Hope

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Four Years Sober

January 15, 2011 in Gratitude, Perseverance by Chris | 11 comments

Can you believe its been four years already?  Four years from the last time I had the compulsion to use.  Before that, in spite of my desire not to, the thought of living without crystal meth was impossible for me to imagine.

Like many others, I tried to get sober on a number of occasions before.  I was actually introduced to AA when I was only 18.  The longest I ever put together was just under 3 years.  I think the only reason I even stayed dry that long was out of sheer terror and will power.

I guess if I am an example of anything it is that chronic relapsers can eventually get sober.

The real hurdle for me was the part that the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” that says we need to “fully concede to our innermost selves” that we are alcoholics and addicts. Those are heavy words.  And like Chuck C. says, we are different cats.  We can’t see until we can see and we can’t hear till we can hear.  I couldn’t fully concede until there was no fight left in me at all.

This has been a hard year.  There is no fight left in me at all in more areas of my life all the time, and if the truth is known, sometimes I just want to take a break from all of it; from meetings, from the people in them, from the steps, from service.  But that never worked for me.  It has taken me 27 years to put together 4 years sober, so obviously all the things I tried before this failed.  This way seems to still be working.

Maybe if I keep doing it, someday I’ll actually feel like I have some kind of message to carry or be in better “spiritual condition,” but at the moment, I am simply grateful to still be sober.

Winter Night

December 13, 2009 in Faith, Gratitude, Honesty, Hope by Chris | 8 comments

6th and Pueblo Street, Boise, Idaho My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does.  December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old.  My “birthday” is not really a big deal anymore.  No, the anniversary I celebrate tonight, the reason this day is important to me, is that on this night, three years ago, I suddenly saw myself clearly and suddenly had a little hope that recovery would be possible.

The first two years were easy.  This last one has been a bitch.  There have been times recently when I have wished that I had died back in May.  It would have been so much easier.  I’ve even, at times, tried to tell myself that if that illness had killed me that I would be a hero.  I would have died sober.  I would have died doing the things that I was supposed to be doing.  My family and friends would mourn me, sure, but there would be something happy underneath the sorrow; the knowledge that they had known me and that in my last years I had been sober.

Lately things have been much, much harder.  I’ve had to return to being medicated to stop the insanity that has been going through my mind.  The medicines are working, so that is good, but I still have a ton of stuff to face.

Somehow, in spite of everything, I have remained sober.  In fact I’ve been sober longer now than I have ever been since I was 14 years old and I attribute it to that moment at the corner of 6th and Pueblo, under the street lamp, in the snow, when I finally understood that the pain I was in then was the very best that I could hope for, unless I got sober, and when I suddenly believed that it would be possible.

” God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.  Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will.  Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of Life.  May I do Thy will always.  Amen”

Change for the Better

September 19, 2008 in Hope by Chris | 8 comments

Happy, Joyous, and Free

The first day I was on Ritilin I took it as prescribed.

Yuck. Did the trick in terms of attention and focus, sense of well being, etc., but it had the unfortunate and uncomfortable side effect of making me feel like I’d been high. The good news is that it was an intensely uncomfortable feeling. I saw my sponsor t Read the rest of this entry »

Cheerful Capitalization

September 12, 2008 in Service by Chris | 3 comments

Pain and HumiliationThere are parts of my experience at the end of my use and in the early part of my recovery that I have been hard pressed to imagine would ever be an asset; something I could share to help another addict recover, chief among them my relationship with Dan, the Imaginary Future Ex-Husband (IFX). Dan’s skill at using my lonliness at the end of my using days, his disappearance on my birthday, and most particularly his extrarodinary meanness when he got out of prison and started showing up in 12 step meetings places him at the center of some of the most painful moments of my life. Read the rest of this entry »

Simply a matter of work.

August 22, 2008 in Perseverance by Chris | 8 comments

I learned about this tool from my Irish friend because she put up a link to an online version of it on her blog.

I like tools like this, though I don’t often pick them up. Like much of what is available to me to grow spiritually. I seem to have been so desensitized to pain that I only notice that it is pain when it becomes overwhelming. I don’t work for growth until growth is the only option. I think about it a great deal, but I rarely work for it in earnestness the way I did in the beginning of my recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

And There I Was . . .

July 11, 2008 in Faith by Chris | 10 comments

Caught in the Snide
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky empty pants and I
Were standing face to face.
I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried.
Oh! Save me from those pale green pants
With nobody inside.
-Dr. Seuss

Isn’t that the essence of fear?  When we finally find the courage to face our fear we often discover it is empty.  Having conquered one, we move along in life, unaware of which of our unknown or unacknowledged fears lies ahead; what opportunity for incredible spiritual growth remains to be discovered. Read the rest of this entry »

Presto

July 9, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 2 comments

Bullwinkle: “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”

Rocky: “Again? That trick never works.”

Bullwinkle: “But this time for sure. Nothing up my sleeve.  Presto!” . . . “I’ve got to get another hat.”

Rocky:  “And now, here’s something we hope you’ll really like!”

Don’t ask me how it works, or why.  Don’t ask me how I always seem to respond in a manner contrary to what my experience has been.

At 8:30 tonight I still had no idea what I was going to do.  At 8:30 the problem was solved twice over.

More to come.

Surrender

July 6, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 6 comments

I don’t normally duplicate work I produce elsewhere, but there are only so many ways you can say the same thing.  In this case, it’s something I need to say in every channel I write in.

Just like with drugs and alcohol, it seems to be a natural part of my character that until I have exhausted every other possible means of doing something, tried out every tiny, mad idea about how I can manage on my own power to get my life to work out the way I want it to, entertained every lurking notion my ego can generate, and laid waste to every reservation disguised by unwillingness, I am incapable of surrendering that part of my life to the Higher Power and the principles that got me sober. I simply do not surrender unless I have failed in every possible way I can think of. Read the rest of this entry »

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