Vacation and Alcoholism

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When we checked into the hotel, the desk clerk said, “Blah, blah, blah and the pool hours are blah, blah, blah.  You can park blah, blah, blah and HERE ARE YOUR DRINK VOUCHERS, GOOD FOR SIX FREE ADULT BEVERAGES PER NIGHT FROM OUR BAR.”

My first thought was, “Wow, funny how that got my attention.”  My second thought was, “It’s a shame those will go to waste.”  My third thought was, “I can’t pass up all those free drinks.”  My fourth thought was, “Hubby won’t even use them.”  (He's practically a non-drinker, but not an alcoholic.)  My fifth thought was, “These are crazy thoughts!”

So, there you have it folks.  Six years into sobriety and I can go from zero to crazy in five or less consecutive thoughts!  Does this mean I am not working a good recovery program?  Does this mean that the suggestions I follow are bogus?  Does this mean I am doomed to drink again?

Naaaahhh.  It just means I am an alcoholic. 
So, what happened to those crazy thoughts I was having in the hotel lobby this week?  I told someone about them ASAP and then they went away.  Then I continued on for the rest of the week taking the actions necessary to improve my spiritual life so that, God-willing, the next time (and there WILL be a next time) I find myself having those thoughts, I will stay sober for one more day, one day at a time.

I am so grateful to be sober today.  God is good!

God and Vacation

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My husband was on vacation this week. We were busy everyday taking the kids to various tourist attractions.  Normally, these family outings tax my mental capacities past their limits.  After a couple of hours, the crowds, heat, noise, and physical exertion leave me feeling overwhelmed, over-stimulated, on edge, and exhausted.  (Oh, the joys of depression!)  However, this week, it appears that God removed from me whatever it is about my brain that causes my hypersensitive system to over-react to normal day to day situations.

I became aware of this the day we went to a water-park.  My youngest and I were in the water facing each other and holding hands.  She was jumping up and down, laughing, and enjoying the splashes of water around her.  My focus was completely on her as I experienced pure joy in watching her smile and laugh and jump.  Then I looked around me and as I scanned the hundreds of people around us, the noises became louder, the unpredictable movement of others became threatening, my breath quickened, my heart began to race, and fear began to seize me.  (For those who do not know, this is what it is like to begin to have a panic/anxiety attack.)

At this point, I would normally get out of the pool, find a quiet shady spot, and rest for a while.  But instead, this thought came into my head out of nowhere: “Just focus on D” (my daughter.)  Almost reflexively, I returned my gaze to my daughter’s beautiful little face and gave her my full attention.  At the same time, I was fully aware of the noises around me as they slowly decreased as if someone turned down the volume like on a radio.  Soon the noises seemed far away.  The people seemed far away.  But they weren’t.  It felt as though God encapsulated us in a safe little bubble, safe from any external forces, giving me the freedom to be fully present in the moment with my child.

For the first time in over two years, I felt a huge weight lift from me.  I felt as light as a feather.  I felt peace if only for those few precious moments.  I just realized as writing this that the day at the water-park was the exact date, one year ago, that I swallowed a bunch of pills and admitted myself to the hospital psychiatric unit.

Appendix II in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes the term “spiritual experience” as “a profound alteration to (one’s) reaction to life.”  I am going to chalk this one up as a spiritual experience.  God is good and I am grateful!


I’m curious…what spiritual experience have you had?

What Are Your Thoughts on This?

Seriously, what are your thoughts on this?

Beakers, Eggs, Me, the World, and God

An empty glass beaker… Is it really empty? What about the air inside of it? How can one prove the presence of air inside of an empty glass beaker? At a child’s birthday party, the “Science Guy” asked the kids these questions. He said, “Can I pour the air out, pull it out, spoon it out?” Then he said, “What if I tried to push a hard-boiled egg into the beaker?” He tried but the egg didn’t budge because of the air inside the beaker. Next he asked the kids, “How can I get some of the air out to make room for the egg?” They had no clue. Then he showed them by lighting a strip of paper, dropping it into the beaker, and placing the egg on top. The fire heated up the air causing it to rise out of the beaker and POP! --into the beaker that egg was sucked! This created lots of “ooohs” and “aaahhs” in the room.

Then Science Guy asked, “How can I get the egg out without breaking the glass?” Again no one had a clue. So, he showed us by tipping the beaker upside down and blowing air into it and can you believe it worked? I was as amazed as the kids! Most of the egg shot out in large mangled pieces and the few bits that remained fell to the bottom of the beaker.

Science Guy caught my attention right at the beginning when he asked the kids how they could prove to him that there was air inside the beaker if it we can’t see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, or feel it, dump it out, spoon it out, or pull it out. I thought, “Wow, that sounds like proving the existence of God.” Then my silly little mind compared the whole darn experiment to my spiritual program.

So, I am the beaker (don‘t laugh! In reality, I am more the shape of an hour glass, but I digress), the egg is the physical world, the air is God, the flame is my character defects, and blowing air into the beaker is like working the 12 Steps of the program. Oh, and I almost forgot a very important element: Science Guy is like a sponsor.

You must know, however, that my spiritual experiment with the 12 Steps is far, far, far from being as valid and reliable as that of Science Guy's egg and beaker science because unlike the laws of physics, God allows me to defy him. When the fire of my character defects burn bright, God’s peace rises out of me and the physical world of people, places, and things take center-stage in my mind. POP! The egg is in the beaker!

I have found that by repeatedly working the 12 Steps with my sponsor and others, the breath of God flows back into me and like the air pushed the egg back out of the beaker, God’s presence pushes those things of my physical world out of the center of my being. Remnants do remain --this is my human condition. As they say in the program, “progress not perfection.” We will never be perfect. Being human doesn’t allow for it. It took me a long time and a lot self-loathing pain to learn this lesson.

If I tried to work this program on my own, I would have never been able to understand “how it works.” I would have “no clue!” But thanks to God’s loving grace, great science guys, I mean sponsors, and those who share their experience, strength, and hope in the rooms of the program, today, this is how it works for me:

Steps 1, 2, and 3 help me accept my powerlessness over the things of this world and acknowledge the One who has all-power, a God of my understanding. Step 4 and 5 help me become aware of my character defects. Steps 6 and 7 help me bring those defects to God and become willing for Him to remove them. Steps 8 and 9 help me rightly relate to others through a code of loving tolerance and forgiveness. Step 10 helps me stay current with Steps 4-9, Step 11 helps me access God from which my strength comes in order to work Step 12: being of maximum service to my fellows and “practice the principles of the program in all of my affairs.”

How "does it work" for you, today?

Are You Self-Supporting?

Above:  Two minutes before the meeting is supposed to start, the dude on left says, "Hey, my speaker isn't here."  Dude in the center says, "That's a bummer.  I gotta run to the restroom."  Dude on the right thinks, "Maybe if I don't make eye contact he won't ask me to step in and speak."

I spoke at a meeting on Tradition Seven, “every group ought to be self-supporting, declining outside contributions.”  Ironically, I haven’t been able to work in many months and have been anything but self-supporting monetarily speaking.  However, I have learned that monetary contributions alone do not sustain 12-step programs.  Service work is vital to the longevity of these programs.  Groups do not hire outside people to come in and set up chairs and tables and make coffee before the meetings.  Group members do it.  Groups do not hire outside individuals to chair meetings or give speeches or presentations.  Group members are the chairpersons and speakers.  We support ourselves by doing the work ourselves, not just by throwing a buck or two in the basket every week.

Would there be anything inherently wrong with someone outside of the program volunteering to help or wishing to make a monetary donation?  Probably not.  Except that we run the risk of being indebted to or at least influenced by the agenda of such individuals, whether it be religious, political, or social to name a few.  I am so grateful that the founders of these programs had the foresight to such risks and thus, put this Tradition in place.  12-step programs have, do, and will continue to save too many lives to take such a risk, wouldn’t you agree?

I thought about this Tradition as it relates to my life outside of the rooms of the program (as I was taught to do.)  While I haven’t been able to contribute to our household income lately, in the spirit of Tradition Seven, I perform service work daily (i.e., cleaning, cooking, laundry, raising kids, pet care.)  My kids have assigned chores around the house and my husband helps with all of the aforementioned plus provides financially for our family.  We are a self-supporting family.  As in the program, it is important to the survival of our family that we each do our part.

Then I thought about how this Tradition relates to me as an individual.  How do I support myself, my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs?  This is the stuff that no amount of money can buy!  Do I take care of my body, take the medicines my doctor prescribes, exercise regularly, eat healthy, get enough sleep?  Do take care of my emotional health by asking for what I need, setting boundaries with others, accepting what I can’t change, changing what I can, and depending on God for peace and happiness rather than on those around me?  Do I take care of my spiritual needs by “practicing the principles of the program in all my affairs” and spending quality time in daily prayer and meditation?

The short answer all of those questions is that I try to do these things to the best of my ability with varying degrees of effort depending on whether I am in self-will or in line with God’s will.  My experience has been that when I perceive the effort as great, then I am probably in self-will.  When the effort appears minimal, I am usually in line with God’s will. 

What does your program look like?

I start “working my program” each morning by getting out of bed.  There have been times even in sobriety that I was unable to do this due to severe depression.  Every morning I kneel and say the 3rd and 7th Steps prayers and the Serenity Prayer.  Later, usually while sitting on my back patio sipping on my first cup of coffee, I read one or two daily meditations.  Currently, I am reading from Each Day a New Beginning, a daily meditation book for women by Karen Casey (Hazelden Press) and The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello.

On good days I sit quietly after reading each meditation and listen.  I listen for God to speak to my heart about anything from guidance on a particular situation to what I should blog about that day.  But mostly I listen for whatever he would have me hear at that exact moment and for what I should do when I go back inside to the “real world” of taking care of kids and pets, housework, relating to my husband, family, and friends, receiving phone calls from the women whom I sponsor, and participating my hobbies.

I call my sponsor one or two times a week as well as see her at my home group meeting.  I currently sponsor three women, two of which usually attend my home group meeting.  The same two call me several times a week.  The third is a newcomer who I see and hear from sporadically despite my requests to hear from her daily.

On good weeks, I go to one or two meetings in one program (one of which is always my home group) and one or two meetings in another program.  This mostly depends on my husband’s work schedule since I have small kids at home.  My home group is a 12 Step meeting.  The other meetings I go to alternate their format each week between book studies, speakers, and topics.
Over the last four months, blogging has become a part of my program.  I write, read, and comment to increase my connection with others in recovery.

I wish I could say that each night I worked Step 10 by reviewing my day and list things well done and things not so well done.  I also wish I could say that each night I thank God for keeping me sober but I can‘t.  I used to write these thoughts in my journal each night before going to sleep.  I stopped doing this when my last manic episode started back in March.  My mind and body became too fast for me to sit still and reflect on the day's events.  Now I am taking a new medication that makes me too sleepy to do this at night.  No worries. I will pray, trust, and keep trying.

Pray, trust, and keep trying.  Pray, trust, and keep trying.  I like that mantra.  Simple. (But not easy.)

What does your daily recovery program look like?  Thanks for sharing!

Dandelions

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He took great pride in his lawn and tried every method he knew to get rid of a large crop of dandelions.  He wrote the Department of Agriculture explaining every method he had tried and asked them, “What shall I do now?”  In due course the reply came: “We suggest you learn to love them.”

This Flash Fiction Friday 55 (hosted by G-Man) was paraphrased from the book, The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello.  It happened to be my meditation reading for the day and was so applicable to my post yesterday and also to my planned post earlier this morning that I think it was meant to be.  I love when God places themes in my life because I’m a little slow on the uptake at times! (grins)  Happy Weekend, Everyone!

P. S. My five year old daughter loves dandelions.  She picks them all of the time for me. “Here, mommy, I picked you some pretty flowers,” she says.  I always thank her and tell her how beautiful they are.  Even more exciting for her is when the dandelions are in the white puffy stage.  She can spot one a mile away and will run to it, pick it, blow the small white seeds off and watch them dance away in the wind with an expression of pure wonder and amazement on her precious little face.

To my fellow gardeners

For the Garden of Your Daily Living

Plant three rows of peas:

Peace of mind

Peace of heart

Peace of soul

Plant four rows of squash:

Squash gossip

Squash indifference

Squash grumbling

Squash selfishness

Plant four rows of lettuce:

Lettuce be kind

Lettuce be patient

Lettuce be obedient

Lettuce really love one another

No garden is without turnips:

Turnip for meetings

Turnip for service

Turnip to help one another

To conclude our garden, we must have thyme:

Thyme for God

Thyme for study

Thyme for prayer

Thyme for each other

Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love.

There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

~ Author Unknown

What Sobriety is like for me right now

...realizing I am nothing but yet someone and that I have nothing but yet everything in him and that I have no power which originates in me --only that which flows through me from him; that everything I think I am is true but only as it relates to the negative or destructive traits.  Whatever is good and life affirming in me is not me but him who created me. 

Are we all the same at birth and become different as a result of our choices?  Let us not forget that we all have free will which makes us alike as well.  Aren't we all the same regardless of our choices--just varying shades and degrees of the same wickedness?  Aren't we all the same regardless of our choices since we all were created by the same all-Good Being --created in his image with varying shades and degrees of goodness that are dependent on our choices?

I realize right now that I know nothing and when I know that I don't know...then I begin to know.  Furthermore, at the very moment that I realize I am beginning to know, I instantly know nothing again. 

Maddening, you say?  I agree but this is what sobriety is like for me right now.

Acceptance and Service:
Right now I accept ALL that I am --the good and the less than good --because in my service to others, he uses ALL of me --the good and the less than good.

But what do I know?

"There is a Solution"

I met some wonderful women at D.’s memorial service.  We spent a few hours visiting with one another and D.’s family and “normal” friends and then we went out to eat for dinner together.  The fellowship at dinner was more nourishing for my soul than the delicious food was for my body.  I love hanging out with women in recovery. We still know how to laugh, act silly, and have a good time!  I felt like I’ve known them all forever even though this was the first time we had met.


One of the greatest gifts of the program that I have received is the connection I feel with other women in recovery.  I no longer feel unique, alone, or different from everyone in the world.  These women are just like me and I like them.  I belong somewhere -at last!  What a blessing it is to be a part of a group of men and women who experience the same distorted thoughts, the same crazy chaos, and who also share the same solution found in working the 12 Steps.

I realized this past week that the people in recovery are my family.  Except for my husband and children, the rest of my relatives have become acquaintances.  My mind tells me that this is not the way it should be.  But, I am learning that my mind usually doesn’t know what it is talking about because it has a disease called alcoholism, which is a “cunning, baffling, and powerful” disease.  It will tell me anything to steer me away from the one thing that will keep me alive -- 12-Step programs.

 

Divinely Intertwined

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Today I am going to a memorial service for my sponsor‘s sponsor and dear friend, D. D. was active in a 12-Step program for more than 30 years; a woman who lived the principle’s of the program through all of her life’s trials including cancer and the heart failure which took her life here on earth last week. She is survived by several children who are still active in their addictions, a father in the advance stages of Alzheimer’s and many, many people in recovery who were blessed to be a part of her life.

D. didn’t live around here, so I never got the pleasure of meeting her. I have never even talked to her or seen a picture of her. But, I feel like I know her from listening to my sponsor talk of her over the years as she passed along the strength and hope to me that she received from D.


That is how it works. We share our experience, strength, and hope with others who want what we have and then they share it with others and so on. In this way we are all connected. Connected by the perils of addiction and more importantly, by the solution we found in the 12-Steps.


My sponsor told me that other women whom D. sponsored are driving in from other parts of the country and bringing the women they sponsor, too. The women they sponsor have never met D. either. It is amazing to me that the connection we feel with others in recovery is so strong and alive that we will travel hundreds of miles to attend a memorial service of someone whom we have never met.

I believe this connection is the Divine, who intertwines itself across our lives pulling us all together during times like this. This thought leaves me with a grateful heart, one that I will take with me today in humble service and love and with a willingness to do the will of God.

God's Playground

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Spending quality time with my husband and children makes living in the moment so beautiful.  We went to a theme park today.  The laughs, smiles, and love we shared was more exciting to me than all of the roller coasters we rode.  I am so blessed.

Talking with women in recovery also refreshes my spirit.  I was blessed to be able to do this today with my sponsor and two women that refer to me as their sponsor. 

Some days the wind is at my back.  Today was one of those days.  It was as if God scooped me up and gently carried me to each destination, all of which were like magical playgrounds -havens- where thoughts of the past and future did not exist and maybe couldn't have even if I wanted them to; and where the love and joy of a family that suffers from the effects of mental illness and alcoholism, outshone any unexpected obstacles that came our way.  The road closures, getting lost, and the rainstorms we got caught in while outdoors only added to our adventure. 

Today, I truly enjoyed the ride.  I hope you did, too. 

One Day at a Time

I haven't been feeling well the last few days -sore throat, achy body, fatigue.  When I am physically sick, irritability and downright crabbiness fill my spirit.  Picking fights with my husband, avoiding demanding kids, and agonizing over the guilt that follows describes the self-inflicted prison in which I spent the 4th of July weekend.  While my family went off to a holiday get together, I spent last night home alone.  I rested in prayer and quiet listening which renewed my spirit (Step 11 at work.)

My sponsor reminded me today that we don't do well when physically ill.  Also, I know many alcoholics, like myself, that can handle a crisis with ease while the day to day events of normal life (whatever that is) can leave us feeling crazy.  I know the effects of my day to day happenings on my serenity are so subtle at times that I end up feeling "irritable and discontent" without knowing why.  How frustrating this is!  This disease is truly "cunning, baffling and powerful.". 

My sponsor assures me that continued work on the Steps of the program will fine tune my ability to maintain serenity in the midst of everyday life.  "It gets better," is her common response to my whiny complaints.  Thank God I believe her.  This faith in God and in the program gets me through another day -One Day at a Time.

"We are more likely to drink over a broken shoe lace than over the death of a loved one." - Anonymous recovered old timer 

Journal to Recovery

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Last night I took out my journal and forced myself to write.  Blog posts, poetry, and fun stuff like G-man's Friday Flash 55s and Monkey Man's Sunday 160s have kept me writing almost everyday for the past month and thus, I have neglected my good old fashion pen and paper journaling lately.  Although I release my thoughts and feelings and silly musings with quick strokes of the keyboard, there is something more physically satisfying about channeling the words in my head down through my arm and out through the scribbles my pen makes on the paper.

I have journaled since I was 12 years old.  It has always been therapeutic for me.  The style of my journaling changes randomly from detailed accounts of my daily life to prayers addressed to God, to gratitude lists, to reflections on a Step 4 or 8 or 10 I may be working through, to facts about how a new medication is affecting my sleep or moods, to bullet points of life's recent happenings, and the list goes on.

I thank God for the ability to formulate my thoughts and be able to write about them in my journal.  Sometimes I go back and read what I have written in the past.  It helps me identify patterns in my moods and behaviors.  But mostly I just write it and then forget about it.  It is as if the paper absorbs the craziness in my head and I am left with a lighter heart and clearer mind after I journal.

I haven't woke up feeling rested in the morning for the past two weeks...until this morning.  My journal gained four pages of written words last night and I gained a book's worth of peace.

Happy Writing!

"I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought."   - Gertrude Stein