Learning to Be.

Working a recovery program takes tons of effort and energy. It takes time and commitment. When we first come into recovery we put everything we have into it. Well, if we are serious about getting sober anyways. It's true what they teach us, we get out of it what we put into it. At first I hardly put in any effort at all. I showed up to several meetings a week. But that was all I did. Of course I ended up not being able to stay sober on that action so I had to take more. Then I couldn't stay sober on that so I had take even more action. And then I drank again and again and again. I don't call them relapses, I call it trying to get sober. So even further action had to be taken. Eventually, I had to resort to doing everything the program suggested. I went to meetings, got a sponsor, worked the steps, prayed in the morning, and prayed in the evening. I said thank you to a higher power I didn't understand for keeping me sober for the day. I asked that same higher power to keep me sober the next morning when I woke up. I changed people, places, and things. And I got sober! One year, two years, three years, four years, five years. So much work and so much change. And so much gratitude

Steps six and seven are my favorite steps, They are my most important steps, the foundation of my program after step three. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. Keeping my side of the street clean. Taking out my garbage. Believing I can be different and then acting as if I am. There were a lot of defects that needed to be dealt with. I wanted a different life, so I had to change. While God is changing me, it's my responsibility to act as if I am changed. This takes a lot of courage and major dependence on my higher power. When I am not strong enough Jesus is my strength. If I do not have the courage I need, Jesus is my courage. If I don't have the patience I need, Jesus, lend me your patience. I do believe it is in step six and seven that I learn to depend entirely on Jesus to supply me with what I need.

However, there is another lesson in six and seven that I have just recently had experience with. It came to me over a few months worth of work over a particular situation that seemed to keep requiring me to "look at my part in it." I kept looking at my character defects and then following the steps to cooperate with Jesus as much as I could while he worked with me. My progress was slow to say the least and at times felt non-existent. Nothing seemed to be getting better and I was starting to be filled with self-loathing. I talked to my sponsor and to some program people about what I was experiencing. I tried all of the suggestions to aid in getting this problem under control.I wanted so badly to behave differently but I kept acting exactly how I didn't want to act! In Romans 7:15 Paul says "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do.But what I hate I do. If Paul struggled enough with his behavior to talk about it in the Bible, then it goes to show that it is a basis of human-ness. Paul, who was greatly inspired daily by the presence of Jesus Christ and was undergoing drastic changes to become more like Jesus, struggled with shortcomings!

During one of my morning meditations after my bible reading I was talking to God about my behavior. I surrendered it all to him, and myself to him, again. Desperation to be different was permeating from my being and I got a clear message. "Just Be.". Followed by "Stop." I was really surprised and it reminded me of "Be still and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10

God reminded me of all the other times I had made changes in my life. How slow the progress had seemed. How often had I felt that he wasn't even hearing my prayers. How many times and I been desperate and scared? How many other times had I felt like I couldn't bear my life for one more day, living it the way it was. And I had been delivered through each and every one of those situations. Nothing stays the same forever! Change happens.  But it happens one moment at a time. Not even one day at a time, one moment at a time. God is going before me, making my paths straight. That takes time. Changing hearts takes time. I had done what I could, the rest was up to God. It was a welcome relief to rest in the presence of God. I was exhausted from forcing change that wasn't meant to be yet.

Sometimes the best way to cooperate with the changes God is making in us is to "JUST BE." There is true freedom in that. "Be STILL." Let God do his work.

Why do resentments lead us to relapse?

If you use a 12 step program for your recovery you have heard about the dangers of resentment. It's the topic of many meetings. I remember early in my recovery hearing about resentments and it seemed like at every other meeting we would talk about them. At that time I didn't really think I had a lot of resentments and I certainly doubted that they could ever lead me to pick up a drink. What I failed to recognize in my haze of early sobriety was that I was so cut off from my feelings that I could hardly tell the difference of one emotion compared to another. As time went on and feelings came back I began to understand the term "emotional sobriety" and "emotional maturity". Both of which I had very little of.

As those emotional switches got turned back on I started to struggle with feelings. I think every alcoholic struggles with feelings and accepting them. It's one of the main reasons we drink, so we don't have to feel. One of the feelings that has been most challenging to me is anger. I hadn't had much experience with anger. It was an emotion I had shut down almost completely many years ago. It was a feeling that didn't serve me well, it sometimes was even dangerous to express. I simply decided not to feel it at all. When you are drinking you can do that. However, in sobriety it's not nearly so easy. Anger can be downright explosive for me now. And that will be a topic for another day. The anger that I want to talk about today is resentment. Particularly resentment towards people.

I had been harboring resentment against a few particular people. I was venomous when speaking about them and have to admit I had fantasies of horrible things happening to these people. They had hurt me very deeply and not just once. Repeated offenses which bred in me the perfect type of victimization that leads to justified anger. The more they hurt me, the more I hated them. Then they stopped hurting me. They were out of my life and had nothing to do with me anymore. The problem is I kept on hating them. I kept on reliving the hurts. I would get so angry and upset with them as if they were hurting me all over again. But they weren't. The hurts existed only in my head. My emotional sobriety would dip according to how often I allowed myself to get caught up in the feeling of hatred. What does an alcoholic want to do when their emotional sobriety sucks? Drink. It goes with the alcoholic motto of "I am mad at you, so I am going to hurt myself." It makes no real sense but in an alcoholics emotional bottom it is almost an unconscious thought.

During one of these terrible emotional lows I reached out to my pastor. He told me something that shocked me. I was harboring unforgiveness. Maybe to someone reading this it's obvious that I was holding unforgiveness towards these people. But when you are caught up in hurt and justified anger you don't realize that it has become YOUR issue. You stay so focused on the hurt and anger, your eyes stay fixed on the person who hurt you. My pastor held a mirror up and I saw myself. The truth was, I was hurting myself over and over. I had become ugly and vengeful and stuck in a very awful emotional low.Those people who hurt me didn't create that emotional low for me. I created it by my hatred.  I had to forgive. My pastors words were "I am glad Jesus doesn't think like you do." That rocked me hard. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44 "But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you". Does that only apply to others and not to me? Addicts are famous for thinking rules don't apply to them. However, I am far enough along in my recovery to know that's crap. The rules do apply, especially to me.

According to The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous alcoholism is a spiritual malady. We absolutely need to rely on the power of something greater than ourselves to stay sober. I realized I was cutting myself off from the "sunlight of the spirit" by my refusal to forgive. No wonder I wanted to drink or commit suicide. That's another thing alcoholics do, if we can't drink we would like to just die."What we have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition." Big Book page 85. I decided to get busy getting spiritually fit. I choose to forgive. I followed the directions given to me by the Bible and the Big Book. 1. I admitted my anger and unforgiveness. (my sin, step 6)  2. I asked Jesus to take this shortcoming from me (step 7). 3. I prayed for my enemies to have everything in life that I wanted for myself. This is a process I repeat every time I start feeling that emotional low creeping back. It is not a one time event, at least not for me.

My spiritual condition is improving and so is my relationship with my higher power. Love really is the answer.

Listen to the voice within

Listen to the voice within. It's that voice that is nudging you awake at night with anxiety. It might approach you as a fear of something bad coming for you, but you don't know what it is. It may be a constant underlying feeling of discomfort or discontent. We all have experienced that voice at one time or another in our lives. Each of us has our own ways of trying to quiet that voice or turn it down or off. My favorite way to turn that voice off was alcohol. Sometimes food or shopping. Whatever I tried to use to quiet it never kept it silenced for long. Nowcovery truly begins when you start listening to that voice. You say to yourself "something is wrong, I am not sure what it is. But I am going to find out." That takes courage.

The voice may sound like your own voice. But it's not. It's the voice of your creator. Each of us were created by design. We are not the way we are by accident. We were created to fulfill a particular purpose. And the even more wonderful news is when we are living IN our purpose, or ON purpose we are HAPPY. Even more than that we are fulfilled.

As we begin to make choices in life that take us out of our design our creator starts trying to get our attention. He starts allowing things to happen that are difficult situations for us to handle. Some of these things are painful. They cause us great emotional turmoil. The more we ignore the voice the more difficult the consequences become. This isn't out of hate from our creator, he is not a terrorist. He knows we will truly be our happiest when we are living the life we were created to live. He is redirecting.

So, If you have been having these experiences it means you are being presented with an opportunity. Truly everything that you want is on the other side of two things, Fear and surrender. Are you willing to start considering a possibility of living a different way? If so, you are on the brink of nowcovery. I encourage you to take a deep breath and open up the door to true freedom.

Tracy Kiesler
Freedom 2B