The Last Chance Texaco

Posts Tagged ‘Hope’

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”

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 »

There 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 »

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 »

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 »

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.

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 »

I wrote a post over at the Second Road the other day about the hurdles we face in finding the Higher Power of 12 step programs. The idea for the post came from a conversation I had with a friend a few nights ago wherein he told me that the only ‘God’ he was willing to believe in, when he got to AA, was what he called “The God of Unintended Consequences”. The conversation was interesting enough to me that I immediately started researching the 2nd step observations of the early AAs and the neurobiology of belief.

I garnered some great knowledge in this, and I gained some really useful clarity about the roles of honesty, open mindedness, and willingness in having an effective spiritual experience. I understood, as I never had before, why it had been so important for me to cling to the alternate names of God we use; Higher Power, Creator, and Spirit of the Universe. Read the rest of this entry »