Recovered Alcoholic

The women's story, in the back of the book for identification purposes; she may have been talking about the book being open to the page that says "we cannot live with anger"- pg 66: "It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while." SO many hours went into seething, obsessing, strategizing, manipulating, rehearsing conversations that were never to be....when I could have been doing something worth while....but, back then I had nothing worth while to do really because my life was a reflection of that sort of thinking. I needed to have a complete overhaul in perception before I could be free to learn a new way to live and think.  "But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harborin...

  If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God´s help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety. -Bill Wilson A few years back we got hit with a $14,000.00 tax bill due to an oversight by the tax preparer not properly communicating with the 401K peeps. I was racking my brain and asking God....REALLY?!? Ok, How did we bring this about?? Why do I ask that, because I was taught to always look at where I had made a past decision that put me in a position to be hurt: Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. -Pg 62 We had just bought a house and I was so happy we had...

  "But we found that serenity meant no such thing. When it comes to us now, it is more as plain recognition—a clear-eyed, realistic way of seeing the world, accompanied by inner peace and strength" I think at first I thought "serenity' was gonna be bliss. When I felt serenity for the first time it wasn't that at all. It was just a fleeting feeling of contentment. I was fully occupied in the moment, safe and protected with no fear of the future or regret of the past. Again, it was fleeting, but a taste of what was to come and is my reality.   We are extreme people who have been living extreme lives. Super high, or super low. When it all catches up to us we sometimes crash because reality is kind of boring and uneventful when you are not in a crisis- or crisis jumping, as my husband calls it. I see it in my step son. He literally needs a self manifested crisis to get him charged about something in order to do something.  So, if I sabotage this ...

I related SOOO much to the self pity part in recollection of the story I shared the other day about my c word/biopsy scare. Yeah, I had no idea how invasive it was-at least for me it was because I have never had surgery or been in a hospital, so when you come at me with the longest needle I had ever seen with the intention of sticking it into my neck to retrieve my tissue...a normal healthy response in my body and mind is to run. I literally felt like a rat being experimented on. I am not saying I was, I am just talking about the feeling of being that vulnerable.  I was around a year and 1/2 sober and was onto my second sponsor. We did a more in depth Step process so I was in a place where I was being "weaned off" of Social Media, TV shows and music (not by my sponsor, it was just an organic thing that I was being moved to do) so I had only shared what was going on with my health with my then boyfriend-now husband, sister, cousin and sponsor. Mayb...

When facing real scary health issues and just overall life's hardships, I can proactively incorporate the Steps into it.  I will use an incident where I had a health scare with a lump in my throat: Step 1  I am powerless over the lump and what the diagnosis will be. This causes me unmanageability.  I can list all of those things that this particular incident is causing to help me get a clearer picture so that I am not lumping it in with other things. I need to separate my issues so that they don't cause me to be more overwhelmed than I already am.  When people get overwhelmed they get stuck and break down or quit. When I have a solid Step 1 Establish-surrendered and accepted, in other words, I am not fighting or resisting what is, I can move into Step 2 Step 2 I know God can restore me to sanity here-just like he has done a myriad of other things-including alcohol.  Because we know at this point in our walk that ...

  In fellowship I am learning the proper "use" of people/relationships. I was one who relied way too much on people to meet my needs growing up. I needed you to conform to my ideas, entertain me,  keep me company, take my side, listen to me complain about my boyfriends, validate and encourage my decisions, even the bad ones- basically all the things to feed my ego.  If you didn't think I was perfect-BYE!! No use for you!! If they ever dared give me any sort of constructive feedback...OMG..HOW DARE YOU and it was over. In retrospect, I needed to be idol worshipped by your perception that I was awesome. Toward the end of my drinking I didn't care either way.  I genuinely thought I cared for people which is why I was so affected by them if I perceived hurt or betrayal-when in actuality, it was me expecting them to play my higher power, or me thiers, so that we could enable the mutual sickness of neediness and codependency. I didn'...

  "For our recovery, it is more important to understand than to be understood." (pg. 11)  I always want to put myself first . . . doing that only causes me pain and discomfort. When I take the moment to think of the other person, regardless of the circumstance, pain, frustration, resentment seem to fade. I also remember that usually what I dislike in another is what is going on inside of me." Reminds me of what many have adopted as their 11th Step Prayer.... Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace! That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understa...

"As we approach the actual taking of Step Seven, it might be well if we A.A.’s inquire once more  just what our deeper objectives are . Each of us would  like to live at peace with himself and with his fellows . We would  like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves . We have seen that  character defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires are the obstacles that block our path toward these objectives . We now clearly see that  we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves, upon others, and upon God." So what do I want? What are my objectives and intentions each day? Do I set any? I know when I don't, I tend to start to have unreasonable demands upon everyone else because I can get overwhelmed, scattered and the hijacked. When I clearly state my intentions in my morning declaration and actions to serve God fully-that sets the "tone", and the foundation for the day so that I may start to continually have ...

  What kept me sober long enough to recover-God The Big Book states and to which I am it's testimony ( as are thousands and thousands of others ) "And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol . For by this time sanity will have returned . We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame . We react sanely and normally , and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition ." This is how we live...