The Start of Recovery is the Decision

“But the moment I made up my mind to go through with the process, I had the curious feeling that my alcoholic condition was relieved, as in fact it proved to be. Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems.” The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 42

Ask nearly any alcoholic or addict you have ever met and there is one thing upon which most of them will agree: the beginning, the making a decision to give up drugs and alcohol and begin the road to recovery through the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous was one of the most difficult parts of recovery. You have to say Yes to the life you want and the process before you can begin to recover.

Though it seems frightening and a life without drugs and alcohol may, at first, seem like no life at all, the rewards are far greater than most alcoholics and addicts even dream when they embark upon their journey.

For those caught in the perpetually downward spiral of drugs and alcohol, feeding addiction and chasing escape – a solution that begins with merely a decision seems impossible. We are here to assure you that not only is it possible, but it is the only way. The decision to recover is yours and so is the life you want and deserve. There are drug and alcohol rehabs that are staffed with fully trained professionals who understand where you have been, what you are going through and what it will take for you to move forward. But they cannot make the decision for you. That, you have to do on your own.

 

Willingness, Honesty, Open Mindedness and the Spiritual Experience

“We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program.  Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery.  But these are indispensable.” (Appendix II of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)

When many alcoholics and addicts first venture into recovery, they are put off by the mention of God and the spiritual component of the AA Big Book and Alcoholics Anonymous. After all, many of them have lived through very difficult times and had many struggles. Most alcoholics and addicts can easily come up with a few ways in which God – if there is one, they might say – has failed them. Some will keep drinking and using because they just don’t think they can be a part of anything that talks about God and spirituality.

Lucky for suffering alcoholics and addicts, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. One need not believe in God in order to be sober or to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Many people find that, over time, their perceptions change and they come to their own understanding of a power greater than themselves. Some choose to call that power God. Still others refer to that power as the Universe and other names. It does not matter what you call it. It is truly about finding what works for you and what you can believe in.

In the Appendix II of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it is explained that the most important tools of recovery are willingness, honesty and open mindedness. What many alcoholics and addicts have found through the work they have done at CA drug rehab centers is that when they travel the road to recovery, founded on willingness, honesty and open mindedness, they find themselves with a higher power of their own understanding, having a spiritual experience they didn’t think they wanted, happier than they ever thought they deserved to be.

On Alcoholics, Addicts and Resentments

“Few people have been more victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics.  It mattered little whether our resentments were justified or not.  A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective.  Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger.  As we saw it, our wrath was always justified.  Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely.  These “dry benders” often led straight to the bottle.”  From the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve & Twelve, pg. 90.

When anger and resentment are the foundation on which a life is built, it is a life most futile.  There is nothing sturdy or sound about that platform.  We seethe, wrapping ourselves in a cloak of what we believe to be justified ire.  However, that is not the plush coat which keeps us safe and warm; instead it is actually a threadbare sheet which lets the wind rip through the fabric of our flesh, tearing at our very soul.

While angry, there is no chance of being present for those around us.  We cannot be accessible and of service to others in that all-consuming state.  This compounding fury, which may have been a minor transgression on the part of someone who wasn’t even aware of doing or saying something wrong in the first place, can lead us to the drink.  As opposed to recognizing a feeling of being wronged yet continuing to work toward the greater good, the potential to get trapped in and obsess about said incident is highly plausible.

How does that lead us to drink?  As we run through that moment in our mind, over and over again, the pull toward needing a release, coupled with the desire for a sense of ease and comfort brought to us by the needed release, grows exponentially.  If we are not staying connected to the world by working with others, we supplant being spiritually grounded and opt for this inflated dissension in the rhythm of our world.  As we continue to dodge being of service then we are not available for anything other than our own self-seeking schemes.  We relive the moment, staying in the past while pretending what we would have said or done actually happened.  Maybe we are fantasizing about the future with what we will say and do next time; our motive of getting even grows larger and larger until it’s the only focal point in our lives.  Where is the relief in that?

California rehab centers teach us that there may be moments where we are uncomfortable yet those feelings are not facts on which to base a life.  We learn that our anger justified or otherwise, isn’t going to serve anyone else.  It doesn’t even serve us.  It keeps us selfish, on that carousel of self-righteous misery, which can only, eventually, be abated by our old behaviors in the search for ease and comfort.  Los Angeles rehab centers show us that even while being uncomfortable the cure for that discomfort isn’t found by putting our lips to the bottle but by extending ourselves to another person.  In these actions of being available for another, we learn to cement our sobriety.

“We Aren’t a Glum Lot”

“ … we aren’t a glum lot.” – The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 132

In the lives of many alcoholics and addicts who have begun the path to sobriety and a new life are many fears. One of them is often that we will never enjoy ourselves again.  This question, “How will I ever have any fun without a drink or drug in hand?” is based on our reliance of substances to provide for us things we think we have been without.

For many there was, once upon a time, the feeling of instant invincibility and the idea that we could be friendly and fun, attractive and well-liked when we had that drink of drug and now, without that drink or drug, we believe we would never be able to feel comfortable enough to have fun and let loose again.  In effect, we began to use drugs and alcohol as a way to treat this symptom, the belief of an inability to fit in. We believed that drugs and alcohol allowed us to suddenly become the vision of who we so wanted to be. Finally, we thought, not only do we fit in but the lampshade on our respective heads amused everyone around us.  Or so we thought.

The truth is that through our newfound and ever-evolving sobriety, we learn more and more that fun is there for the taking.  Maybe we always wanted to engage in an activity to which we were drawn but never sober enough to follow through on to even make the attempt.  In sobriety, all doors open to us, we are able to seek our heart’s desire and enjoy ourselves along the way.  We learn how to throw our heads back and laugh.  In the dawn of our Recovery, we begin to realize we have a bond with others who suffered in, possibly, the very same way.  The staff at this Los Angeles drug rehab understands the root of this fear and teaches us that enjoying oneself is paramount as well as shows us how to do just that.

Laughter and joy are waiting for you on the other side of the darkness to which alcoholics and addicts have become so accustomed.  We move together, meeting new people all along the way who encourage us on our journey into our new life where we will find ourselves happy, joyous and free.

On Studying the Twelve Steps

“Many of us exclaimed, “What an order!  I can’t go through with it.”  Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.” – The Big Books of Alcoholic Anonymous, pg. 60

There are many times we strive to do things perfectly.  We set those around us and ourselves up for a failure of magnificent proportions based on our idea that whatever it is we’ve set out to accomplish will be performed nothing short of perfectly.  When this happens, many times, after the first major mistake, we shy away from any action remotely resembling the initial failure.  In effect, we are being paralyzed by our fear of getting it wrong or doing whatever it is we wanted to/meant to do less-than-perfectly.

One of the problems with this is that our subsequent fear of failure creates this idea that if it can’t be accomplished without a flaw it shouldn’t be attempted in the first place.  This pattern of inaction keeps us at the bottom of the river, wearing cement boots & drowning in our own expectations.

As we move forward in our Recovery, we learn that making mistakes is par for the course.  That, not only is it expected, it is actually okay.  We learn not to set ourselves up for the unattainable, which is based on our expected ideal of a failure-free action.  Through these moments of trial and error, we actually learn and grow.  Our mistakes become our teachers and our ideas of perfection shift to actions of progress.  With this, we move ever closer to our goal of being an effective, valuable member of society

Loneliness in Sobriety

There are times in the beginning of our sobriety when we feel most alone.  We no longer have the crutch of drugs and alcohol on which to lean however we are also without a feeling of support and understanding from anywhere, anything or anyone else.  This can lead to a sense of being lost, as if we are wandering in the desert with no oasis in sight, nary a mirage to even trick us into moving forward.  These feelings are actually far more common than not.

The idea that there is any kind of life waiting for us past the hell that we’ve been in seems difficult to conceptualize.  In the depths of our desperation, we are unable to think that there might be half a chance to live a life of even remote satisfaction, much less a life that is filled with being happy, joyous and free.  These words are as foreign to us as ancient Aramaic was to archeologists.  They are utterly and completely incomprehensible.

Now is the time to trust those around us to see the truth of what can be instead of what we think it should be or actually is.  We haven’t had much luck in following our own thinking at this point so we must put our faith in others to guide us while we remain temporarily blindfolded thinking we are actually never to have sight again.  We need those who can show us what is true and what is not.  While pursuing Recovery in a Los Angeles rehab, the counselors have an intimate knowledge as well as personal experience of what it’s like to move from this inconceivably, vastly empty place toward a life of purpose, satisfaction and that even the opportunity to revel in our destiny of joy only awaits us.  We have begun to arrive.

Rebuilding Trust in the Family

Many times previous to our getting sober, we have done damage to the relationships with our families.  In the midst of drinking and/or using we set fire to the bridges that brought us here.  The relationships we have sacrificed, many times, are the people closest to us and that usually means our families and closest of friends.

When we begin the process of our journey to living a sober life, perhaps our families of origin and/or our families of choice, i.e. close friends, don’t have any semblance of trust nor are they immediately inclined to rekindle what was broken and, subsequently, lost.  They are skeptical at best.  There are times when, the pain and betrayal we may have caused them supersedes their wanting anything to do with us after such personal attacks, be they direct or inadvertent.

In the throes of our alcoholism and/or addiction we may not only haves set fire to said bridges but, perhaps, we insured our separation by pouring gasoline on the stick of dynamite we threw into the burning flames.  We cannot expect that just because we are in early sobriety that everything that came before is immediately wiped away and our slate is instantly clean.  We have to recognize and take stock of where we have done wrong and what we can do to amend and rectify the situation(s) at hand.

To rebuild the trust and love in our families can become extremely important as we develop our support network.  Time, however begrudgingly we may find this idea, is often the healer of circumstance and can offer us and the people with whom we injured the opportunity to begin anew.

As trust was whittled away over a period of time, even if that time was mere minutes, it takes far longer to return however, fear not, the possibilities of repairing our relationships can happen.  The drug rehab in Los Angeles gives us a firsthand view of how to begin reweaving our threadbare, at best, fabric of understanding and trust with our families.  It is not impossible; however, it simply does not occur overnight.  The road is long but through our actions, not just our words, will yield the signposts that lead the way for our friends and family to return.

Deliberate Drinking and Using

“In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like.  But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened.  We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.” – The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 37

As we travel along this new path of sobriety, we will be squarely confronted with issues in our lives that we may have, in our life previous to this new route of no longer imbibing, used to justify our drinking and/or using.  Issues where we allow a vast power, the power of our reactive feelings, to swoop down over us; in effect supplanting our connection with our Higher Power and replacing it with said feelings regarding our current trials and tribulations.  These might be situations that we would have, previously, used to assert ourselves alongside our beverage or drug of choice.

During these difficult times, we may feel righteously deserving of going out and getting absolutely, wholly, and totally besotted, be it with alcohol and/or drugs.  We may use the excuse of our situation, whatever that may be, like a shield between us and our Higher Power.  We may, possibly, even believe we are due a time out from our entire acquired sobriety thus far since, perhaps, we had been “good” for so long.  Perhaps we may fall prey to the idea of taking that particular moment and using it to jump at what may seem like a golden opportunity to drink and/or use.

These moments can be deadly.  Who knows if we will be able to return to the path of sobriety.  Maybe, just maybe, this self-indulgent, righteous tear we go out on doesn’t lead us, eventually, back to being sober but into an institution or, worse yet, a grave.
In this alcohol and drug rehabilitation center in California, the staff help us learn about the pending potential for our lives to take a turn in a difficult direction or when to recognize we are embroiled in an issue so deeply that it may seem insurmountable without the use of drugs and/or drink in order for us to get through it.  They show us that this is one of the insidious ways our alcoholism and/or drug addiction has aggressively taken hold of us, keeping us pinned to the proverbial ground and separated from what we have learned and experienced thus far.  We learn what to do when these feelings encompass us and these tools, in effect, save our lives; much like CPR saves the lives of so many, our embracing and enacting these new ways of living through difficult times will do the same.

Expectations and the Alcoholic Addict

“Resentment is the “number one” offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.”   The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 64

From where do resentments come?  What makes them such an integral part of our spiritual sickness?  How might we overcome them and why should we?

If we consider situations that disappointed and/or angered us, and subsequently take a look past our immediate emotional reaction, many times there is an unfulfilled expectation lurking in our respective backgrounds.  Perhaps we aren’t even aware of said expectation.  For some reason, in some way, someone or something didn’t behave as we thought they should.  Something in our exchanges with others, or lack thereof, has left us angry and/or sad where we may have been, instead, hoping for the best possible outcome and/or response.. Expectations can easily become resentments and resentments for the alcoholic and/or addict can be not just damaging but actually fatal.

Why is that?  An expectation is a preconceived notion as to what’s going to and/or said to happen or, conversely, what did not occur; be it a phrase from someone who jittered bugged into our  life and jittered bug right on back out, with no warning. This scenario might leave us particularly perturbed and since that feeling can be overwhelming, there are many reasons it becomes the answer to what keeps us mired in our spiritual sickness, which some of us think we can compel and dispel on our own.  More often than not, given we cannot control people, places, and things, our remembering this key issue becomes paramount so we can be relieved of forming new expectations and/or resentments.

Instead of connecting with our Higher Power, we have, in essence, given that expectation/resentment all the power and we immediately neglect our relationship with that Higher Power of our understanding.  Our resentments become our guiding force, our God, in which we bow and cater to throughout our day.  With that, there are times when, say sitting through a long meeting at work, everyone might head out for a beer afterwards in order to process and unwind.  Alas, we cannot join them in a relaxing-post work beverage.  If we are seething with resentment and replaying over and over again the very moment from which our sense of betrayal stems, we open ourselves up to being eaten alive.  Lo and behold, in the very next frame in the moving picture of our live, a “forget this” may come our way and without the ability to not only actively recall our past, we throw our caution to the wind and pick up a drink.  What else might give us that ease and comfort, quelling, albeit temporarily, that feeling of resentment which might now be residing inside of us.

All in all, our expectations becoming resentments becoming something to “drink over” can lead us straight to the grave.  They are not to be taken lightly.

Changes in Early Recovery

Early in recovery, nearly every alcoholic and addict struggles with great changes in themselves. Suddenly, the things they thought they enjoyed are no longer very enjoyable and they find themselves wanting to seek out new experiences and aspects of themselves.

For some this is a difficult and painful process. Suddenly, not only are they letting go of drugs and alcohol but they are confronting parts of themselves that seem to be falling away – things that seem a part of their core identity. Perhaps musical taste or taste in films or activities change. This can be frightening and can leave you wondering “Who am I”?

They are changing. As one lets go of drugs and alcohol and into recovery, the spiritual and emotional changes are so grand that they naturally affect other aspects and sometimes, external components of the life of the alcoholic and addict. For some, these changes are subtle. For others, these things change more dramatically.

As the inside changes, the outside often does as well. Drugs and alcohol have impeded our spiritual and emotional growth and now that we are sober and free from the clutches of addiction, we begin to grow in a way that we haven’t been able to for a great many years. We are free to create a concept of the person we want to be and to become that person. Maybe you want to go back to school, change careers, spend more time with your family or get back to the magic of creativity that you seem to have lost someplace along the way.

When you make the decision to let go of drugs and alcohol and to experience true freedom, you will be able to have any experience you can dream of.