Addiction

Thou canst not travel on the path before thou hast become that Path itself. - Helena Blavatsky Several years ago, during an especially unmanageable part of my addiction history, I had a dream that I was driving. I was desperately trying to get somewhere and I seemed to have the wrong directions. I was talking [...]

“There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 58 That pretty much describes me at any given point in my history; emotionally and mentally ‘disordered’, gravely. I have at various times been diagnosed with everything [...]

“Every beginning is an ending and every ending a beginning; a turning point. They are passages through which, if we are willing, we may pass into a new and better life.” - Chris M. Some turning points are big, obviously, like the one I came to a year ago when I could not go on. [...]

I am a creature of habit. I am not as flexible as I imagine myself to be. I am not unique. Sometimes I am able don a guise of pliancy convincing enough to fool everyone, including me, but it is made of denial and pride. Underneath that guise I find myself [...]

“Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.” - Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 77 .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging here [...]

“Let’s see if I can make this easy.” - Maria Kutschera von Trapp My experience in recovery and in taking the steps is that what began as a “turning point” or a “moment of clarity” 51 weeks ago was the beginning of a series of points or moments which have each brought me to a keener [...]

  “Easy doesn’t do it. Easy never did it. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy.” - Unknown That’s one of the mottoes I (pretend to) live by. There are others, of course, important ones. The more important they are the harder they are to live up to. For example, “Remember who you [...]

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - C. S. Lewis My roommate is writing a book. Not today. Today she’s working on writing exercises, learning the craft, reading a ton of important literature. Early in the morning she can be found in her rocking chair [...]

It’s amazing to me, I guess it shouldn’t be at this point in recovery, but it’s amazing to me how quickly I return to my default setting; to return to the way of thinking, if not behavior, that always gets me back to where I came from unless I take purposeful action. Like when [...]

I am, now, officially freaked out. Between yesterday and today I have accumulated enough ‘Close, But No Cigar’ kind of experience to have convinced myself that I am, like an old boyfriend once said, “a complete failure as a human being.” Intellectually I know that it isn’t true, that my problems are surmountable, [...]