Living Sober – Happily

After spending years attempting to escape reality through drug and alcohol abuse, it’s important that you begin your road to sobriety with a healthy dose of optimism and pride. Many hold on to the idea that drugs and alcohol are the root of all their problems… Thus implying that without it, life will be grand! However, many who achieve sobriety will often tell you that the road to happiness far more complex. In this entry, we will offer up some tips on maintaining a positive, healthy and sober mindset throughout your recovery and the lifetime to follow.

1 – Delve into the stresses, anger and hurt that pushed you towards your escape in the first place. Divorce, low self esteem, business failures and family illness are all very common triggers. Once you’ve made the decision to stop using, you may very well find these issues ready and waiting for you to deal with them properly. Recognizing these triggers and taking the initiative to deal with them head-on will help alleviate some of the risks associated with relapse, while providing you with a greater sense of purpose and understanding.

2 – Take time to appreciate your sobriety and the effort it took to get where you are today. Many people struggle for years to achieve even a small amount of freedom from drug and alcohol dependency. If you’ve already made it this far, it’s an achievement worth taking pride in. Do Not Let Go.

3 – Accept the fact that while you likely have regrets; they do not require that you not be entitled to the beauty, wonder and happiness life has to provide. You deserve to feel all the happiness, pain, love, and splendor on a grand scale… not through an alcoholic fog.

4 – Weed through the people in your life who keep your thoughts negative, while choosing to spend time with individuals who encourage your success. Find someone to inspire you… fictional or real… and fill your heart with a full dose of hope.

5 – Find your purpose in life! Pick up an instrument, take a class, exercise, dance, go for walks, laugh, love, and TRY NEW THINGS! Devoting yourself to something outside of your own being will place you in a mindset far from self-indulgence and excess.

If you’re interested in a new lease on life, love and happiness, our Above It All treatment center alcohol counselors are there to help. Give them a call today and find out what we can do to help you achieve the fulfilling, centered and sober life you deserve.

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.

The Importance of Honesty in Receiving Alcohol Addition Help

When we first get sober we need to get honest with ourselves and others before we can receive alcohol addiction help. For starters we need to admit that we have a problem and that we are alcoholics to our innermost selves and then we can begin to get honest with others. After that we might need the assistance of an addiction program in Los Angeles and we must once again get honest this time about the fact that we can’t do this alone. This necessity for honesty does not stop but gets more important yet easier for most as time goes by. We might have to be honest with our Los Angeles rehab, sponsor, friends, and family if something is going on with us because our secrets can keep us sick and can eventually kill us. Honesty is not a familiar concept at first for alcoholics since we’ve often felt like we’ve had to lie and that it worked for us when we were using in regards to defending our right to drink as well as attempting to hide our disease but as time goes by and we recover sober alcoholics can be some of the most honest and reliable people in this world. We find we no longer have to lie, and can be honest because with our new found life and “ second chance” we have no need to hide things. We have a higher power that can handle any situation when we live an honest and loving lifestyle.

Alcoholics and Their All or Nothing Thinking

Often times alcoholics live in a world of extremes. Extreme ways of doing things and extreme ways of thinking. It’s another way our addiction plays out. We often have all or nothing thinking followed sometimes by all or nothing actions. Things for us are generally black and white. We at times look at things in a way that if we don’t “win” or get our way then nobody wins (especially when we are new and first receive alcohol addiction help). This thought process can actually be harmful to our sobriety in the sense that when we are unable to see any other way not only are we setting ourselves up for a us against the world mentality but we are potentially harming others, living in fear / self will, and we are shutting ourselves off from remaining teachable. If we fail to remain teachable it might lead to a relapse. When we go to a drug rehab in California, AA, or other Los Angeles rehab programs we learn that we cease fighting all places, people, and things. We learn to let things just be so that we can have peace and personal growth. Through this process of learning how to live life on life’s terms we start to rely on faith in a higher power, rely a little less on ourselves, and get to the point where we know that we are going to be ok no matter what even if things don’t look the way we think they should that very moment we know it is exactly how it is supposed to be.

God and Meditation Part Three

So far we have looked at building your own concept of a higher power, having a conscious contact with a higher power, and touched a little on meditation. Today were going to take a deeper look into the concept of meditation and what it can do for us. There is so much to be said about this subject. Meditation is such a personal thing and there are many different ways that people can and do meditate. For example Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward enlightenment and nirvana. Some of their meditation practices include breath meditation, over fifty methods for developing mindfulness and forty for developing concentration as well as thousands of visualization meditations. Christian meditation is generally the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts (e.g. a biblical scene involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary) and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God. Christian meditation contrasts with cosmic styles of eastern meditation as radically as the portrayal of God the father in the Bible contrasts with discussions of Krishna or Brahman in Indian teachings. Unlike eastern meditations, most styles of Christian meditations do not rely on the repeated use of mantras, but are intended to stimulate thought and deepen meaning. Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God that marks Christian communion. Within Hinduism There are many schools and styles of meditation. Yoga is generally done to prepare one for meditation, and meditation is done to realize union of one’s self .The Jewish mystical tradition, kabbalah, is inherently a meditative field of study. Traditionally Kabbalah is only taught to orthodox Jews over the age of forty. Corresponding to the learning of Kabbalah are its traditional meditative practices, as for the Kabbalist, the ultimate purpose of its study is to understand and cleave to the Divine. While there is many forms of meditation out there (kriyas, deep thought, breath meditation, silence, prayer, visual meditaion, etc.) it all seems to boil down to one thing a source or power greater than ourselves. recovered alcoholics may choose one, or several of the above options along with other ones not listed but our purpose is not only a means to get closer to our higher power but for us it’s a part of how we stay alive after receiving alcohol addiction help not just spiritually but physically as well. It is our 11th step. When we go through AA, a Los Angeles rehab, or any drug rehab in California we get the opportunity to learn how to be comfortable with ourselves, be alone, and gain several other tools that will help us on our path toward finding a way to meditate that’s right for us. There have been some alcoholics who have tried all forms of meditation. There is no wrong way provided we keep at it and it brings us a sense of peace and grounds us.

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.

God and Meditation Part One

“Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us to some extent we have become God conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense, but we must go further and that means more action. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men then we are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it.” Pgs 85-86 Into Action from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

We have come into AA and receive alcohol addiction help we may read or hear people talking about god and depending on our previous experiences we may have a negative reaction or thought around it. Just to hopefully clarify AA and other drug addiction detox are not religious based programs but rather spiritually based programs unless otherwise specified form the drug addiction facility in LA. Those of us who have been in recovery for a while encourage the people that are newly sober to create their own concept of a higher power. All that is suggested is that it’s not another person and that it is a source of love and something you believe can carry you through any rough spots, as well as something bigger than yourself. Ultimately we want you to find a higher power of your own understanding. Your concept of a higher power is something that can continue to grow as you do and becomes such a valuable and amazing gift.

Making Changes for a Better Life Through Sobriety

Sometimes we have to give up everything we know for the hope of something better. That’s exactly what sobriety is about. When we first get sober either through AA, or a drug rehab facility in LA most of us are afraid of the unknown and what our lives will look like. Most of us live in fear that it won’t work and we will never be able to stay sober and if we are able to then what? What if our lives are boring because were sober and what if we can’t have any more fun in life? After receiving alcohol addiction help, taking the first step, and going to an addiction program in Los Angeles we come to find that the opposite is true. There is tons of fun to be had in sobriety. We have also seen time and time again several success stories. We’ve seen homeless people become doctors, thieves become honest bankers, addicts become therapists, and helpless drunks turn their lives around and make something of themselves. In other words we’ve seen nothing short of miracles happen on a constant basis. We’ve seen people that should be dead recover and live amazing lives. Through seeing this and through having our own experience we begin to see that not only are we going to be ok but we are going to be able to have fun and stay sober. When we make the decision to start living this lifestyle we begin to see that the skies the limit. Our dreams are no longer just dreams they are reality waiting to happen. Dreams without action = fantasy but through getting sober we can finally find enough courage and strength to take that action and make the most out of our lives.

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.

Blessings in Sobriety, Part Two

When we get sober most of us have resentments we have held on to our whole lives. Many of us are not too happy about being an alcoholic and feel like we were dealt a bad hand. While others may have a hard time seeing past the difficulties of staying sober after receiving alcohol addiction help. Shortly after getting sober either by ourselves or through some sort of California alcohol rehab we are able to clean up our wreckage and the fog begins to lift. Either through AA or an addiction program in Los Angeles we are shown how to work the steps, and begin to feel relief. After working the steps we can then go on to live happy, joyous, and free lives. As it says in the big book we are rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence. As a result of our freedom we are finally able to know what happiness is in the truest sense of the word and are able to see how blessed we are. Often times we look at our glass as half empty only being able to see what we don’t have or the opportunities we have missed out on but what we don’t understand is that those things we don’t have, those missed opportunities , or those moments we don’t get what we want are actually blessings. They are blessings because it just means that our higher power is making room for something far greater than any little plans we might have made for ourselves. As its said in AA “if you want to make God laugh make plans.”