In Search Of Rest

I wish I understood what is going on with me right now. The last couple of days has been so wonderful. I have had some amazing and special time spent with Leah that I treasure. It never feels often enough that I have as much time with her two days in a row that I did this past weekend. I felt so close and we shared so much, and yet at the same time it seemed I couldn't get close enough. It filled me with such a feeling of gratitude and awe.

But I didn't rest. I tried. I simply didn't rest. Sleep taunted me like a mirage in the desert. I wanted it, needed it, and sought it, but time after time my approach would cause it to fade away. When finally I found sleep, tortured dreams filled my mind. Strange and bizarre fragments haunt me after waking. Even my body reacted to the onslaught and I feel as though there truly was a physical aspect to the dreams I experienced. I ache. My mind is in a fog.

It scares me. I have experienced periods like this in the past. My solution usually took one or two forms. Either I ceased to sleep for days until I simply could not keep myself from crashing or I used chemicals to knock myself out that also made it where I could not dream, or at least not remember if I did. Today, I know that neither of these avenues will take me where I want and need to go. I can pray. I can make sure that my tenth step is as thorough as possible so that I am at peace when I close my eyes. But there is not much else that I can do. However, I know that that can be enough, for God is able to give rest regardless of the situation and circumstances. But can and will are two different things. So there is one more thing that I can do. I can continue to look honestly at myself and my worries to make sure that I am not avoiding dealing with anything about myself that God would have me deal with and then make sure that I surrender and let go of my past, my present, my future and everything that I can not change. I have to let God have those things. The weight of them is more than I can carry. I am not supposed to carry them anymore anyway. God can carry that weight much easier than I, and I believe that I can cast my cares on Him for He cares for me. I also believe that if I come to Him when I am weary and loaded down that He will give me rest.

I will work on responding to my lack of rest in this way as another chance to do the next right thing. I will also work on coming to this conclusion much earlier in the future, such as when I notice trouble the first night and not on the morning after the second. I know that for me without rest there is no peace. I will pray for rest at night and thank God for it in the morning, whatever little bit He blesses me with, as I prayed for sobriety every morning and thanked Him at night during the early days of white knuckle recovery.

Clean Up The Wreckage Not The Facts

With my Eclectic Imagery Facebook page and business blog, I have been posting the theme or assignment for a photo a day. The last few days I've been incorporating the theme for the day's photo with something to do with the day in history. I have found looking through significant, and sometimes trivial, events that happened on each day interesting and sometimes, like today, it has been difficult to choose which event to tie into the day's photo theme.

On this day, January 26, 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip guided a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia. After overcoming a period of hardship, the fledgling colony began to celebrate the anniversary of this date with great fanfare. This hit me as related to recovery in two ways.

The first way this struck me as related to recovery is that the people that were making this historically significant event were convicts. They had made at least one mistake that caused them to be exiled to this place that would come to be Australia. They made the best of their present and worked for a better future. They overcame the hardships that faced them and began celebrating the anniversary of their landing in what was basically a island prison as the start of their better, new life and the forming of something great. I have had some seriously negative consequences and regulations imposed on my life due to my actions. When I have taken that punishment or consequence as a chance to learn and grow and make something better and good come out of it, growth has occurred. My experience and past can be my greatest asset today. It can be used to build something worthwhile and miraculous.

The second way that the historical founding of Australia struck me as related to recovery came when I saw how one website noted the event. One site stated on this day in 1788 the first European settlers arrived on Australia. How many times have I done this with my life and past. This manipulative way at looking at the past is a technique that I have used all too often to pretty up my past and allow myself to deceive myself as much as others. It keeps me from honestly looking at what it was like, which allows me to excuse what happened and effects what it's like now. These were not European settlers. They were convicts. Australia started as a penal colony. And I did not live my life a little out of control. I moved through the lives of others like a tornado blowing lives apart and leaving wreckage in my wake. To call it less than it was, I do a disservice to the truth. First, I lose humility because I am trying to make myself look different or not as bad as the reality. Humility is seeing the truth about both my strengths and weaknesses and my place in the past and present. It is remaining teachable, which I can not do if I can not truthfully look at who I was and am. The second disservice is to God. When I admit truthfully the level I lived in the true extent of the miracle God performed to make my character and life what it is today can be seen. But when I cover up how low I was it hides just how far I have been lifted up.

Today I count it as best for me and a part of my service to the alcoholic and addict that still suffers to be honest about exactly who I was and what it was like so that the true extent of the change into who I am and what it is like now can be seen. Then when I talk about what happened to bring about the miraculous change, my experience, strength and hope can be properly evaluated when someone is trying to decide if they want what I have before deciding to do what I did to get it.

Choosing My Commuter Train For The Day

I had a rough day yesterday, and last night felt strangely difficult for me. A part of me just wants to curl up in a ball and cry, but another part of me wants to surrender to the anger and let it rage over and through me. Neither option is the next right thing for me to do. Sometimes I have choices where more than one thing I want to do could possibly be the right thing. Sometimes nothing that I want to do, nothing that I am inclined to do is what is right and good. It frustrates me when this happens.

But one thing I have learned is that when I remember that those who are attacking me and pushing my buttons is an attempt to illicit a negative response and raise the old me from the grave are wounded and afraid themselves. I can't help them if I engage. But it took me to a place where I shouldn't have stayed. I stayed. I partied there. I sat in the dark and let my mind dwell on the small truths in the lies that made them hurt so much. I morbidly reflected on the past. I put myself in a bad state of mind and woke, frustrated and afraid.

This morning as I sat freezing on my front porch with the day's first cigarette trying to meditate, a female cardinal flew into the tree next to me and just sat there, chirping occasionally. I just watched her a moment, and as I did, I felt a sense of peace wash over me. These words ran through my mind. Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and any praise, think on these things. What a nice and gentle reminder of where my thoughts are supposed to dwell. How I am to respond to the thought trains that pull up to the depot in my mind.

I can examine a thought train before I go for the ride. If it's morbid reflection, self pity, fearful, full of anger and resentment, it is assured to take me where I do not want or need to be, outside of the sunlight of the Spirit. I can choose not to get on board. And if I do before I realize it, then the moment that I see that I am on the wrong train I can get off. I make the stops. There's no need to wait.

But if I choose the thought trains to ride that are fueled by honesty, justice (not to be confused with retribution), love, goodness, with elements of virtue and praise, then I can ride easy knowing that wherever the train takes me, it will be where I need to go according to the Master Conductor and that I will be within His protection and can easily avail myself of the grace, help and mercy to face whatever may come. How much better my life is, how much more serene when I practice choosing wisely where I go with my thoughts rather than letting them control me.

For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self control. I am not powerless today because God has given me power. And not just power against the first drink and drug but power to face the pain and uncertainty of life and walk through it with joy. God has given me love, more than I can contain, enough to give it away. When I walk in perfect love there is no fear, but I can rarely do that. I don't have to beat myself up over my inability to love perfectly though. Instead I can allow myself to be controlled by love as much as possible. To whatever extent I am able to do this, I have that much decrease in the amount of my life controlled by fear. Finally, God has given me what I could never do on my own, no matter how many times or how hard I tried. Today I have the gift of self control. I have the ability to choose what I will think on. I have the ability to react the right way or not at all. I have the ability to decide to let go of resentment and forgive. All of these things are greater than the fear I had on my own without God that only gave me the power to run, to lash out, to isolate and hide and to try to hurt others before they could hurt me.

Just for today I will put a reign on my thoughts and turn the reins over to my Creator. I will choose to respond in love rather than out of fear.

Today Is For Living

"We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it" What a wonderful promise, but what an amazingly strange feeling. I must say that I am still not used to this. Actually, while I am happy to not shut the door on certain parts of my past, it feels alien and contrary to nature for me to not regret the past. I think I even feel a little guilty about not feeling bad. How messed up is that? But it's just a little feeling guilty. I realize today that it doesn't mean I that I did not love and care for Andrew just because I am not miserable.

I am loved and blessed, and I bask in that as a snake basks in the warmth of the sun. I thrive on it, need it to survive. It's hard for me to believe that tomorrow will be a year since my partner died of overdose and how much has changed in that year, how much I've grown. A year ago I never would have believed that I could feel as happy, joyous and free as I do this morning.

I woke this morning feeling satisfied and comforted and content. Exactly the opposite of the irritable, restless and discontent that described so much of my life. I have a relationship with my God that grows stronger and more wonderful daily. And He has blessed me with relationships that mean so much to me, family and friends that I do not deserve so much care from shower me with love and support. Above all others is Leah, who fits into my heart and life like a jigsaw puzzle piece that I thought was lost forever. I can not have regrets about finding my dreams fulfilled and my hope restored. Andrew wouldn't have wanted that anyway. I know that he would be so happy for me, and I am happy for myself. I do miss him, and as the anniversary of his death approaches I do feel strange that I do not feel the need to mourn more, but I have mourned, and I have learned that I live in today. I can not live in yesterday. And I can not imagine mourning my life today. It is so much better than I imagined it could be. I love and am loved so much more than I thought possible when I started down the road to recovery.

While I realize and understand that a lot of my not being sad and a mess today over losing Andrew a year ago has to do with the wonderful loving relationship I have with Leah, I also know that it is so much more than that. God has taught me things over this past year with its thirteen deaths that have nothing to do with whether or not I am single or joined with another. I have learned to accept the past and death as a part of life. I realize that life is for the living and not ghosts of our memories. It is good to be alive, but part of being alive is living. I can not live while wallowing in self-pity and regret of the past. Today I can remember the good times Andrew and I shared. I can remember the love that we had for each other. I can remember the special and wonderful things about that beautiful man with a smile. I can thank God I have good memories of past relationships and be blessed by that.

I can also remember the horrible end and learn from it. I can be reminded that I can not keep anyone clean and sober, not even myself. That miracle is only in God's hands with my cooperation for my own sobriety and whoever else's cooperation with their own. I am not responsible for how anyone else chooses to feel or to work or not work the program of recovery. In addition, I can know that the importance of working the program is not theory for me and never will be.

Andrew had three and a half years clean. He relapsed New Year's Eve last year. On the 16th of January, barely two weeks later, he was found dead of an overdose. What a tragic and pointless loss of of life, but if I take that tragic memory and use it to remind myself and encourage others to never to quit working it, to hold on and keep striving for progress, then the pointlessness is erased. His death can mean something. I think that's a good thing.

I know that I am with the person that God hand picked for me. I know that it is so right and beyond some silly fairy tale that it is unbelievable in some ways. But that is not why I do not regret this morning. I also happen to believe that God is wise and powerful enough to help me to find Leah with or without Andrew dying. People break up every day. Some people even manage to break up and remain friends. I have several friends who also are exes. So I believe that is completely possible for it to have happened in such a way that I could still be sitting here this morning after a wonderful and amazing night and morning with Leah and Andrew still be alive, sober, clean and one of my best friends. I don't know why it didn't happen that way. Free will. Sometimes it is indeed a bitch. But I don't have to throw my todays away mourning and crying over the yesterdays and the choices I have made and others have made that caused pain and loss. I can thank God for all the restoration with which He has blessed my life. I can wrap myself in the love and comfort of those who used their free will to get closer to me rather than running away, and I can feel good about my life this day. This is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Pain

I've heard it said, actually I've said it as well, that pain is a great motivator. That has been my personal and observed experience. But what is it that pain motivates? For me, it motivates me to do something to make the pain stop. This is a wonderful thing when I am dealing with emotional and mental pain. I work my program of recovery with a vengeance knowing that it works if I work it. Tired of being miserable? Work the steps. Tired of being lonely and afraid? Work the steps. Tired of....? Work the steps, work the steps, work the steps.

But pain isn't such a good motivator for me when it is physical pain. That's different. I am lucky that I have a high tolerance for physical pain, but high tolerance means that I can take it, I can force myself to function, I can endure. It doesn't mean I don't feel it or that I enjoy it. I am not insensitive to it, I can tolerate it, and that is a huge distinction because the longer I hurt the lower my tolerance becomes. I hate that because it opens the door for self-pity and fear, two emotions that are counter productive to my recovery.

Still, pain is not an excuse. If it is not so bad that I hawk something in order to be able to pay for a doctor visit and treatment, then it must be endured. I can not allow myself to self-medicate. But I can't make things worse either, for I know that there comes a point when I will do anything to make it stop. I can't hardly walk this morning. It actually hurts to breathe. This almost 40 year old body has been through a lot, the vast majority of which was unnecessary and the result of my choices and mistakes. I have always known that I would pay for so many of my earlier injuries as I got older if I lived long enough to get older.

There are other ways to treat pain besides pain killers, drugs or alcohol. Today I will rest my back as much as I can. Soak in a hot bath for a while and see if that helps. I will pray and breathe and be patient, and hopefully soon something will let loose and my back will move freely without pain again. Or at least without much pain. What I can not do is relax my program. More than ever, when I am in physical pain I must remain vigilant.

Do the Do's

Sometimes I get sucked into the trap about worrying about all the things that I can't do in my sobriety or worrying about what will happen if I do the wrong thing, if I slip up and do something I shouldn't. But this is a dangerous thing because it causes me to live in fear. I don't have to worry about the don'ts. If I concentrate on gratitude for all the things I can do, on doing the next right thing and all the things I know I can and should do to be of maximum service to God and my fellow man, I find that not doing the don'ts takes care of itself. I lose interest in most of them. I don't seem to find myself in the places and situations where the don'ts seem like a good idea. And when I do find myself faced with that choice I find that I am spiritually fit enough to do the next right thing more times than not. My old life was defined by Thou shalt nots and the frustration and guilt that came from repeatedly doing those things I believed I shouldn't. But now I have learned that When I do build relationship with my Higher Power and love God the best I can and try to do only what will maintain and improve that relationship and then also love and be of service to those people I encounter that the pieces fall into place and I have freedom from the bondage of the don't. Sure I still mess up at times, but when I do, I can remember that it is progress not perfection.

Fear Is Not My Proper Motivation

Situations I fear are rarely as bad as the fear itself. Allowing fear to run unchecked in my life leads to desperation and impulsive reactions as well as eats away at my faith. If I am trusting God, then there is no reason to be afraid of so many of the things that cause me fear. I don't have to be afraid of financial insecurity for example. Not because I am rich or even have a secure and steady source of income that covers all my expenses, both normal and unexpected, but rather because I put the time and effort in to working for what I can and trusting God for the rest. I don't always know how my needs will be met, but I can trust that they will because God loves and provides. But I must do my part. I can't sit in my prayer closet and pray for food and do nothing else or I will surely starve to death. Instead I pray for food and then go to work, go to the store for supplies, prepare the food, and then I have something to eat. Every prayer requires an action on my part in order to bring about the result. Sometimes that action is to be patient and wait while trusting God. Other times it is to do something immediately which brings about a change to the situation. The key is for me to trust God, listen for His guidance when I am afraid, and respond as He would have me respond rather than with my normal instinctual reaction. I don't do this even close to perfectly, but I do it enough to know that when I do act under His guidance instead of reacting in fear, the result is always better.

Don't Sit Around With The Don'ts

I need to make sure that I remember that attitudes are infectious. As a teen I sometimes went deer hunting with my father. The truth is I didn't enjoy deer hunting and wasn't very good at it. This always made me feel like I fell short somehow. like I was a disappointment to my father, even though I can't remember him saying or doing anything to reinforce that feeling. As if to prove that I just never was cut out to be the great white hunter, one morning we headed out to the stands, and after driving for over half an hour to the property my father hunted, I realized I had left my rifle at the house. My father turned around and started back to get my weapon, and all I could think about is that I had made us an hour late, which could make all the difference in bagging a deer or not. I felt even more like a failure than usual. I didn't much care if I killed anything, but I couldn't handle the idea that I might have ruined my father's chances.

I ranted and raved and threw a fit, yelling and fussing and generally acting like an idiot on the drive home. I was so angry at myself, and with every breath I used my angry words to beat myself up and tear myself down a little more. My father didn't say anything. He turned on some praise and worship music, which I hated as a teen, and bean to quietly sing along as he drove. The more I lost control of myself, the calmer he became it seemed. After a few minutes I found I just didn't have the energy for it anymore, and I fell silent. Then something strange happened. I began to sing with him. Singing the praise and worship songs with my father took my mind out of the situation and off my fears and insecurities and for the rest of the drive home and back to the land we were to hunt, I actually felt free. It became a wonderful time of peace and joy and a happy memory of a time shared with my father. His calmness and understanding soothed and calmed me.

Attitudes are contagious, and if I am not where I need to be spiritually, I am more likely to catch or spread negativity than anything positive. This has been my experience. So unless I am going to spend time with someone as a service to try to help them, I need to not hang with the don'ts. These are not the right comrades for me to keep my program in top shape.

I don't think the steps have to be worked quickly or at all. I don't like this or that person. I don't practice tolerance. I don't put my faith into action. I don't.... When it comes to recovery, people who frequently say things similar to the above are dangerous to me.

But the ones who say it works if you work it...so work it, who say with God all thins are possible, who maintain there is a solution available to any and all who are willing to be honest with themselves, work, and help others...the ones who DO a program worth having and not just talk about it....these are the people I want to surround myself with, because that's the type of man I want to always be, and attitudes are contagious.

Urgency Vs. Importance

It is so easy for me to make what I feel is a common human mistake. I confuse urgency with importance. When I feel the pressure of urgency about a situation then my mind magnifies it into something hugely important. But that is not always the truth. There are things that are always important and critical no matter how much or how little urgency seems to be attached to it.

When I first began my journey to recovery, I felt a sense of urgency with my program. I realized that if I did not build a foundation that could be trusted I would continue to use. Even if I did not die quickly from my addiction, what time I remained alive would be full of misery and emptiness. I could not bear that thought and worked hard to prevent it from happening, but as I stabilized and felt more assure in my sobriety, the sense of urgency faded, a dangerous sense of security eventually let me down because I failed to work the steps with the diligence of a dying man.

There is urgency that goes along with doing my job. I need to fulfill my obligations to my customers in a timely manner. I need to do more work so that my income is sufficient to provide for my needs and those of my family. I need to pay my bills before the date where there are negative consequences for not doing so. I need to....I need to....I need to.

All of those things are important. And the urgency that goes with them is legitimate. But my relationship with God and maintaining that spiritual connection is the most important part of each day. If I let my relationship with God fall off nothing else is going to work right either, because my motives and reasoning and responses to the rest of life become screwed up. I become the captain of my own ship in unknown seas with reefs and sandbars and other dangers I can not see or predict. Disaster is simply a matter of time.

Working my program of recovery helps me maintain that spiritual connection with God, and it also helps me remember the importance of treating what sometimes does not still feel like a problem when my program is strong. Being strengthened does not mean that I am not still vulnerable once I put that first drink or drug in my body. Working the program diligently keeps that truth fresh in my mind. It also insures that I will spend time in service to others and be available to help others who are struggling with the bondage of addiction. This is so very important, because recovery is like love. You can't keep it if you don't give it away.

God has blessed me with a family. I must maintain my relationship with Him and also maintain my sobriety or this great gift will be damaged, if not lost. But I also have to maintain that connection as well. I have to know and remember that I am not in control or in charge, that family is a we thing, a cooperative unit. I have to trust God to provide for my family and keep us emotionally, mentally and spiritually together. A sane family unit, one that is not dysfunctional is a result of God being a part of things. I believe He wants us together, happy, joyous, and free. When I believe that my family is a gift from God and that He wants the best for us, I can turn my will and the lives of my family over to His care. If you know the steps, you can see where this is going, and yes, they can all apply.

My God and my sobriety and my family...my relationship with my Creator, my relationship with my family, and yes, my relationship with myself, these are the important things, the most important things. Whether I feel a sense of urgency about them or whether I feel secure in a way that would make it easy to place them on the back burner for a short time so to speak, my ability to do anything else stems from how I am doing with these. I can not confuse the urgency of paying my bills and satisfying customers with the need to emotionally and mentally and spiritually care for and connect with my family. If I do, I could easily fail in not just one of these areas but in all of them.

Today, as deadlines long past hang over my head and fear of letting people down grows I will try to remember not to confuse urgency with importance. I need to maintain balance between the responsibilities of the day and the responsibilities of my life to keep all that God has given me....a relationship with Him that I could never earn or deserve, my sobriety, the relationships of my family, a career that I love, and the ability to be of service to others. What gifts, what life I have been given. But to keep it, I must remember the order I need to keep all aspects of my life in. Importance has little to do with deadlines and due dates.