Addiction, Getting Sober, and Adding to the Story of Our Lives

Everything in our lives adds on to our story; it’s what we do with that story that matters…

One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change but are powerless over. We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, how to go about seeking alcohol addiction help, trying to figure out which drug addiction detox or 30 day rehab to go to, and we may even have given up. The fact is that every detail of our life has shaped and molded us, it either brings us closer to who we are and want to be or it keeps us further away from our ideal as alcoholics we often times do the same thing over and over again expecting different results when it comes to drugs and alcohol. This type of behavior can often leave us feeling helpless. However if we look at the story of our life there always seems to be some point in it when we were not dependent on alcohol…for example our childhood. For many of us there was a time in life where all was well before we got engulfed in our disease, and if we have an ounce of faith or willingness we find that that place is still accessible if we do the work. We can choose to stay sick and enslaved to this disease because of the lies we tell ourselves as a result of our story or we can draw from those times where we caught a glimpse of what life could be like if we weren’t dependent and decide to get help. The choice is yours.

Having Fun in Sobriety

When we first receive alcohol addiction help and get sober we can become very serious. While this is important since we are dealing with such a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease, it is also important to remember to have fun along the way.

Often when we talk about fun, or doing things just for fun, we talk about it in a dismissive way as if fun isn’t important. We tend to value the steps, 30 day rehabs, work, drug addiction detox, and seriousness, and we forget to pay our respects to the equally important, light side of silliness and laughter. After all we didn’t get sober to be miserable and surprisingly enough there is tons of fun to be had in sobriety.  We all know the feeling of euphoria that follows a good burst of laughter, and how it leaves us less stressed, more openhearted, and more ready to reach out to people. We are far more likely to walk down the street smiling and open after we’ve had a good laugh, and this tends to catch on, inspiring smiles from the people we pass who then positively influence everyone they encounter. Witnessing this kind of chain reaction makes you think that having fun might be one of our most powerful tools for changing the world. In while it is important to recover and do the work it takes to stay sober it is also important that we enjoy ourselves. It is our duty to be examples of this program and if were walking around miserable what kind of example are we really being? There will be hard times. Times when you might want to give up, or are not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel but if you keep doing the work and keep trying there will be many moments of nothing but pure happiness.

Laughter is good medicine for us alcoholics, and we all have this medicine available to us whenever we recall a funny story or act in a silly way. We magnify the effects of this medicine when we share it with the people in our lives. If we are lucky, they will have something funny to share with us as well, and the life-loving sound of laughter will continue to spread.

Changing Your Life, Changing Your Story

Everything in our lives adds on to our story. It’s what we do with that story that matters…

One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change but are powerless over. We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, how to go about seeking alcohol addiction help, trying to figure out which drug addiction detox or 30 day rehab to go to, and we may even have given up. The fact is that every detail of our life has shaped and molded us, it either brings us closer to who we are and want to be or it keeps us further away from our ideal as alcoholics we often times do the same thing over and over again expecting different results when it comes to drugs and alcohol. This type of behavior can often leave us feeling helpless. However if we look at the story of our life there always seems to be some point in it when we were not dependent on alcohol…for example our childhood. For many of us there was a time in life where all was well before we got engulfed in our disease, and if we have an ounce of faith or willingness we find that that place is still accessible if we do the work. We can choose to stay sick and enslaved to this disease because of the lies we tell ourselves as a result of our story or we can draw from those times where we caught a glimpse of what life could be like if we weren’t dependent and decide to get help. The choice is yours.

Accepting Change

Sometimes we fight new things or situations. We can’t possibly imagine a new way of life. We can’t imagine our lives without a certain relationship, friendship, job, material possession, or in our case drugs and alcohol. How does one move on from something that has been such a big part of their lives? By forming new habits and asking for alcohol addiction help. It can seem painful to let go of things we think we need or have such a dependency on but if we do the work, go through a drug addiction detox, let go of the unhealthy bonds and ties we formed in our lives and turn it over to a power greater than ourselves then we will be ok, it doesn’t mean it would be difficult or that there won’t be pain along the way from the loss in our lives it just means we are giving up something that is no longer working for us for the hope of something better. When we turn our lives over and make the decision to go to a 30 day rehab or other types of sober centers eventually those feelings of fear, loss, and sadness will be replaced with healing and happiness. The same goes for everything else in our lives. If we turn our will and our life over to something greater than ourselves we may not know how and we may not know why but we can be certain that the conflict in our lives will be removed and there will be room for something much greater to come into our lives. It’s called faith and if we as alcoholics are going to survive life then we need to learn to live in faith and not in fear.

Saying Yes to the Universe Opens the Gate to Receiving What is Really Best for Us

The hardest thing about asking for alcohol addiction help is that it potentially means accepting everything life puts in front of us. Most of us have a habit of going through our days saying no to the things we don’t like and yes to the things we do, and yet, everything we encounter is our life. We may be afraid that if we say yes to the things we don’t like or try new things like a drug addiction detox, getting sober, or an affordable rehab or some sorts we might be afraid we will be stuck with our decisions forever, but really, it is only through acknowledging the existence of what’s not working for us such as drugs and alcohol that we can begin the process of change. So saying yes doesn’t mean indiscriminately accepting things that don’t work for us. It means conversing with the universe, and starting the conversation with a very powerful word—yes.

When we say yes to the universe and to our truth, we enter into a state of trust that whatever our situation is, we can work with it. We express confidence in ourselves, and the steps and we also express a willingness to learn from whatever comes our way, rather than running and hiding when we don’t like what we see. The question we might ask ourselves is what it will take for us to get to the point of saying yes. For some of us, it takes coming up against something we can’t ignore, escape, or deny, and so we are left no choice but to say yes. For others, it just seems a natural progression of events that leads us to making the decision to say yes to life.

The first step to saying yes is realizing that in the end it is so much easier than the alternative. Once we understand this, we can begin examining the moments when we resist what is happening, and experiment with occasionally saying yes instead. It might be scary at first and even painful at times, but if we continue to say yes to every moment through the process, we will discover the joy of being in a positive conversation with a power greater than ourselves.

Doing Your Best vs. Being the Best

We often come into contact with the idea that our best isn’t good enough, as if this were actually possible. If we are doing our best with the work and are staying sober there is nothing more we can do if we are giving it our all. If we ask for alcohol addiction help, and go the extra mile by getting into a drug addiction detox or 30 day rehab program then we are right on track .instead of being hard on ourselves we should celebrate the new life we are starting. Your best is always good enough, because it comes from you, and you are always good enough. You may not be able to deliver someone else’s idea of the best, but the good news is that’s not your burden. You only need to fulfill your own potential, and as long as you remain true to that calling, and always do your best to fulfill your purpose, and stay sober you don’t need to expect anything more from yourself then you are capable of.

It’s easy to get tangled up with the idea of trying to be the best—the best parent, the best employee, the best child, the best sober person, or best friend. If we try to be the best, we run the risk of short-circuiting our originality because we are striving to fit into someone else’s vision of success. In addition, if everyone is striving for the same outcome, we lose out on creativity, diversity, and visionary alternatives to the way things are done. On another note, there is nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but examining where this feeling comes from is important because wanting to be better than others is our ego coming into play. This is something that can be extremely destructive to alcoholics.

The Alcoholic and Letting Go

Sometimes it can be difficult for us as alcoholics to let go of things. Sometimes because of fear and sometimes because of the idea that we know what’s best for us. We have a desire to hold onto and control things because in our mind they might still work for us or will work us again one day. The fact is that if we have taken an honest 3rd step after receiving alcohol addiction help then we know that God will and is taking care of us …And that whatever gets in the way of our sobriety and quality of life will be taken away. It is imperative that we rely on our higher power. Especially when we are new and going into a drug addiction detox, AA meetings, or some type of 30 day rehab program. If we do the work we can be certain that we are more than taken care of. We can be sure that the things we aren’t ready to let go of but need to are things that we no longer need and are capable of letting go of with God’s help. The only requirement in order to achieve sobriety is a desire to stop drinking … but how do we get to that point? Through our higher powers grace and love and an unshakable faith that nothing absolutely nothing happens in Gods world by mistake. To think that we have better ideas is to think that we know better than God and it isn’t until we can let go and except that we don’t that we can recover.

Getting Sober and Starting Over

There are different forms of starting over and as alcoholics when we first ask for alcohol addiction help and get sober it’s very much a new beginning for us. There are several options and ways to start over, but when we make the choice to get sober it’s one of the most important choices we can ever make. It’s a choice to live a better life. We choose to let go of our past and the disease of alcoholism that has held us down for so long. Some of us choose to enlist the help of a 30 day rehab, AA, or a drug addiction detox for guidance. We learn that at any given moment we can start over and make a different choice. We can change our minds to find out what Gods will for us is or change our behavior around any situations. We learn we never have to drink to start over we just simply have to choose contrary action as opposed to doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results (insanity).  Starting our day over, redirecting our thoughts and realizing our actions and our thoughts can be beneficial and rewarding. Whether it be by letting go of something, trying something new, or changing our thought process or actions, it can mean the difference between a good day or bad day, a healthy happy relationship or a toxic one, drinking or not drinking, or other healthy or unhealthy choices. When we are able to realize that something is no longer working for us and are able to let go and start a new then we get to have a different experience with life. This is one of the several ways that sobriety work for us. The fact that we don’t have to drink anymore over our feelings, but instead stop what we’re doing and try a new approach and find peace amongst chaos is a miracle. We use to drink over our feelings/thoughts before as well as not getting our way or our fear and now after getting sober we are able to turn everything over to a higher power and realize that there is nothing we cannot do or be if we are willing to just to the footwork.

God and Meditation Part Two

“In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for the inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.” pg 86 Into Action from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Yesterday we talked about coming up with our own concept of our higher power and what that looked like. Today let’s take a look at meditation and the role your higher power plays in that. Many of us might have a hard time with meditation when we first got sober. This makes sense considering our need or reasoning behind seeking alcohol addiction help probably didn’t stem from our constant meditation practices or the constant state of peace we were in. Many of us were spiritually bankrupt when we got sober and couldn’t even believe in ourselves, let alone a higher power or some guy in the sky belief system. Eventually we learned /came to believe this through doing the work at 30 day rehab programs, on our own, AA, or other California rehab centers. Regardless of where we found our higher power the important thing is that we found a power as that’s an imperative part of working the steps as well as meditation. The incentive of meditation is different for man. Some of us just wants peace. Some of us want a conscious contact with their higher power, and many of us want both. Meditation has several benefits and is vital in our recovery. According to our 11th step it’s not just a time for us to sit silently and reflect but also a time set aside for reviewing our day, and sitting still waiting for answers on what Gods will is for us.

Uncovering the Alcoholic Ego

“Our eyes begin to open to the immense values which have come straight out of painful ego puncturing.” –Step 7  pg. 74 from the Twelve and Twelve

When we first receive alcohol addiction help and get sober many of us have a huge ego that we might not even be aware of. We are some of the most entitled people. We are either feeling less than or greater than others because as ourselves we are not enough but When we go to a 30 day rehab or AA a shift happens. After drug addiction detox we learn how to live life sober. When we work the steps we become “right sized”. We no longer have to act on fear and ego. We cease fighting everything and everyone because we don’t need to .We are able to see beyond our wants and needs, we are able to see the bigger picture, and what is best for us and our fellows as opposed to just us. We can start looking at how everyone can win instead of just being out to get ours. As a result of this we gain a beautiful and fulfilling life full of amazing friends. Our broken friendships are repaired, and we are finally right with ourselves and our higher power. Things come together in ways unimaginable, and we lose interest in ourselves and gain interest in our fellows. This is beneficial at every stage of our sobriety because when I’m worried or concerned with you and your life then I’m not wrapped up with me and my problems and can finally experience peace.