Step 2 .......

.........Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

There is plenty of insanity to go around again today......such is the daily life of a blended family with 3 teenagers. As such, we shall move on to my next assignment for Step 2:

• Read Pg 59 - How it Works
• Read Pg 335 - Crossing the River of Denial
• Read Pgs 394-395 - The Perpetual Quest
• Read Pg 498 - A Vision of Recovery
• Read pg 417 Daily - Acceptance was the Answer (Still???) :-)
• Continue Meetings and Blogging

Sounds like a great plan!!

A Vision of Recovery

The first sentence of this story begins with "I thought I was different because I'm an ........"

This declaration of uniqueness is one that I have made multiple times in justifying drinking to myself. Whether it was the stress of my job, the loneliness of prior relationships or the challenges of three teenagers I somehow was convinced that these were different from the millions of other people in the world who experience the same every day.

While it may not be a character defect per se, it is another area I need to be reminded of on a regular basis - I am an average, ordinary run of the mill drunk. No better and no worse than the alcoholic who still suffers. I visited one such suffering alcoholic yesterday. It saddened me to see him and I wonder if I could have done more, but ultimately he needs to decide he is worth it. I cannot convince him of that.

My thoughts on the last assigned reading for Step One are below:

"I was honest with God and really wanted God's help. From that day on I knew that I had found a higher power and that He would help me"

• For me, this statement personifies surrender. When I finally surrendered to my disease, that it was in fact more powerful than I and made my life unmanageable. When I finally surrendered to that power that is greater than I am, the one that I am told will return me to sanity if I simply let go and allow it to.
  

"I now understand that the spiritual malady should be my main concern and that the more faith I have, the fewer problems I will have."

• For me, this statement personifies surrender. When I finally surrendered to my disease, that it was in fact more powerful than I and made my life unmanageable. When I finally surrendered to that power that is greater than I am, the one that I am told will return me to sanity if I simply let go and allow it to.

"I just know that more happiness is to come into my life as I 'trudge the road of happy destiny'"

• A day at a time, making the next right decision, first things first, go to meetings and don't drink, get a sponsor and work the steps. These make up the path of a destiny that is in fact happy, joyous and free.
  

Listening to the Wind

Been a very stressful week, as an employee, a step-father and a husband. As stressful as any week I can recall, and much more so than the events that me to relapse. The difference in my response is my focus on recovery and connection to my higher power.

I would hope so, given that I am at some form of recovery meeting every day right now, but this last week that was exactly what I needed to get through. I survived with dignity, grace and with putting my sobriety first.

Now to my assigned readings:

"The First Step showed me I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that theratened my sobriety or muddled my thinking "

• As my paragraphs above highlight, I am powerless not only over just alcohol but powerless over people, places and things. All of these can muddle my thinking, but God can walk me through the mud if I simply 'do the next right thing'

"Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial"

• This is a concept that I have embraced for quite some time. Honesty is my #1 character defect; issue that gets me in trouble and ultimately leads me to a drink that I do not truly want'

"I was allowing others to control my sense of well being and behavior"

• This is where my resentments lead me, if I hang onto them. Others cannot be a negative influence on my unless I let them.

Good Night....

Read Page 417...Read Page 417...Read Page 417...

........I hear that in my sleep and in my dreams

So - Do you think a certain sentence from Page 417 will show up when I read "Acceptance was the Answer"

Let's Find Out:

"If you had my problems (my wife), you would drink too"

• In my first marriage, this was a common theme to my drinking. This was something that at some lower level I even believed after my divorce. I truly believed that with Nicha I would never drink again. That is probably still the single most demoralizing aspect of my relapse. Given that, it just reinforces that I am and will always be an alcoholic on the inside, no matter what blessings I have surrounding me. My daily reprieve is based on my spiritual condition as well as my acceptance of the world around me.

"There's only one persons' guts I hate more that yours and those are my own"

• For so many years I hated myself. The more I drank, the more I cheated, the more I lied, the more I hated myself. This simply led to more of those destructive actions. I started to dislike myself again with the latest relapse. Not to the same extent as before, but poor decisions lead to poor self-worth.
  

"I had to give up all mood and mind-affecting chemicals in order to stay sober"

• When I was in the ER for my abdomen, they gave me morphine and then a prescription for Vicodin. All this and they do not know what is wrong with me. My wife has the prescription - I am not sure how I feel about not taking it if the pain gets as bad as it was on Wednesday.
  

"If I could just control the external environment, the internal environment would then become comfortable"

• When I was in the ER for my abdomen, they gave me morphine and then a prescription for Vicodin. All this and they do not know what is wrong with me. My wife has the prescription - I am not sure how I feel about not taking it if the pain gets as bad as it was on Wednesday.

"At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem"

• Acceptance is something for me to work on every day. That must be why my sponsor has me reading Page 417 every day. :-P
  

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today"

• To Reiterate: That must be why my sponsor has me reading Page 417 every day.

"Perhaps the best thing of all is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations"

• I so needed to hear this again - especially when it comes to Brady. I struggle so much in how much lower I should drop my expectations. If I am a father to him, don't I need to expect even the slightest of effort? This will be my daily effort to practice acceptance.

Blended not Stirred....

Not exactly James Bond, but sometimes I feel like I am battling an enemy in plain sight. This one would be my step-son, who this morning was irritated because he did not get to go to Kwik Trip for breakfast. He did not want to eat his bagel, so he put his bagel and plate on the top of the refrigerator. Why???? - "Because the dogs will eat it if I leave it on the counter".

So I say "Are you planning on eating it later?", to which the answer is "No". No my wife is unhappy with me as I did not communicate to him in a positive fashion. This is true - WTF is so difficult in throwing something away rather than just setting it anywhere you damn well feel like because you cannot be bothered with cleaning up after yourself.

So now again somehow his absolute selfishness and laziness is somehow my fault.

Ugh

A Drunk Like You .......

No...A Drunk Like You!!!! - Page 401-403"

"Now I was more powerful that than alcohol because for the first time in a long time I could choose not to use".

• What struck me was the use of "I was more powerful". Having suffered from this over-confidence myself last year, it is not surprising that this gentleman drank again, as I did. It is imperative to remember that alcohol is more powerful than I am in and of itself. It is only with the strength from my higher power and the program of AA that I in fact can stay sober.
  

"Now somehow between the time I lost my job and my flight to the convention, I decided maybe I was not an alcoholic and decided to test that theory".

• I love the justification of stating that he is a researcher after all. More prevalent for me is the travel. I have always found business trips as either 'feast or famine'. Either attending new meetings with strong sobriety or preoccupation with alcohol as soon as I land. I have the ability to stay sober while out of town, as long as I take precautions and set up accountability.
  

It Might Have Been Worse .....

Second Assignment - Pages 352 to 355 focus on the first step of powerlessness and unmanageability. The guiding principle for the first step is Honesty (I believe). My honest thoughts regarding these sentences of substance"

"There comes a time when you don't want to live and are afraid to die"

• This was how I felt (somewhat) on Friday, April 29th. Not so much that I did not want to live, but I truly understood for the first time why someone would feel that way. That allowed me to fully surrender (again) and stop the insanity that I could stop on my own.
  

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our life had become unmanageable. This didn't say we had to be in jail ten, fifty or a hundred times."

• This reminds me of my rationalization during my orientation for treatment on Wednesday. As noted, I started to think and that thinking led me to the brilliant conclusion that I really did not need to be there, since 'everyone else was court ordered'. Funny, on Friday I found out that this was not accurate in the slightest.
  

"Most certainly I was powerless over alcohol and for me, my life had become unmanageable. It wasn't how for I had gone but where I was headed."

• I remember many years ago someone talking to me about 'hitting our bottom'. "There is no rule that one must lose their family, their job or their freedom before they reach their lowest point. On the other hand, they will most certainly experience all of those scenario's if that is what it takes for them to make a change". As my sponsor so wisely reminded me, those court-ordered simply were caught. So do I need to wait to get caught?
  

"I was told that I must want sobriety for my own sake, and I am convinced that is true."

• This is certainly not a new concept to me. This is just a good reminder for me that sobriety is always and must always be my highest priority. I can have none of my other priorities if I do not have sobriety.

Today is a great day.