4th Step

Great weekend

It was a great weekend I got some day work helping to clean out a house.  I made some badly needed money, thus provng that if you have faith you will get what you need when you need it.  I also got to work on a show, "Streetcar Named Desire" at the Baldwin Theatre in Royal Oak.  If you get the chance I highly recommend seeing it.  The acting is superb and the set is one of the most elaborate I have ever seen.  The stage version of Streetcar is very intense.  Even though I've seen it 5 times now and know the plot, I am still moved  by it every time.  Anyway, I am doing curtains and helping with props.  Theatre has been one of my most favorite thing to be involved with since I was 19.  I discovered it junior college and it has changed my life.  I was painfully shy when I did my first show.  I am still fairly shy.  I have met so many people and made so many great friends.
I have been completely clean and sober for 17 days now.  This is the most consecutive days of being clean since 2006!!  My emotions are running high, I have found myself getting alternately angry, sad, melancholy and happy almost uncontrolably.  I am certain it is because I have masked my emotions and numbed myself to them for so long.  The repressed energy from all those years is surfacing.  It is a rollercoaster but I am told it is normal and will pass.
My next task is my 4th step that I mentioned the other day in the blog.  My sponsor said I was ready and I feel ready to face the ugly truth about who I REALLY am.  I have read the  literature about it all weekend and have mulled it over extensively.  Tomorrow I am going to put pen to paper and exorcise my demons.
I let you know how it goes.

4th Step

The time has come for the 4th Step in my AA program and 4T class.  Kind of neat how it worked  for it to be time in both programs.  The 4th Step is known as the personal inventory. It is where you put into writing all your characteristics; the bad and the good.  This step is taken to teach honesty, humility, set-up for the rest of the steps and eliminate the power the past holds.  I don't know why I find it so daunting, after all I have put myself in the spotlight warts and all via this blog.   I have talked about this with a friend who has done a 4th step, I am going to talk with my sponsor tonight and I have e-mailed my pastor for advice.  I want to do this right, I want to put the past behind me and move to the next level.  That is all I have on my mind right now.  I will post more later.
Have a blessed one.

Springtime

Spring is definitely in the air today.  When the first sunny, warm days of Spring finally arrive and the plants are starting to grow and everybody is going outside again it is hard to imagine when it was the dead of winter and it seemed like the sun would never shine again and the world is dead.  Life is dynamic, always changing.  Sometimes when things are bad it is hard to remember what being happy ever felt like.   Life itself goes through seasons.
I've changed, I don't know how much and I am even afraid to acknowledge it for fear I was just imagining it or wishful thinking. 
 During a group this morning we were discussing feelings and how to experience and manage them in a healthy way be those feelings bad or good.  There really are no "bad" feelings per se.  What makes a feelings good or bad is how we react and deal with them.  If you are wondering why we would be discussing feelings, addicts are notorious for numbing our feelings or dealing with them in very unhealthy ways.  Once you start getting some clean time and you start feeling again it is not uncommon to want to use to avoid them. You re-experience or perhaps feel fully for the first time grief, anger, remorse or anything really.  It can be scary.
Anyway, during the group one fellow just couldn't understand how you can go about learning how to feel again or change bad coping skills.  The answer to that by the way is practice.  12 step programs and therapy are invaluable  for doing just that.  This guy refuses to attend 12 step meetings and thinks therapy is for "pussies", as he stated.  The only reason he attends this particular group is because he is court ordered to and he makes no qualms about stating that fact.  Listening to him and sensing his inability to grasp the concept of learning to express feelings in a healthy way and refusal to accept help reminded me of where I was.  I fought getting help for a long time and I blamed everything that is wrong in my life on everyone else but me.   I suddenly realized how far I have come.  I have changed.  I had thought that who we are, and how we think were attributes that were firmly in place by the time we are 16 and  are basically inmmutable.    I thought that only a near death experience or something terribly  traumatic like going to war could change a person on a fundamental level.  I am glad to report that I was dead wrong about that. 
Believe me I am not being arrogant or looking down on that guy or anyone else.  I was suddenly just made aware of how I have changed.  I feel like I am finally getting a start on the right path.  I am looking forward to learning more and more and I pray that everyone out there who is lost and suffering finds their way too.
Happy spring everyone!!

Feeling Good

The title says it all, I am feeling pretty good these days.  My sleep patterns are still messed up and my head a little fuzzy but I think I am healing.  The human body sure is incredible it can take such abuse and neglect and still it always naturally moves toward balance.
  I have racked up 8 consecutive days of complete abstinence.   That may not sound like much but it is the longest stretch of complete abstinence I have had since 2006!   I am still going to meetings everyday and reading recovery literature.  I truly believe the tipping point was the my formally asking my Higher Power for help in the 3rd Step.  I have always accepted Christ as my Savior and looked to him for strength and guidance, but when I was really deep in my addictions I turned my back on Him.  Now I see that like a patient and loving parent he was waiting for me to come around and ask for help.  He never gave up on me and accepted me back like the prodigal son I am.
Anyhow it is time to look for a job and think about going back to school.  There are 9 more steps to go through and so much more to learn, but I think the major crisis is over.
I thank everybody and all my new friends in the program for the support and well wishes.
Have a great day !!

Saturday Night Live

The title has nothing to do with content of this posting, I was watching SNL so it was on my mind.  Things are getting better and better.  I am enjoying the longest stretch of continuos sobriety I have had since 2006.  It feels great! I'd forgotten what it was like to look forward to the day when I wake up and go to sleep naturally at night.  This is the time when I have to be careful.  When I am feeling good.  I am used to feeling like crap and not having much hope. This feeling good thing kind of scares me.  I take comfortin  knowing that I can count on the Christ within me and my new friends in the Fellowship to get me through it.
I have been thinking what a strange trip it has been to get to this moment.  I know that everything went down the way it did to teach me.  Instead of me feeling angry at myself and regretting all that I have missed and all that I have done, I am looking at it positively.  I might not have the relationship with my Higher Power that I have now or have learned so much if life had gone the route I originally thought it would at this point in my life.  I caused my self and the people I love so much pain.  I will not dwell in the past I will make darn sure now and the future is awesome.  Thats all I have right now.  I think I'll hit the sack.
  Have a great night all!

Easy does it.

Got through Step 3 last night!!  Woo Hoo!!  This past St. Patrick's was my first totally sober in quite some time.  It was never a big party night for me, I considered it amateur night.  I am may have not started at 7 AM that day but I was usually the last man standing that night.  Anywhoo, my sponsor had me say aloud a prayer to make it official.  The prayer basically boils down to "Father I admit I can't change by myself and I surrender my will to You."  The next steps will be identifying my defects of character as they are called and asking Christ to remove them.  Then will come identifying the people I have wronged and making plans to make amends.  That is the part I am looking forward to, taking the garbage out.   
I was reminded by something I failed to do the other night for a friend.  I am trying very hard to change but it served to remind me it isn't all going to happen at once.  I have had many years of selfish living and twisted thinking that has laid down patterns.  Don't get me wrong I am not excusing myself for acting like a douche but it reminded me "Easy does it".

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!  I read an article on St.Patrick this afternoon and he was really a quite a historical character.  Apparently he was captured and enslaved by an Irish clan for many years before he managed to escape and return to Britain.  Instead of spending the rest of his life bitter and resentful he returned to Ireland to minister and generally be a great guy.  Obviously, he was sainted  after all.  Legend has it he also rid Ireland of snakes but it is agreed that the snakes probably represented ill will and resentment and not actual snakes. So St. Patrick's Day is also about celebrating freedom from whatever holds you in bondage, forgiving others and yourself and moving on.
More and more every day I am beginning to realize that I have been soul-sick and have spent a lot of time and energy trying to medicate that state or at least try to forget about it.  Drugs and alcohol filled that void at one time but they are never the cure, in fact you end up losing more and more of your soul as you sink deeper into that hole.  Maybe that void is what Catholicism labeled "Original Sin".  Maybe the fall from grace meant we all just forgot we have the spark of the Divine within us and it is just the human condition to feel that loss somewhere deep inside.  We all search for it in some way shape or form some of us just get more lost or mislead than others.  Sorry to get all philosphical but a full day of groups and meetings gets my mind working overtime.  :>
As you can see I have way too much time on my hands, it is time to kick the job search up another few notches or go back to school.

Prayer

Hello, I have added a few more books to the reading list, I did a LOT of reading this past weekend.  I also added a movie list.  The list will include movies and DVDs with recovery and spirirtual themes.  If anyone reading this has suggestions for books, movies or anything please share them.
The 4T class I have been taking at Renaissance Unity moved into prayer techniques last night.  It was very different for me I was raised Catholic and am thusly used to the long beseeching prayers that go along with being Cathlolic.  The technique taught in Unity is much simpler, inner directed, free flowing and done in the present tense affirmative.  For example:  The Christ spirit within me guides me to happy health and sobriety.  I have invoked Christ' name and prayed as if what I am seeking I am in the process of recieving right now rather than at some later time.  It is a totally different way of prayer that is more personal and concrete.  We broke off into prayer circles in the class as well.  I have never prayed with other people I don't know before and it was very different for me but I liked it.  The premise is that when you pray with others they can believe in what you are praying for even at times when your faith is weak.
I have been put on a list to go to a rehab center from my therapist.  She and my sober buddy thinks it could be just the final piece to get things rolling in then right direction.  Twenty one days in a rehab center where the opportunity for temption is eliminated provides a very good enevironment to get down to the root causes of addiction I am told.  If I am unable to blog for a few weeks, you will know I got the green light to go inpatient.
My sponsor is going to be guiding me through the 4th step starting tomorrow.  The 4th step is where you take a good hard look at yourself, everything; the good bad and the ugly.  After that you ask God to take the garbage out and then you can focus on making amends.  But that is getting ahead of myself.  I am excited and daunted by this part of the program.  Old timers tell me this is where you start cleaning house and the spiritual awakening occurs that will lift the obsession of addiction.  Sounds good to me I am ready!!!
Later Tater

Superman

I have been silent for a few days, since wednesday actually.   I fell into a pattern, a trap and luckily one of my nearest and dearest pointed it out to me.   It is all well and good that I have been going to all the 12 step meetings,groups classes, reading the literature, praying and meditating.  It all means nothing if you don't put it all into action.  In fact in the 12 steps the first 3 are admission, surrender and asking for help steps. The next 4 through 9 are action steps where you take all you have learned and start to live again.  I was stalled on the first 3.   The whole 12 step is based on constant action and growth.  I have been going through my life thinking I can't really begin to live until "all my ducks are in  a row".  Those duck never line up perfectly or even show up at the same time.  It is insane to think I have any control over those ducks anyway.   The point being I was walking around assuming that all my heroes and people I admire somehow had some knowledge that I lacked that enabled them to grow at the same time as living a life, having a careeer,raising kids, doing great things.  I failed to realize none of us are perfect.  I thought everyone else was somehow a little more perfect than I could ever be.  As far I as I know, none of us on the mortal realm have ever been anything close to perfect except for one of us who lived and died to show us what we can be and that it is OK to be flawed.  That is our gift that God gave us above all His other creations:  free will.  Without it we would be just another animal that lives and dies, fulfulling its part in the web of life.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am avid collector of comic books.  My favorite has always been Superman.   He has all these vast powers and abilities that could enable him to have anything a man could ever want or need for.  Instead he uses them for good and considers it his responsibility to do so.   I have failed to realize he has evolved over the years.  He stll has all his powers but now he tries to balance them by having a job, spending time with his family and friends  and doing all the things that make life interesting and exciting.  I know it is pretty weird for a grown man to talk about Superman like he is real.  I have always been paralyzed by the fact I will never have super powers and realistically devote all my life and energies to service.  My addictive all or nothing thinking has told me that if I can't live up to some ideal of what I think a person needs to do to be "good" I may as well not do anything.
I went to a meeting on Satrurday night where this whole table was talking about how they have lost their jobs , have kids who are in crisis and all sorts of other things going on in their lives but they still practice a spiritual program and take their time out to do service work and help others.  They have balance.  You can't do it all and just because you aren't Superman doesn't mean you can't be a hero.  You don't have to be doing huge things to make a difference
I was approaching this blog project as sort of a task that when I was done then I would be free.  I have been waiting for someone or something else to tell me how to live.  I have been searching outside of myself for things to make me feel whole and serene.  How twisted is that, you should never reach a point where you say "OK I am here I made it".  Life is a journey not a destination.  I will add more to this tomorrow.  My mom saids she needs to get online.  So, off I go to do karate in the garage.

Another Day.

Just another day fighting the good fight.  Nothing exciting to write about or earth shattering revelations to ponder.  I am trying to feel cheerful and nice but the mood just won't come.  I was in a group this morning and I was feeling lackluster and barely even spoke at all.  That is not good for oneself and the group as a whole not to chime in with something.  We are all inter-connected and need each other for support and growth.  I just didn't have anything good to say and when I feel like that I think it is wise to just shut-up.  Anyway, I will be back later with something.  I am going to resist the urge to just go back to bed and pull the covers over my head.  Nothing happens when you just sit back and vegetate.

We Thought We Could Find an Easier and Softer Path

"We thought we could find an easier and softer path".   This is a quote from the Big Book,  it means most of us try to find the easiest path to peace and serenity rather than doing the soul searching and  life rearranging and short-term sacrifice necessary to do it.   I am the most guilty of this.   I like instant or instant gratification.  Like I said before I have screwed around and half-assed recovery a lot the past 2 years.  True, it probably has saved me from bottoming out big-time i.e. killing someone, doing real time in real jail.  It is said AA will screw up your drinking and drugging.  You can't unhear the message and there is no going back once you have.  It's true, once you know there is  freedom  possible from one first step whenever you drink or drug a new layer of shame and self butt kicking is laid down.  True insanity sets in, you keep walking down the same path and falling in a hole.  You know the hole is there and that to avoid the hole only requires to go down a different path but you do it anyway with the insane idea that maybe this time will be different.  The hole gets deeper every time and takes more time and energy to get out of.  That is the nature of addiction.  Those who are social drinkers and druggers don't go through the same process.  When people say "just don't do it in the first place", that is logical sane advice but it means nothing to the addict.   I don't think I have true physical addiction to drink and drugs......yet. I can't imagine what hell that is.  To literally need to take something to calm shakes, vomiting and seizures.  To NEED to drink rather than just want to numb oneself.   Veterans who have been to the edge and back tell of a place where it stops working altogether.  Alcohol is the only detox that can literally kill you.  Coke and heroin detox will make you  feel like you'll die, but you won't.  I haven't reached that point YET.  That is a 12 step saying:  THE YETS. I have passed a few yets over the years, a DUI, being jobless, stealing from people who love me and past-tense trusted me to get high.   There is a whole other nightmare world of yets that I can't even fathom.  The people that have been to that edge and have lived to tell about it I tip my hat to, it is probably safe to say most fall right over the edge into the abyss.
That is all of my thoughts of the day, I will return to digging into the Big Book.  Sorry to be all doom and gloom today but that is my general disposition right now.

March Round up Part II

One word: powerful.   There was a headcount of 2100 on Saturday night.  That  many people all gathered together with one thing in common.   It was a total cross section of humanity: there were men,women, kids, black,white, red ,yellow, big small, handicapped, deaf, rich, poor, people with 1 day of sobriety all the way up to 60 years.  The headliner speaker was a guy from California who has had a life that has been so tragic and heroic that it is too far out to be possibly made up.  I met so many new people and saw so many familiar faces from the area.  
The people in and aroind the convention were so nice, I felt like I belonged there.  That is part of the reason why I drink and drug is because I have always felt out of place everywhere I go.  All these poeple living a better life and giving a shit about each other, thats what I want to be a part of.  When the meeting
ended with the everybody holding hands and reciting the Lord's Prayer the Love in the room was so palpable it sat on my chest with a warm glow.
I stopped by a local bar on my way home just to see who was out.  I had a coke and a really really drunk guy was sitting next to me and telling me about his little grandaughter and how he had taught her to rollerskate backwards today.  He was  telling me that his granddaughter is the only thing that keeps him alive.  I didn't know  what to say.  He offered to buy me pithcher of beer and it was pretty obviose he wanted someone to talk to.  I excused myself and said no thanks for the beer and bid everyone a goodnight.  On the way home I got to thinking that the guy was hurting and I just walked away without saying what I felt..  So I went back to the bar and tried to engage the guy in conversation, but he was really too wasted to talk e that soemone would have done the same for me in my time of need.  This 12 step work and I have but begun to work the 1st step. But  a fellow human being is hurting and it is my resposibilty to dos omething about it even if I only have 12 hours of sobriety behind me.
This is the tipping point.

March Roundup

I am going to go to the March Roundup I have decided.  It is one of the big yearly AA conventions.   I need to find something to cling to.  Last night I drank and even smoked some weed.  I was supposedly picking someone up from a party and I went in to say "hello" to the homeowner whom I know.  Bad mistake, I ended up coming home at 6 in the morming and totally trashed my plans to go to yoga in the morning and then hit a meeting.   I have failed to make recovery my NUMBER ONE priority.   So I am  going to go to the convention with an open mind.  I need to find something.  Talk to you later.

Here I Sit......

I have been drinking tonight.   No good reason to.  As if is there ever is.  :>   I would have probably had more but the last 7 eleven I was about to stop at had 2 of Fraser's finest parked in the lot.   If the that is not God telling me to stop and go home I don't know what is.  I feel lonely and like the biggest loser in the world right now.  I could call any one of my friends and my new sponsor but I don't.  I wonder how much pain does it take, how much loss does it take to make me get it?  Do I need to go to jail?  Do I need to have a doctor tell me my liver is shot and if I continue this way I won't live to see 40.   I don't know  what triggered me, I went to a group tonight and it was really good.  I met someone I haven't seen since highschool and he told me how he has been clean for 1 year now.  Some how I have made it OK to let myself down again and again and again.  Even with this blog I thought would leave me so naked and exposed that I would have no choice but to clean up.  What does it take.  Why does God keep letting me live?  What is in store for me that I have to continue to draw breath everyday?  Tommorow I will wake up and start the whole process over again.  This is what it has come down to: drinking and using and then taking a couple of days to put out the fires I've started and begin to feel normal again and then go and fuck it all up again.  THAT is insanity doing the same thing over and over again.   I am very tired and want to go to sleep.   I am going to take an Ambien.  I will get back on it tomorrow.

One Day at a Time.

Just checking in here.  I almost didn't call my sponsor yesterday.  It is my twisted thinking kicking in:  not accepting help from anyone,thinking I can do it all by myself and thinking the universe revolves around Steve and what he is feeling.  I told my sponsor that and he laughed and said he remembers being the same way back in the day.  He also said he needs me as a sponsee more than I need him as a sponsor.  After 24 years of sobriety it is much easier for him to rationalize going out again and he has a hell of a lot more to lose.  When you relapse you go back to square one.  I cannot imagine the dissapointment and frustrartion it must cause to lose all those years and have to start all over. People with longtime sobriety need to give it away to newbies to stay fresh in the program.  It is a symbiotic relationship.  More and more it is dawning on me that this is not a fix or a cure.  This a total lifestyle change.  I am trying very hard to let go.  I don't know why I am resisting so much.  It seems so simple just DON'T pick-up and all the other steps will come naturally.  Can you imagine if tomorrow doctors announced that the cure for cancer was not drinking beer.  How many people wish it were that easy.  I want to just do it and get on with my life.
I started the 4T Prosperity course at Renaissance Unity last night.  Again I say if you are looking for some spiritual direction in your life do your self a favor and check out RU.  The 12 week course is based on the AA 12 steps and involves tithing.  I am not excited about tithing 10% of my paltry earnings at this stage of my life, but realistically looking at it I spent way more than that  every week on drink and drugs and all that goes with it.
I am going to take the leap of faith.  I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
So tonight yoga then an 8:30 meeting and then sleep.  I'll come up swinging again tomorrow.
Later Tater

Hold Your Breath and Jump.

Just got done watching Celebrity Rehab.  If you have never watched it, it is a great show.  When the first season aired I was so dissapointed in Dr. Drew, whom I have admired ever since I first heard him on "Love Lines" with Adam Corrola almost 20 years ago., I thought he was just going to show celebrity trainwrecks for the amusement of the public.  I have since changed my mind.  The show illustates that addiction knows no one identity.  It has no age, ethnicity, social status, or occupation.  The Heath Ledgers or the Michael Jackons of the world have the same disease of the mind  as myself or the homeless man behind the 7-Eleven  Addiction will take everything from you.  It will take your job, your self respect, the trust of people you love and finally your  life.  People we idolize as having the "life" we want are no diffrent or more or less invunerable than any of us are.
I got a temporary sponsor last night.  I must say it scares the shit out of me. I have reached out and asked for someones's help and that is not something I have ever been comfortable doing.  I feel even more naked and transparent than even the first syllable that I wrote on this blog did.  It is real now.  This is it.  Shit or get off the pot.  Anyway, my sponsor told me to read pages 1-164 in the Big Book.  The Big Book or Blue Book is the Bible of AA if you don't know.  I am going to meet him and his 2 other sponsees at a meeting New Baltimore tonight.  Wish me luck.
At a meeting this morning, a guy I have never seen around before told the table he had bought a shotgun an a pint of vodka on Sunday.  You could have heard a cricket fart it got so quiet.  He told us how he awoke from a blackout at his brothers house with a hole in the ceiling.  He was walking out the door and one of the old timers stopped him and walked him back in.  I am assuming he was going to hook him up with a sponspor or a list of phone numbers at least.  I am glad that old timer was there to do it. This sounds selfish but I am ashamed of myself that I didn't do anything myself. I have the intention that I will never, ever think I don't have the authority or the "right" amount of clean time to reach out to a fellow human being again.  I thank God that the old timer did, I have no doubt that man's life was saved today.
It has been a awesome day so far I and bid you all a good night.
Later Tater