A little over 30 days

I have been very busy with personal things, but have been attending meetings regularly. I attended a meeting yesterday that I had not been to. It was interesting. They passed out penny’s to newcomers and there was a saying that went along with it, but I can’t recall it. It had something to do with freedom (liberty) and spirituality (in God we trust). I ended up taking a 30 day chip there but it was actually a key chain. They seemed to do things a little different at this meeting, but it was cool.

I took another 30 day chip at a meeting I regularly go to. I was presented with a regular chip (Red). People were very nice and congratulated me. Besides the newcomers I was the only chip taker. On guy remarked “dang I just lost 20 bucks!” insinuating that he thought I wouldn’t make it. Of course he was kidding (or at least I think he was).

I am back at work, but not sure for how long. It doesn’t really matter. I will be employed again.

David j

Goodbye letter

I actually wrote this on 1/24 at the behest of a counselor I was working with in my rehab. It started off very simple, but she made me redo it and this is what I came up with (verbatim)…

Dear Alcohol,

You suck elephant balls! I really have nothing to say to you. You have been a Fricken monkey since I was a kid. Just when I thought I could drink responsibly you made sure I was kicked in the head. I don’t have much resentment in me. I never have. But I hold a special place in my heart full of resentment especially for you. I will never make amends with you because all you do is cause hurt, pain and anguish. It is your nature. It is evident that you are full of turmoil and discontent for your history is lengthy and documented within every piece of historical that has been produced. Like religion you have been snaking around since the dawn of humans. You create havoc and anarchy wherever you go. Your motto is that you pride yourself on being the devils playground. Sometimes you kill people quickly. Other times you spitefully kill people slowly but assuredly. You really are cunning and merciless in your practices. Sometimes you romance people into thinking that you are good and healthy. “Take communion” it is “the blood of Christ”, “a glass or two of wine a day is healthy!” Your tentacles are far reaching across every culture and ethnicity. You are water’s evil cousin.

                I have had my battles with you. I never win. I would try and try to have a comfortable relationship with you but it always went sour. Nearly all bad things in my life have involved you. You have interfered with my relationships, my job, my education and my environment. You are a Fricken beast to be reckoned with. I have never truly felt good around you, it was always a false sense of euphoria.

                However, like David and Goliath I am getting my slingshot ready to take you down once and for all. I am using my resources that you have blinded me from. I am putting on my armor everyday and wielding my sword in your direction. Every day I am sober you become weaker. Every day you try to tempt me I do a body check to make sure I have my armor intact. Every day I read and study you I understand your motives better.

                I am powerless over my addiction, but ii have a higher power on my shoulders. You may have a few more tricks up your sleeves but there is one think you cant take away from me anymore. My ability to exploit my free will. My ability to choose to be a good person. My ability to be of service to someone in need who is still in battle with you. Although you have been faithful to me I refuse to be in a relationship with you anymore. I have a new love and her name is sobriety. She is honest, practices serenity and has agreed to be faithful as long as I am. I have committed to her my life with the blessing of her father my higher power.

May you dry up and burn in hell!

Sincerely,

David J

soooobryatea

In one of my meetings I learned that a person who had some time sober went out again. Not on alcohol but another drug. It did not surprise me. This person was cocky in his sobriety and he was one of two that I envisioned relapsing. The other one remain sober, or at least so he says. I kind of have a knack for it, mostly due to my training. The proverbial “it” being spotting potential relapses. This is, of course predicated by my own inability to forecast my own.  A very clean and sober addict once told me “if you get cocky in your sobriety its over. You will relapse mentally before you physically ingest something.”

I was reading another person’s blog today and it reassured my thoughts about why I journal. I journal for me to get it out of my head and could care less who reads it. I journal to practice thinking, writing and emotions. I write not for grammatical correctness (as evidence by my last sentence) but for emotional and mental integrity. Writing in a journal allows me to find my thoughts in a clear and concise manner and review and process them. 

When I journal, I am practicing.

David J

Group of drunks

Today’s reflection speaks of God and recognizing Him and His glory. I believe in God, but recognize Him by a different view. God=Group of Drunks. This is my higher power. This is a God that speaks my language, who knows and has lived my stories, and who does not judge me always telling me to “keep coming back”. Some might say this is trivial and just another bunch of malarkey, but I beg to differ. Everywhere I turn I see the signs of a God. The more I interact and engage, the more it becomes clear. I am an alcoholic and will be part of this fellowship until the end of my days. This is great news, for it is not only enlightening but relieving. My shoulders have lowered and my mind has stopped wondering and wandering. I have one of my big book studies tonight and even though I am physically ill with a cold I am very much looking forward to it.

I am a friend of Bill W.

David j

Dum Da Dum Dum

Valentine’s Day was busy for me yesterday. I had a doctor’s appointment (head shrinker), nice V-Day lunch with my wife, 1:1 session with my counselor and a few hours of intensive outpatient rehab services. In between all that I was able to build my traditional V-Day bags for the people in my house. Needless to say everyone was happy.

There were many things floating through my head yesterday do to varied topics I discussed with others. We discussed and processed everything from my lack of commitment to spirituality in recovery. I had no great epiphanies but rather continued knowledge building about myself and my recovery. By the end of the day I was ready for a Dum-Dum.

David j

Mental, Emotional and Physical Sobriety

I had a discussion today with a counselor regarding my ability to commit to things. In some respect I agreed with this counselor, but in other respects I disagree. I have been committed to many things such as marriage, being a father etc, but I recognize that my level of commitment has not always been 100%. I believe this idea of half ass commitment was what my counselor was referring to and as I said I am in agreement with this.

Nonetheless, I am wholeheartedly committing to my sobriety, my family and my marriage in that order. I realize that I need to be 100% committed as well as engaged in order for this stuff to work and maintain sobriety and steady positive relationships. I believe that one of the reasons I had a hard time with this in the past was due to my emotional immaturity which really bared itself over the last 5 years. Although I still disagree that I am a “man-child” I would agree that I have exhibit behaviors and mentalities consistent with immature and apathetic practices. However, I am learning to be more grown up in my engagement in AA. 

Not only am I practicing sobriety physically, but also mentally and emotionally as well. This is territory I have not ventured into in many years. One of the things I attribute to this lack of maturity is my thoughts about a sort of “mid-life” type crises or need to revel in my youthfulness. One thing that makes it hard for me to discard this youthfulness is my physical looks and attitude. If it were not for the grey in my beard I have been told that I look as though I am many years younger than I actually am. As with anything, there is good and bad to this observation. I would assure you the reader that I am anything but vain or egocentric. I am just presenting facts that have lead up to my drinking demise and legal/financial problems that seem to have plagued the last few years of my life. I take full responsibility for my actions and thinking regardless of the outcomes or what lies ahead.

David J 

Intellectualization

Today’s daily reflection talks about intellectualizing. I was very guilty of this for quite some time. I don’t do this anymore. When I first entered the halls of AA, my attitude was “good grief, another group that I have to be in” although I was not the facilitator this time. I have facilitated hundreds of groups of all different ages and topics, but had never been participant rather than practitioner. In some respects I was jaded about groups, which was mostly a direct manifestation of my burnout in the field. This attitude got me into trouble multiple times since my AA indoctrination. My rationalizing and intellectualizing did not serve me well in my dealings with my disease. (On a side note I am a firm believer that addiction is a disease regardless of what others may believe and that I am definitely addicted to alcohol.)   I had studied the brain both in my undergraduate and graduate training and had a grasp of the interworking of many areas such as biopsychology, neurosciences and psychopharmacology. However, I failed to be able to look outside the box when introspecting myself. Also, my firm belief that denial was a river in the Amazon held my thinking and rationalizing steadfast for some time.

After my last go around I nixed the idea that I could solve this problem of mine. I gave in, surrendered and admitted my powerlessness. I gave over everything to my higher power and have been reaping the benefits ever since.

David J

  

Anger? What Anger?

Yesterday all day the theme was anger, resentment and forgiveness. I struggled all day relating to this. The problem is that I learned a long time ago to not be angry, harbor resentment and am able to forgive those who have wronged me. Having went through a Christian 12 step group process before I was able to make a list of those who have wronged me as well as those I have wronged. I was able to make amends and forgive many people including myself. Anger and resentment is just not in my nature. I see it often and assisted many people who struggled with these issues in the past. I am not really in the helping profession anymore. I got burnt out and set my eyes on different more healthy life endeavors and goals. So....anger? What anger?

David j

Hapangry

The topic today at my meeting was anger, resentment and fear. Although I have harbored some of these feelings in the past I have not been truly angry or resentful since I was a teenager. I was very angry young man. It did not matter whether you were black, white, short, tall, large, male or female I was angry with you. You could say I was angry towards the world. You could call me an equal opportunity hater. After I enlisted in the Marines, my anger was channeled to something useful. I learned how to drink like a fish not like a gentleman. After I was discharged from the military I settled down a bit mentally, but continued to drink and anger started to unravel itself from its cocoon. I wasn’t as angry as I had been as a younger person, but still had some in me.

However, most of the time I was happy go lucky and engulfed in life on life’s terms; school, work and environment. As I continue in my sobriety today I am eager to get back to my happy go lucky attitude. Currently my gratitude has much latitude and I am thankful for my life. But my face still lacks smile and laughter. I am working on it. My young daughter once told me not to long ago “Daddy how come you never smile?” I still have not been able to answer this simple yet powerful question, but am positive that I will be back to my smiling laughing self soon.

David j

Co Occurring Disorders

I was not able to meet with my sponsor today. There was some type of medical family emergency and he texted me at about 1:30 am this morning. No worries.

I was able to get to my book study. The book study was good. It was the same people except for one extra. It is a small group no more than 10 at any given time, but it is a new group and I rather like its intimacy. We are on chapter 2 and after each paragraph (we take turns reading) we pause for reflection and processing. I was rather quite during this meeting. The topic that kept coming up was mental health, psychiatry, therapists and people’s ignorance and the stigma associated with AA. I listened intently. They are all laypeople in the group (as opposed to in the field as I am) and only one person in this group knows that I am in mental health. It was interesting to hear about how those who see therapists related to the readings. There was some criticism regarding therapist’s ignorance about AA. This was different for me. One of my specializations was co-occurring disorders (mental health mixed with substance use issues) and I had a professional grasp of 12 step groups (AA or NA) for I would often go to these meetings in support of clients. This was very much so against the grain for therapists who normally might not accompany their client’s to meetings or gatherings of this kind. As one who was trained and practiced to think outside the box I had no problems accompanying clients or sometimes whole groups of people to AA or NA meetings. I would utilize any methods at my disposal (which was basically anything I wanted for my boss had a lot of faith in my practices) to assist the client with getting better or into their recovery both addiction wise and mentally. I helped a lot of people. However, my own mental health and tendency towards addiction suffered and I fell prey to my genetic pre-disposition as alcoholic. Denial is not just a river in another country and it was a powerful ally to me for many years.

The irony!

David j

repitition

I find myself repeating things in my blog, but in my instance it is good. After reading I reflected in a written journal the following:

I can relate to this reading in many respects. Mostly I can relate to the first part of the reading. Admitting that I am powerless is like surrendering which has not been part of my vocabulary for many years. As a Marine I have never surrendered nor admitted defeat. I have lived by the creed “adapt improvise and overcome” at any cost. This has served me well in many facets of my life. In college (which seems to be a never ending and very expensive process for me these days) I lived by this creed and at last check I believe my GPA at the PhD level was 3.89. This is just one instance of my living by the creed. However, I was sitting in a meeting a while ago and heard someone sharing that a Marine once told him that in order to win sometimes you need to surrender. In all of my endeavors and accomplishments I had forgotten about this simple yet powerful statement that is not only factual in nature but very much practiced successfully. It was only when I heard this motto again that the message was clarified. Yes I had heard the message this round of sobriety, but it was not solidified or crystal clear. When I was reminded that I must “surrender to win” the message clicked in my alcoholic brain with a new sense of vigor. My epiphany was complete and I admitted wholeheartedly that I was powerless over alcohol. Subconsciously I knew that I was alcoholic but my ego was keeping my psyche in check and holding it down. Not anymore. My psychic change was not sudden but it had taken place. My recovery vision was complete and off to the races. January 13, 2013 was to be my sobriety date for the rest of my life. I never had to take another drink if I didn’t want to.

David J

Jekyll and Hyde

The daily reflection talks about the “Jekyll and Hyde” syndrome. Looking back in a sober manner I can see that I was similar to this. My behaviors were irrational and negative. When sober I was very intelligent. I am educated; I believe in science and know about how the universe works. When drunk I had narcissism, bitterness and sarcasm as my defenses and manipulation as my offense.

I am regretful of how I behaved in the past, but I take full responsibility and blame no one but myself. Alcohol is a deceptive cunning masterful drug. It hides from nothing and bares no prejudice. It is the pinnacle of madness, the prince of malevolence and the pride of the devil’s playground. 

I am grateful for all I have and am.

David j

 

Epiphany, Goodbye Letter and the Wise Young Junkie.

My last drunk had landed me in the hospital and I had felt broken the next morning. I believe that was the lowest I have ever felt in my drinking and in my life. I wasn’t able to see tomorrow and despair and self degradation followed me most of the morning until the afternoon. I finally called someone who lifted me up. He shot me straight and by the time I was done talking with him I was on my way home and planning on going to a meeting after speaking with a few more people. I hit the meeting and ironically enough it was an “as Bill sees it..” meeting. The topic was tolerance. Although I was still in my self-wallowing I heard the message. I have had two epiphany type instances in my life and this was the second one. It was not a spiritual awakening, but rather a moment of clarity where I heard the message that had been told to me many times. “You never have to take another drink if you don’t want to.” This simple sentence woke my brain. I had heard something similar before when someone said to me “David why don’t you just stop drinking!” This was before I knew that I was an alcoholic, but I heard the message for it started me on a 7 year sobriety path. But King Alcohol was ever cunning and merciless and I went out again at the end of my stent. Sometimes I refer to Alcohol as not a King but a jester that taunts and teases me.

In my rehab I had to write a “Goodbye Letter” to my drug of choice. This happened to be alcohol. I thought to myself “this is simple” and my letter was initially as follows:

Dear Alcohol,

Fuck you and I hope you burn in Hell!

Sincerely,

David

That was what I felt at the time and what I wanted to say. However, my counselor made me be more specific. I told her that I should be able to write what I want and that the letter I produced, though brief was a direct reflection of my views about alcohol. She basically said stop with the bullshit David and write a letter. So I did and it was something else. After I shared it with the group the counselor said I should write more (meaning professionally). At first I misunderstood and exclaimed “good grief I just wrote a page and a half what more do you want?” The wise young addict next to me leaned over and quietly noted “dude she means you should write more for others to read….you know like professionally and shit.” These were clarifying words for me and I heard them. I will post my letter for all to read when I graduate the program and receive all my stuff back. That’s all I got for today.

David J

positive

A fresh new day with lots of positive attributes is surrounding me. I am happy and content even though I am facing some major life issues. I have neither worries nor discontent for today’s happenings or future endeavors. I am in the now working on my recovery for the day. My attitude minus gratitude was not like this the last couple of times around sobriety. I could not get out of the future in my thinking and ultimately this lead to relapse which (as one of my counselors pointed out in his wisdom) “happens but doesn’t have to.”

Speaking of counselors my wife joined me for family night at my program and we were introduced to a lot of technical information about addiction and the brain. Much of the information I already knew and my wife was knowledgeable about some of it as well having heard it from another source. The information was broken down rather well into layman’s terms, which I sometimes struggling with doing. After the lecture type documentary that we viewed we processed a “relapse prevention plan” in a group setting. I was honest and forthright with information in terms of sharing and my wife fully participated. Consequently, my wife has been attending Alanon meetings and participating 1-2 times per week. I am happy that she is coming to a better understanding about addiction.

I currently have 562 hours of sobriety and am looking forward to my 30 day chip.

David J

Surrender

Today was a good sober day. My family is involved and I am taking things one day at a time. Granted I have lost a few things but gained much, much more. I have gained sobriety, serenity and clarity. These are three things that I did not have before.

I spent some time getting to know my sponsor the other day. I found out that we have more in common than I thought. Also, I found out that we have at one time shared similar views about alcoholism; as a disease, allergy or whatever. The careful balance between science and religion has plagued me for a lot of my adult life. I did not understand the interaction of religion and science when I was younger nor did I care to. I was caught up in my youth to the point where I had blinders for glasses or tunnel vision if you will. As I matured in every aspect and gained a better understanding of how to knowledge up my brain I had my first epiphany. I had enlightening of a kind that I had never experienced before. It had nothing to do with alcoholism, but it did have to do with spirituality. I promised God that I would repent of my sins and give my life to Jesus if he would see to it that I would come out of my situation alive. I did this for a long time, but somewhere along the road I became lost. I was lost in myself and although He had held me accountable and given me ample chances I could not see Him in even though He was right in front of me. My second epiphany came the day of my last sobriety and it did have to do with alcoholism, more so than spirituality. I had experienced clarity before but not like this. After I spoke with some people, attended a meeting and listened to some other alcoholics I realized that what was said to me was true. I never had to take another drink if I didn’t want to. My sobriety date was the sobriety date for the rest of my life.  I surrendered and was free. Surrender has not been a part of my vocabulary. I’m a Marine, I don’t surrender. But, a far more experienced and full of knowledge Marine who had a fair amount of sobriety once said “in order to win and be free, sometimes you have to surrender.” This made sense to me and I put thought into practice. I have been sober ever since.

David J

Home Group, Legal and Youth

I had every intention of journaling yesterday but just didn’t get around to it. I did however hit my meeting that I rather enjoy. It was a birthday meeting and there were 3 birthdays: a 2 year, a 16 year and a 25 year. It was quit an impressive time span actually. It was good to see that there was lots of sobriety in the room and once again everyone was so friendly.

I continue to have legal problems and had to make some big decisions today. The decisions were nothing to drink over. I am more of a stress drinking binge consumer. I have been that way for the last 25 years. Drinking was a stress relief like no other and it worked until it became a problem. After realizing I am an alcoholic I was able to embrace the alcoholic mind as my own.

It’s funny how things work. I am in a treatment program and can almost see those who are going to relapse. I feel bad for the youth who are struggling to cope with life through drugs and or alcohol. I have reached out to addicts both young and old and have found that although they are receptive, some are like I was; 75-80% there but not all in. I pray for them daily. However, I have to be selfish with my sobriety.

David J