Forgiving Relapse

Yesterday morning started so amazingly. During my morning meditation I received a phone call that blessed me beyond measure. The gratitude I felt set my mind in the right direction and focus, and the events and situations of the day followed my mindset. Funny how often that seems to happen. When I start my day focused on the right things and add a healthy dose of gratitude my day goes so much better.

But last night I nearly threw that positive feeling out the window. For a short time I set down my spirit of gratitude and picked up my old bag of guilt. I cradled it to my heart like a long lost friend. Yes, I am still sick.

I went to a time of fellowship with my second family to celebrate with a few of my nearest and dearest who had sobriety birthdays this month. It was a wonderful time, full of encouragement and blessing, right up to the point where I slipped into self-centeredness and self-pity. The self-centeredness began as I lost sight of the simple fact that last night's events were for and about my friends and there accomplishments. It wasn't about me. Yet, I started thinking of myself. This was mistake number one.

It happened so easily I didn't even realize it at first. I started by feeling empathy for someone very special and important to me who I assumed (because I did not ask...mistake number two) had a rough time because this person would have been celebrating a birthday also had a relapse not occurred. I thought, "That has to be hard. I know how [they] feel, because if I hadn't gone back out, I would have two years two months tonight, rather than nine months." That was all it took. That little look at myself and how I would be justified in feeling bad about it was all it took. My mind was off to the races. Self-pity took the lead.

During the fellowship, one of the celebrants who also happens to be one of my dear friends, mentioned that because of everything that had been learned from the experience they were grateful for a previous relapse three years ago. As soon as they said that I had one of my "I want what they have" moments. I want that gratitude and self-forgiveness. But I couldn't have it and carry my guilt bag, and in just a few short moments of self-pity, I became very comfortable with my guilt bag. It felt like the perfect accessory that went with everything.

When I got home, I shared my feelings with my wife. I even mentioned that a small part of me was dreading May, because I didn't feel I had a right to celebrate a sobriety birthday until I reached year two. I have already celebrated a year. After all, you're not supposed to celebrate the same birthday number over and over until you turn 39 right? My wife looked right at me and through me and asked how long I was going to carry that guilt around. I answered honestly that I didn't know. I try not to, but sometime I pick it back up for a while.

She looked at me with love and understanding and said one of the best things about relapse I have ever heard. Shit happens; don't let shit happen again." I laughed, but the truth is that there wasn't anything funny about what she said. Those words were the life changing truth that I needed to hear. The past is gone. If I try to carry it around in my guilt bag, I will only make myself sick. I will eventually damage my program of recovery, nullify the promises that have come true in my life, and make myself vulnerable to yet another relapse. I will have set myself up for shit to happen again. That is definitely not what I want in my life today.

No, I have not reached the place where like my dear friend I can say that I am grateful today for my relapse, but I don't have to wallow in regret or carry a bag full of guilt with me everywhere I go. I am working my program diligently. Through working a 12-step program of recovery and grace from God, I have rebuilt 9 months worth of length on my road to recovery. The truth is that my sobriety at nine months today is much more stable and complete than at nine months the first time. It would seem that I needed to tear that stretch of road up and rebuild so that my early miles could be as strong and secure as possible. I didn't realize it at the time, but I missed something the first time around. What I missed lead to faulty construction further down the road, and at about 15 months a bridge beneath me collapsed.

Today things are better for a few reasons. One, I know that my sobriety is more stable and secure this time around, based on journals from the same time period. I am better able to serve my God, my family, my fellow alcoholics and addicts, and whoever else God directs me to be of service to. Also, I know have experience in another area that I can share with someone else. My mistake doesn't have to be shit stinking up my life. It can be fertilizer that helps others, as well as myself, grow. Also, I set down my guilt bag. God gave me a spiritual fashion lesson. Despite how I felt when I picked it out, guilt bags don't really go with any of the spiritual outfits that God has given me. It doesn't look good, feel good, or even provide a useful function. I know my God, and He has forgiven of much worse than a couple month relapse. It's time for me to forgive myself as well. I know that there will come a time when I truly do not regret this area of my past nor wish to close the door on it.

The Truth Just Might Not Set You Free

I have heard it said in conversation, in the rooms of recovery, and even from pulpits in churches. I have even said it myself and by doing so furthered a dangerous deception in my own life. Said what? How many times I have realized something about myself or God, shared it, and then had someone, maybe even my own thoughts say, "The truth shall set you free!," I couldn't tell you, but it is that one sentence I am referring to here. The truth shall set you free.

That the truth shall set us free is seen by many, including at times myself, as some Promise from God, Spiritual Law or FACT, or even as some psycho babble self-improvement mantra tied into knowing yourself. This sentence went through my mind this morning, and the falseness of it just cut me to the quick. So, I meditated on the truth about the statement "The truth shall set you free." And yes, I said falseness, but please bear with me and hear me out before casting stones against my heresy.

The statement as used when quoted as follows, "The Truth shall set you free," is a concept that permeates many of our lives in many ways. It was even quoted in "Star Trek." It's a concept we're familiar with, and I call bullshit. It's not true. For those who are having scriptural issues at the moment, I will address that, but first let me continue with the statement just being wrong.

The truth, in and of itself, can not accomplish anything. It certainly won't set me free. I have said about my relapse that there's nothing worse than having a head full of recovery and a belly full of rum. It's misery, and I imagine a few heads around "the room" nodding in agreement. Why is that feeling so miserable? Because I knew the truth and wasn't free. Because knowing what I needed to do and still not doing it made it feel even worse than just failing to stay sober did.

Truth received, believed, accepted, responded to, and acted upon can effect freedom, but not simply knowledge of the truth. Faith without works is dead. Knowledge without works is both dead and quickly forgotten. It changes nothing.

I can know the truth that I have won some money, but unless I claim the prize my life will never change because of that knowledge.

I can know that truth that I am powerless over alcohol and drugs and that my life is unmanageable. But unless I then take the responding action of believing that God is more powerful than the chemicals and can manageable my life and then surrendering my life to Him, without the response and action, then knowledge does me no good. I continued to drink and use and mess up my life in other areas and ways as well.

So what's the big deal? So the need to act is implied, so what? One, my experience is that there have been times when I have had a revelation of truth in my life then sat back and waited to see that knowledge, that truth, change my life, change the way I thought, acted, felt and responded to and about my life. I fell into a trap. I got the knowledge but failed to act because I slipped into the belief that the knowledge of truth would set me free. Two, actually, the idea is not implied, it's stated and we all have just been editing it out.

The truth is that if you're going to quote statements about truth, you really should take the time to make sure you have the quote accurate. The quote I've been referring to is false simply because it stands as a complete statement in the context of knowing the truth setting you free, when it is not that. Taking it out of context changes things. Sometimes it is even quoted as "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Has more words, must be closer to right. Well, part of the quote previously left out is now there, but I feel this is worse. Now it is no longer just misunderstanding that leads me to believe wrongly that knowledge will set me free. It says unflinchingly that you know the truth and the truth will set you free. Knowledge equals freedom? Hasn't this lie been around since Adam and Eve?

The quote actually reads as follows: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:31-32

The semicolon demands that these two sentences go together as a complete thought. And it makes a difference. Generally speaking it means if you are continuing to do as instructed you are disciples (disciplined followers) of the instructor. Then when something is wrong in your life, when you're presented with a choice and you're not sure on your own which way to go, etc. you can look at it with spiritual insight and know the truth that will enable you to act rightly and do the next right thing.

But what happens when I don't have enough truth to effect change? How do I get more truth? Seek and you will find, I believe that with all my heart, but I think there's more to it. In my experience, there are times when I must apply what I have learned already before I can learn or understand anything new. Sometimes I have to act on the little bit of truth that I have before more is revealed, and as long as I wait for all to be revealed before acting I wait without change.

In the paragraph before last I wrote what the entire quote means generally speaking. I did that so I could say what I needed to and keep this as open to all who read it as possible. But even doing that is misquoting and taking out of context. This is not inside any room but my own house, so I will say what I want to say, and if you're offended quit reading. This quote says That if you continue to walk in relationship with the Word of God made flesh, then you are followers of and belong to Him and that relationship will cause you to know the truth about certain things (spiritual matters, situational matters, recovery matters, whatever matters, especially how to react and respond to knowledge matters), and acting on the truth and responding to the call to relationship with God with make us free.

So that's basically my experience, strength and hope on this quote. The truth has to be known before it can be responded to, so knowledge of the truth is important. But if the truth is known but not acted on, the only thing it ever produces is misery, pain and suffering. That's all I got for now.

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.