Sixth Step

My experience with step six seems to always involve praying for the willingness to want God to remove my character defects . Sometimes I even have to pray for the willingness to be willing to pray for the willingness to have Him remove them. Step 6 is so much harder for me than 7 because in 6 I have to become ready, I have to be willing, I have to want God to change me and until that happens, not much happens except for maybe an increase in my levels of irritability and discontentment.

For the last several months I have been praying for God to help me become entirely ready to quit smoking. He has done that for me. I went from not wanting to quit to actually, honestly wanting to.  I have a support plan in place and have been quit for ten days now, one day at a time.

Currently, I am praying for help to become entirely ready to have God remove my character defect of guilt, which I have over being sick and unavailable to my 2 school-age children several times a month due to chronic, migraines (which are not my fault unless I do not keep vigilance on my stress and activity levels.)

So, I either curtailed my out-of-the-house activities with them (which they don't like, of course) or push myself and pay for it later on in the week when the fatigue and pain sets in. Either way, my crazy thinking tells me, "You are a bad mom. Your children deserve someone better; someone who isn't sick. They are getting short-changed because of you."  Hence, the guilt, which triggers and then so eloquently cycles with anger and self-pity (over not being able to control my physical ailments.)

I am not there yet, but God has brought me through Step 6 with so many other defects that I have no reason to believe He won't see me through this one, too.

What is your experience with step six or with being truly ready for God to change you?

Alcoholic Perfectionism

Who has it?

 

Me!  I am my own worst critic (as the cliche says.) I find that the harder I am on myself and the more expectations I have of myself then the more I expect from others. Goes to show that when something is bothering me about the actions (or non-actions) of others, I really DO need to look at what is going on within myself.

 

This week is a good example. I have been lonely (still not sure why); restless and anxious (probably because the kids are now on summer vacation,) which leads to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion for me, which significantly depletes my spiritual reserves.

 

My expectations for myself have been very high lately. Examples, include: to be ok with groups of 11-year-old girls coming in and out of my house all day (after all, I like knowing where they are and what they are doing - i.e., control. :) I am also on the other side of a severe depressive episode, and feel guilty for not doing more than my share of the housework to make up for my lack of it over the last year (even though those expectations are mine alone, and my husband would be glad to help if I'd just ask. But, no, instead I made snide remarks and played the martyr this morning about all of the things on my plate today. Later, when I made amends, I told him I was overwhelmed and we had a good talk.)

 

I know that I need time to myself each day to connect to my Higher Power, and with the kids home now, I just don't get it. And that statement just made me realize why I am feeling lonely (I miss my God.)  I think I may need to work Step 11 extra hard this summer. :)

 

In what ways does your fear of making mistakes or of not being "good enough" cause you distress?

Alcoholism, Sobriety, and Recovery - a Step Ten Spiritual Experience

I listened to them fight. Like I used to be, she is sensitive, defensive, discontent, irritable, and miserable. Unlike me, she is only ten years old and has never touched a drop of alcohol. Yet, she thinks and acts like one who is drinking herself into an early grave.

Like my husband, my other daughter is selfless, kind, loving, as well as hurt and confused about why the former spews venomous words and blames her for all that is wrong in life. Unlike my husband, she is only five years old and was born into this alcoholic family rather than married into it.

Doesn’t matter…we all have alcoholism and sometimes it really sucks.

I have a sponsor, my daughter has a counselor, and we both have psychiatrists and God. I hate what I see and I cry because I can’t fix her any more than I can fix myself.


Step One: I am powerless.


Step Two: I believe God will restore my sanity (and my daughter's)


Step Three: and at times, I allow Him to restore mine.  The times when I don't is when I focus on my fears.  For example, I become scared to death for my children and agonize over the pain of living from which I cannot completely protect them.


Step Four: During these times, it is best for me to write out my fears and the ways in which I may be harming them by not allowing them to feel their own growing pains, for example.


Step Five: I discuss these things with my sponsor on a regular basis merely because they surface on a regular basis.


Step Six: I want God to remove my fears and seemingly selfless actions that are, in reality, an attempt to relieve the suffering I experience when I see my children suffering.


Step Seven: I ask God to remove these fears, defects, and shortcomings from me as He sees fit.


Step Eight: I place myself at the top of the list and any others whom I have harmed.


Step Nine: I make amends to myself for the browbeating I often inflict on my own conscience (which only fuels my alcoholism.)

Step Ten:  ???   Oh, Step 10, where are youuuuu???

 It is at this exact point in my recent working of the steps, in which flames of “you’re a terrible mother” and “look at what you did to these kids” and “this is all your fault” ignite; my alcoholism trying to convince me that I have power; that some how I can control my life and my children's lives. 

If I believe these lies, which I often do, I go along living life until I, once again, experience enough pain to return to Step One (and admit my powerlessness, once again!)

Insidious disease!!! I haven’t worked Step 10 in months. The others, many times as I described above.  However, even a thorough 4th -9th step-run only straightens me out for a few weeks and then I am back where I started.

I kept asking, “Why? Why?” and this weekend He told me, “...no Step 10 work.”


“She does steps 4-9 repeatedly. That’s the same thing…even BETTER than a step 10,” my disease retorted. God smiled and like that smart little dog from the Wizard of Oz who pulled back the curtain to reveal a mere man pretending to be a great and powerful Wizard, God revealed the simplicity and significance of Step 10 to me.


My focus has been on the great and powerful Steps 4-9 (which are great and powerful in their own right.) However, for me, Step 10 works behind the curtain tirelessly to maintain the phenomenal effects of 4-9, as the carnival man did to control the powerful effects of the “wizard.”


If I work step 10 on a daily basis, maybe I will be less likely to fall backwards as quickly as I have been on my Steps 4-9 every-other-month plan…that plan isn't in the Big Book!


I also wonder if skipping step 10 is the reason that steps 11 and 12 have been such chores for me lately...

Thank you, God.  Thank you, all.




http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Are-you-a-wizard.jpg



Finding Balance and Living Sober

I visited my family this week, which more often than not increases my anxiety.  Honestly, I feel a bit (sometimes a lot) crazy afterwards even when all I do is silently witness the dysfunction and not necessarily take part in it.  Although, maybe witnessing it is a part.  Sooooo...


Should I stop going to nieces' and nephews' birthday parties, spending the holidays with them, thereby denying my children the fun they experience in seeing their grandparents and playing with their cousins?  That answer doesn't feel right. 


Sometimes my husband takes the kids out to eat and I do not feel like going whether it be because I am tired, don't want to sit in traffic or deal with the crowds and waits or like this week, I didn't want to go out in the freezing cold weather.  I suggested we order in but they wanted to go out.  I used to suck it up and go with them thinking that it was the "right thing" to do...telling myself that I was not a very great mother or wife to choose not to go out to eat with my family.


Now days, I rarely go if I truly do not want to go.  For the most part, they are alright with this.  I know they would rather me go with them but they understand that if I give more of myself in terms of time and energy than I physically, mentally, and emotionally can for too long or too often, I will become irritated, over-fatigued, anxious, and depressed.


God has revealed these limitations to me over the past 2-3 years and unfortunately, they have been extremely debilitating.  I am finding however, that the more I accept myself and my limitations and love myself despite my limitations, the more I am able to actually do, be, and give in ways that are - I now believe to be - God's will. 

I wonder if what I referred to as "debilitating" - meaning that I could no longer do what I had been doing for so many years - would be better stated as, I just was not doing what God wanted me to do (even though the things I was doing weren't inherently unhealthy.) 

I think God's plan for me just changed and I fought it tooth and nail.  Change is hard for me, it always has been...it is completely fear-based. 

In my experience, whenever I am not in line with God's will, I am usually anxious and/or angry.  And whenever I am in line with God's will, I am at peace.  Someone sitting around the tables once visually demonstrated how she feels while not in line with God's will by tensing up and holding on to the edge of the table with a death grip.  She went on to say that when she is in line with God's will it feels like, "Ahhh" and let out a big relaxing sigh, relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes and smiled.  I feel that way, too.

Fighting, denying, being angry about who I am, how I am made, what is good for me and not good for me in terms of my spiritual state, must have taken so much energy from me!  Now that I am (on most days) no longer fighting, denying, and being angry with who I am, I feel myself healing and getting better but, as I stated above, not in a way that allows me to go back to doing the activities I thought I should be doing like working, volunteering time I don't have, socializing needlessly with acquaintances, and signing the kids up in too many activities. 


Rather, I find myself being able to be a more patient and loving mom, a mom that has the time and energy to sit down and get eye-to-eye with her children and really listen to them, a mom that can say, "Sure, you can have a sleepover with your friends at our house" and really mean it and not freak out once I have a couple of eight year old girls giggling until two o'clock in the morning. 


I also find myself being a more fun-loving wife and an equal partner in my marriage instead of being either a total control freak or a helpless victim unable to even get out of bed in the morning. 

What would usually happen is I would go, go, go because I felt guilty about not being able to contribute financially to our household and then I would crash and not be able to do anything around the house or with the kids for days or weeks at a time.  This would compound my guilt and once I was back on my feet, the whole cycle would start all over again. 


Why is it that alcoholics in particular tend to have a difficult time finding the middle ground on most things?  (a rhetorical question, but feel free to share any of your personal experiences regarding this thought.) 


Thanks for reading and I wish you a happy, joyous, and well-balanced week!

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