send no one away carrying the feeling that I don't care about them. The person standing in front of me may be desperate for a kind word and God may have sent them to me to get it. If I repulse them I will have failed both God and myself.

And I know that for sure, because a long time ago a woman I didn't much care for asked me after my Friday meeting if I would be her sponsor. I gave her short shrift and a lame excuse about not having time to take on anyone else. Then I left with my laughing group of good friends to go enjoy "the meeting after the meeting in a nearby coffee shop."

Over that weekend sometime that woman hanged herself. 

Could I have saved her from that?

No. 

But could I have been kinder to her.

Yes.

I live with that memory, so you don't have to.

Always be kind.

 

Made a Decision

(60)

Trudging the Trudge

At the end of the last chapter in our Big Book, "A Vision for You," it says: 

"... and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of happy Destiny."

Notice the author didn't say: "... as you skip along the Road of Happy Destiny." 

The word used was "Trudge." 

It's a valuable and interesting word choice.

Our dictionary tells us that trudge means - "to walk or march steadily and usually laboriously." 

We don't initially see our recovery as a trudge. After all, it's such a relief to be set free from addiction, to have a fellowship of support around us, to enjoy each new day in sobriety. 

We will enjoy our pink cloud ride until (sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly) something happens in our life to shake us loose and - depending on the severity of the cause - drop us down a notch or straight into a chasm of despair. 

And, just like when we fall off that proverbial horse, the best thing we can do is to climb right back up onto that pink cloud for another and even longer ride. 

The trick, of course, is in learning how to do that.

Tip - it takes putting into practice more of everything we've learned in recovery so far.

(Prayer helps, too.) 

The school of life, like most schools (including the one called Alcoholics Anonymous), gives us a series of lessons and then we're handed a pop quiz - or - sometimes an even more significant test. 

Afterwards we get to grade ourselves on how well we've done. 

And even if we feel we've let ourselves down a bit, we can look at where we lost the plot and then promise ourselves to do better next time. 

 

That's how we grow and change for the better.

Life Happens. Sometimes it's as yummy as a piece of home-baked cake and we happily stroll along enjoying every bite. 

Sometimes life sucker-punches us in a way we absolutely didn't see coming and knocks us to our knees. 

                                            Here's the good news: 

   The view from our knees usually offers us a higher view. It is here that we learn we can handle all of life's events in the very same way - with gratitude.

When the going is good we can develop our sense of gratitude by appreciating every good sober day. Living with no "itches to scratch in this moment" is the very definition of that. Stay grateful!

When the going is shit, we can practice having gratitude for our sobriety, for having the AA tool kit offering us ways to handle our pain, and for our AA friends who rally around to keep us from plummeting further into depression.

Chopping the bad times into manageable day-at-a-time chunks, while reaching out to our Higher Power for help and guidance, will get us through any and ALL situations that used to send us to the bottle. 

Sometimes we must confront our need for help by admitting to ourselves and to others that we need it. It’s not easy to share the intimate details of our lives, but it is the key to escape from our pain.  

An old saying sums it up: "A trouble shared is a trouble halved," 

The magic in sharing ourselves with others is hard to define, but the healing for everyone involved always follows. 

Every single day someone's recovery begins when one alcoholic shares his or her experience, strength and hope with another. That's the heart and soul of AA at work. 

The same kind of healing continues throughout our "trudge" whenever we share our pain and thereby open ourselves to healing. Love from others will get us through.

Spiritual awakenings come in all shapes and sizes. For some the earth moves right away and for others it can be a long old slog ... but if we stay sober, continue to do-the-doing of recovery to the best of our ability, live to the best of our ability each day  - and stay grateful - we'll get there. 

Our need is God's opportunity. The spiritual path is the best adventure we can ever undertake. Yes, there's some trudging to be done, but it is also filled with discoveries, laughter, amazing revelations, surprises of the best kind, terrific friendships, delightful books, breathtaking moments ... it's the best and highest "high" there is. 

I wish I had realized all of this a lot sooner, but it's here for any of us when we do those first three steps every morning (with heavy emphasis on Step Three), and then get out of our own way. 

                        Does our trudge on earth end? Sure. When we die. 

Until then we will continue to have our valuable and needed "lessons" all throughout our spiritual adventure of recovery. 

And we will always need shared experience, strength, and hope from others who skip and/or trudge along with us on our spiritual path - regardless of our age or how long we've been sober.