The Second time around-Playing Games

I have been playing an on line game I discovered months back for the second time. I had to start over because I am setting up an new computer and my scores were not saved. I remember when I found the game how hard it was to understand what they wanted you to do and my state of mind was not great and everything seemed overwhelming and complicated. I did figure it out the first time but I didn't really understand how to play and it took what it seemed like forever. This time it was more familiar and I had more information.

I feel like the Al-Anon program is the same way. In the beginning it seems like we are feeling our way through the dark. Everybody else is getting it and we are making progress but slow. Once we have made it through the steps the first time the next time is easier. We can decide to look at them from a different perspective and have confidence that we have been there before and feel less intimidated.

When I looked at the game again at first I thought they must have changed the game, it was so easy, but then I recognized one of the games. The game had not changed, I had.

Paths to Recovery-Why Al-Anon Works

I was walking in the woods yesterday and came upon a large turtle on the trail I went back to my car to get my camera and even though it wasn’t very far by the time I got back he was gone. I looked everywhere and wondered how it could move so quickly. It reminded me of how even though it seems like sometimes I am not making progress if I can just trust my higher power and keep plugging along I can look up one day and find myself some place else.

What lead me to recovery and what keeps me in recovery is two different things. The pain of what I thought someone else did to me brought me here and my true desire to find a path that leads me to a lasting peace keeps me here.

Finding relief in the beginning can feel like something permanent and I have found that a lot of people leave the program shortly after that and return later or not at all. The head convinces the heart that a miracle has occurred and that we can do it on our own and don’t need any help. Everything becomes more important than meetings and our time is more valuable and should be used for other things. This is how we got here in the first place thinking that we can do this alone and we have the answers.

I have taken some time off from attending meetings and gotten involved in some other spiritual outlets, but it is not the same. The time away has been good for me to get perspective and to appreciate the simplicity of how the program works. My mind is my best friend and worst enemy and I need the ease and familiarity of the steps to sort out my thoughts and get to a place of clarity.

Like the turtle I am moving forward not at the speed I would like but one that works for me. I sometime have to pull my head in my shell to emerge a wiser person. This is why the program works for us as well as the alcoholic it is simple and puts the chaos in our heads in order. I need that now and will always need that to find peace.

Anxiety and uncertainty

I woke up with fear and anxiety today about the future. I have been reading a book on happiness and the one suggestion was “Wait until the end of the story” that statement has a lot to say. Things are uncertain every day but sometimes it seems even more uncertain so the difference is really in my out look. Nothing is really different today than yesterday. I am in the office today because I am in retail and maybe someone will be out shopping so maybe being here puts the future right out where I can focus on it.

We don’t have any way of knowing what will happen tomorrow or 5 minutes from now. Living in the present is our only option and trusting our higher power to provide for the future does require a leap of faith. That isn’t really true worrying doesn’t change what will happen in the future it just ruins what is going on now.

So can I wait until the end of the story before I decide to panic? Can I live in Step Three- Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Al-Anon-Spiritual Evolution

Yesterday I met with someone and found myself trying to explain how the Al-Anon program worked for me in the beginning and how it works now. This was harder than I thought is would be but it really made me think about where I was in the beginning and where I am now.

I didn’t recognize the alcoholism in my life until the relationship was over and by the time I reached Al-Anon I had lost the one person I thought I could not live without. At the time I thought it was my husband but now I know it was me. I was just a shell without him and I thought my life was over and I would never feel good again. I didn’t want to live and the grief of losing the only person in my life was beyond devastation. That is what the disease does and not over night. I was messed up before I got into this relationship, don’t get me wrong, but I could accomplish anything I set my mind to but once I found my soul mate I slowly turned my will and my life over to the disease. Cunning, baffling and powerful is what they say I don’t know how such a determined self-reliant person ended up a vacant shell with no support. The alcoholic had his drinkers a lot of them too to support him and a new woman, I expect a lot like me, that could see his potential and was willing to do whatever was needed to support her man ok at the time my man. So that was the beginning I was broken and empty and the 12 steps brought me back to life. I didn’t really work the steps I was too tired for that I just showed up. For my relationship it was too late I was up against something that I could not control, no one can.

I got better quickly in the program. I am willful and I know now that if I hadn’t been so empty and stripped away of all hope I wouldn’t have ever accepted the program. I would have thought I could handle it and never found the peace and even joy that I have now.

Now I can share that experience with others and use the steps to stay on the right track. I look at things differently today and spend my time discovering the person I truly am and not the person that life forced me to be. I still can be a care-taker but the difference is I know when I am doing it and can back off when I am spread too thin. Before it was like breathing I never wanted to disappoint any one and would end up feeling depleted and resentful. If I take care of my own needs I can be there for others in a more authentic way. I can share the gift of the program and the hope that it is possible to change oneself and be happy.

Step One- Admitting things are unmanageable

I talked to someone that was out on a ledge today and ready to jump. I could immediately feel the pain of living with someone else’s addiction. The thoughts that run through your head tend to be I can fix this, I should be able to get this person to stop doing this and if they really wanted to they would stop. It is hard to accept that it is a disease and the disease is in control. It is not personal but it feels personal it affects your every day life and without help you become just as crazy as the person with the addiction. You are obsessed with finding a solution or just obsessed with tracking their every move.

It is a family disease and takes over your life slowly and you wake up one day and you don’t recognize yourself. You have given yourself to the disease it has removed all traces of the person you once were. This is the bottom for most of us and if you are lucky you know to go to a meeting.

Getting to this place was a long and painful process for me but when I did get there I was ready to surrender the pain was so great and I was exhausted.
There is a reason they call it step one. Admitted we were powerless and that our lives have become unmanageable.

Step Two

Step Two- Came to believe a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.

With the present spiritual correction of our country there is more uncertainty than ever. Things are getting better and people are starting to come out from under their rocks and moving about. I am in sales and the uncertainty of this time is always close at hand for me and my partners.

Yesterday I was off and got a call from someone I work with who was in a panic over the future of our business. I was already physically tired and joined in on the fear and spent the afternoon thinking about what should be done. I finally was able to reach someone in the program and they were able to get me back on track and realize I had no power over what others were doing and that it was my decision to buy into the fear. She was right.

I had an afternoon appointment with the person that was the center of the issue and I was able to look at the situation from a spiritual place and not try to do anything about it. It will work out with or without me doing anything.

In this case a power greater than myself was my friend. Working the program doesn’t mean you are always happy but it does mean you don’t spend as much time being unhappy as you use to and that is progress.

Learning to love yourself

I watched Oprah last night and they were talking about weight gain and addiction to food. Oprah talked about how when recently she said no to someone she immediately wanted to eat and how now she realized that this went back to her childhood and the repercussion she faced when she didn’t please someone. Her Grandmother would whip her and then threaten her if she cried about it denying her emotions so she needed an outlet.

No matter what we do there will always be that small child inside that seeks the approval of someone and the need to feel approval and unconditinal love. Learning to love ourselves is the hardest part of recovery. Our obsessions whether food or the alcoholic are a symptom of denying our feelings. Sometimes it is saying yes when you want to say no or being in a relationship that no longer supports us. We say yes when our subconscious is saying this isn’t what I want any more and then feeling guilty for not appreciating what we have. Not wanting to face those feelings of being trapped.

Seeing things as they are sometimes is more than we can take and so we run towards something else. Facing the truth about what we are feeling doesn’t mean we have to walk away from something or somebody just that we have to ask ourselves what do we want truly want. Everyone deserves to be happy and loving ourselves enough to be honest about our latest obsession can start to release the pain of the past and find small ways to redirect our lives towards what we do want.