When you have a day like this …
When you think the demons and voices are after you …
Here come those voices, demons, and they are followed by FEAR
Remember this …
When You Have Days Like This …
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The Winds of Change
Muhammad Ali once said “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” This is especially relevant to anyone who is in recovery. Most “normal” people change and modify their viewpoints as they travel through the various experiences that life sends their way. On the face of it, this seems very natural. Why shouldn’t this so?
Think about it. As we grow from child to teenager, to young adult, to adulthood; then on into “middle age,” and finally old age, we find ourselves dealing with people, places, and circumstances we could have never imagined. As we progress, life becomes more and more an adventure. We are tested daily. Our threshold for ignorance, hate, stress, indifference, and apathy are pushed to the limit. More and more, we come face to face with our shortcomings and deficiencies. We also (hopefully) experience a deeper appreciation for the good things that come our way. Births, weddings, vacations, or even just a quiet day to ourselves.
So what has really changed? Certainly, the world has not changed. What has changed is us!
For those of us in recovery, this change is one of our saving graces! If we are in the midst of a strong recovery, we have grown spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. Fear no longer rules our lives. We are no longer running from our past and its demons (mostly). With every day, we become more and more at ease with who we are, and we strive to become who we have the potential of being. We put in the work. More and more, we believe we do deserve a better life than the one we were living in our addictions.
Being a non-addicted, thriving, giving, grateful, productive, content you – isn’t that what recovery is about?
So You Think Recovery Is Going To Be Boring?
A good number of people who are new to the rooms of 12 Step recovery programs have a preconceived notion that recovery is going to be boring. “No more fun of any kind!” There are many reasons for this. For starters, everyone is told straight away that they must change their playmates and playgrounds. Well then, whatever will you do? Where will you go? Who would you go with? How are you going to fill all those hours that you previously spent feeding your addiction(s)? For most, spending time at home was not a priority, and for some, that was avoided as much as possible. Yep; recovery was looking more and more like a very boring proposition. On top of that, there is the fear of the unknown. Living clean and/or sober is such a distant memory for most. Addiction, even with all its associated detriments was familiar. Familiar almost always trumps the unknown because familiar is a comfort zone we know.
I have been clean and sober for 24 years. In those 24 years I have accomplished and experienced the following, in no particular order …
I divorced, married, divorced again, and have now been married 15 years. (Practice makes perfect, right?) I helped my current wife raise our youngest son. I finished an Associates Degree. I found out that I could draw and paint without being drunk, stoned or a combination of the two. I earned a level of proficiency in martial arts. (That’s actually still kind of amusing to me because some days I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time!)
I earned an MCSE from Micro$oft. I taught myself how to use and hack MACs (“Once you go MAC, you never go back.”) I taught myself Photoshop, some InDesign, and I am now working on Illustrator. I earned a diploma from New York Institute of Photography. I retired honorably from the military at the rank I wanted to retire at when I first entered the service.
I walk away from trouble as much as humanly possible now because I have nothing to prove to anyone and it is just the prudent thing to do in the long run. As much as I want to tell some people how much of an asshole I think they are, I don’t unless I am left with no other recourse because I have learned that most of the haters in this world really hate themselves and take it out on everyone around them.
My wife married me because she loves me (bless her silly heart), and because I am the only guy she has met that actually keeps his word. She thinks I am a “stand-up guy.” That means the world to me. My two stepsons and I get along well. I never tried to replace, nor did I badmouth, their fathers, and they respected me for that. They think I am a cool stepdad. My friends think I am a “stand-up guy” too. My wife and I managed to move into our dream home a little while ago. It’s not luxurious, but it is everything we ever wanted, and it is ours. I have also been able to spend more time with my brother, who is ten years younger than I. We were estranged for a time. Of special note: We saw David Bowie together, on the beach, in New York City, at night, and Earl Slick was his guitarist. This was our first concert together, and one week before Bowie had his heart attack and stopped touring.
I have been fortunate enough to have acquired a couple of guitars and amps (again, my wife humors me, silly girl), and I am learning to play guitar again. I am a writer and editor for the premier online blues magazine and have been able to meet and interview several musicians of note. I’ve had several wonderful experiences having my guitars signed too. Roy Clark said he thought my Strat was beautiful and wouldn’t mind having it himself. Duke Robillard signed it and looked at me and gave me a wry smile. Jimmie Vaughan gave me an approving nod as he signed it. When Willie Nelson handed my Strat back to me and I thanked him, he stepped back, held his arms open in a big hug, and smiled at me. Everyone in the room applauded – it was just an amazing moment. By the way, I named my Strat “Mary Kate” because in my twisted mind, I pictured Scarlet O’Hara’s father calling it “Mary Kate” in that Irish brogue of his.
Nowadays there are people who trust me with their livelihoods, their families, their vehicles, their property, and their friendship. This is no small thing because when a drunk/addict first enters recovery, most often, no one trusts them. Now don’t get me wrong: Recovery has not always been a picnic. There are struggles too; life doesn’t take a break just because you are in recovery. There are still disappointments. There are still things I have not accomplished yet. There are definitely obstacles in my path at times. The difference is that I am better equipped to deal with them now. My perspective and outlook have changed. I have better tools to deal with life’s trials now. I don’t beat myself up over what could have been, or stupid, selfish things I did. I can’t change the past. I have made amends where possible and appropriate. I live in the present and work toward the future. I do my part every day as well as I possibly can. Most importantly, I try to give back and help others in any way I can. Most importantly though, I am grateful for everything I have and get to experience every day. Every new day is a day I might have never seen.
Given everything I have discussed here, if you think recovery has been boring for me, well, nothing could be further from the truth. You are in for the ride of your life and it will be anything but boring, I promise you!
Recovery As The Great Equalizer!
— Image ©Kerzner 2012 —
Spend and invest any amount of time in recovery and you soon discover that it is a way of life. Very quickly you come to realize that recovery is something that you will be engaged in for the rest of your life (if you want to live any kind of quality life). Over time, you may have other realizations. The other day it occurred to me that recovery is an awesome equalizer!
There is a line in the movie “New Jack City” where Judd Nelson’s character says “This drug thing – it’s not a white thing, it’s not a black thing. It’s a death thing. And death doesn’t give a shit.” In a lot of ways, recovery is similar. Rich, poor, CEO, line worker, housewife, married, single, man, woman, child; if there is addiction involved, then an opportunity exists for recovery.
Everyone that enters “the rooms” of a 12 step program has the same opportunity as everyone that came before them. The 12 Steps apply to everyone … no exceptions.
The pain, anguish, uncertainty, dejection, and surrender you feel is just as real for the person sitting next to you (whether you believe that or not, and whether they admit it or not to themselves). The bottom each person hits is different, but hitting bottom is the same for everyone, once they reach that point. Sadly, a lot of people don’t reach their bottom; most will wind up in jail, insane, or dead before they do.
Recovery requires that everyone works to succeed. You can proceed at your own pace, but doing the work is the glue that holds your recovery together. Slack off, ease up, throttle back just a little, and it will show regardless of who you are. Recovery does not care what else is on your agenda, where you come from, where you have been. Recovery knows that if you do not put in the effort, you will not succeed.
Recovery IS the great equalizer. It brings humility to egos run rampant. It can bring peace to the emotionally torn and spiritually bankrupt. Just like our additions, recovery is not a black thing, or a white thing. If you don’t do the work, and don’t make the effort, your addiction will become a death thing.
Meteors, Dash-cams, and You
On Friday morning, February 15th, 2013, a meteor exploded over a fairly remote Russian town. There was an abundance of video of the event due to the fact that most Russian drivers have a dash-cam mounted in their vehicle. Why is that, you may ask? The reason is surprisingly simple: In court, dash-cam footage is the most reliable way to prove what actually occurred in any given incident. Also, dash-cam footage is the only way to substantiate your claim(s) in a court of law. Another interesting aspect is that dash-cams protect people from bribery, bullying/beatings by traffic police, believed by many Russians to be among the most corrupt institutions in their country.
So, what if that were the case in this country? Better still, what if everything you did all day long was recorded and you were forced to watch that at the end of each day? Would we like what we saw? Would we try to do better because we know someone is watching? Would we change what we do, and how we do it? Would we change whom we do things with, and what we do with them? … All because someone is watching?
Well, guess what? Recovery is a 24/7 proposition. There is someone watching, and that someone should be you! When we enter recovery, we are told that we need to change our playmates and playgrounds. We have to shed bad habits and bad behaviors that are entrenched in our makeup, for whatever reason. We are told that we need to work on our recovery every day, and eventually we may get to a “good place.” Even then, we will still have to work at our recovery to maintain it. Recovery is really a relationship that we have with ourselves, and as with any relationship, if we want this one to reach its full potential, there is always work to be done. Just like any other relationship, if we take recovery for granted, it will begin to fray around the edges. As time goes on, piece by piece, our recovery will unravel.
Now it isn’t that there is someone on our back cracking a whip. The situation is more like a parent watching their child, guiding them, encouraging them, even admonishing them when needed. Just as a child needs nourishment, so too does the person in recovery. Our nourishment is more of our soul and spirit, which more often than not, was beaten into submission, maybe even destroyed. As our recovery progresses, we gain strength of spirit, mind, body, and begin to deal with the world as it is in a much more realistic, constructive way.
Unlike a lover or partner we have tired of, we can not just get a divorce. In our case, divorce is equivalent to insanity, jail, or death. That seems to be a powerful incentive (you would think). Sadly, sometimes addiction wins and we die. We should work on our recovery because for us it is the same as drinking water, eating, bathing, and sleeping. It isn’t a burden; it’s a joy because it assures us of a better life than we had. We should do it gladly, not because anybody is or isn’t watching.