positivity – Trezvennost II

A Trick and a Half

Quitting drinking or using – easy. You stop taking the substances and that’s it. You can quit twenty times a day.

Staying sober, now that’s a trick and a half.

AA says how to do it is HOW does it. Honesty (with self), Open-mindedness, and Willingness. I always want to add to it Positivity. As the other three, positivity is to be learned, not simply acquired.

All of us, I assume, don’t want to let distress of the great world mess our own world and how we prefer to have things done. Not many people know how do deal with usual stress when they are healthy. Anxiety and ever lingering worries happen to all. Now, when you are on path of recovery from substances, you are hardly healthy. And anxiety grows as you learn to abstain and live without harmful stuff that you used to rely on to keep in better spirits and overcome obstacles, while to trying to behave in a socially acceptable way.

Quitting and recovering on ones own is not a good idea, as I’ve learned with my own skin. I tried. It didn’t work nicely at all. Besides not having anyone to talk to about what I was going through, I also allowed myself to do the role of calling myself on my own bullshit. Big mistake. Add to it that I didn’t really know what I was dealing with and had no working plan. Mission failed at start.

Those days, my mind was a haunted house.

(the image above is cute, not weird, but you get the idea) Old memories and ghosts of life that didn’t go too well, it seemed, those kept coming often, if not all the time. Resentments kept crawling in legions out of the shadowed corners when I least expected them. I was lucky my physical health wasn’t much compromised, yet still I was treading on a black ice. I didn’t see the danger of swimming alone, so to say, not seeing but only imagining the course.

After plenty of attempts of swimming alone, I had to ask for help. I’ve quit drinking, yes, but I stayed not drinking without resentments of not drinking. I managed to stay and keep positive, because I’ve allowed myself to be honest with myself, not reject ideas without looking at them first, and oh, was I ever willing to keep going forward. It worked and still works. There is still stress, still tricks, because I consider life itself as a one big riddle with a perpetual bag of tricks tucked in its armpit. Those won’t run out, as far as I can see. But now I’ve got a plan, and not imaginary. I know what works and I do that, and I don’t swim alone anymore.

(the image was copied from https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/371617406723139066/?autologin=true thank you.)

no competition

The first person I approached in AA that I talked to for longer than five minutes (I guess that’s my attention span for all things new and challenging) said he was 19 years sober. I didn’t believe it. Later I’ve learned he was telling the truth. But in that moment, and for a while after, I figured there was no way someone would be 19 years sober and a) still going to meetings; b) be as positive and cheerful as that guy certainly was. Yet at the same I really wanted to have some of that positivity for myself. I was going through darker times. My life was out of control and I wasn’t enjoying reality.

The farther I went down the lane of AA-inspired positivity through sobriety and getting more of a hold on reality, the more I was wondering of how far can I get and for how many years I could actually stay that way. On the other hand, I kept being reminded that years are not that important. What counts is days, since we do it one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. That is the principle that the whole wisdom of AA, besides going to meetings, listening and sharing and connecting through all that, is based on. One day at a time, one step at a time. It is that simple, it is that hard. Simple because it is not a complicated idea, and if we put our mind to it, we can all do it, whatever it is we focus on. Hard because it still takes me a while from time to time to keep it in mind when I’m tackling something that is larger than me (or feels that way).

So, there is no competition for trying to get more years under the belt, being older in sobriety than others. Focusing on time take the focus off the quality of recovery that we do/live. In my case, when I was four years old in AA measures, I knew more than I know now. Yet now I feel more than I felt then. Now I absorb more from the world and how it changes. I must admit, sometimes it doesn’t do me much good, because I fall into negativity thinking of how hopeless it is to keep going through the world that is eating itself alive. That’s one of the things that getting old does, I guess. It’s probably my realistic age that does that to me. But then my AA age tells me to get going with the program, call upon my fellows and drink from the wisdom well, the positive one, with hope and lightness in a mix. And it works well that way.

Thinking can play tricks on you sometimes and let you forget the simple truths. The closer it gets to the time of another milestone, another year to celebrate recovery, the more I think of time. So when I catch myself doing that, I turn that thinking into reflecting with care. I compare the years passed -what I’ve learned, what I’ve forgotten, perhaps, and what I’ve seen in a different light. Been sober for several years allows for thoughts of security in mental and spiritual terms. I mean, you’ve learned something, you made it work for you, and if you keep practicing that wisdom, it will keep you strong for times to come. Yet if I think of myself as someone got more recovery time than others, and because of that as someone important, and that somehow make me more special than them, it’s a step in a wrong direction. I am no better or worse than them. They tackle their demons, I fight mine. I just have more tools to do so. Maybe they were born under less of a kind sun than I have. That makes me more fortunate, but that means I should be more compassionate and less full of myself that I sometimes may be.

Years count for something, though – I have an opportunity to keep celebrating my recovery in a social setting and with that I share of my experience, goods and bads, wisdom and stupidity. That way others have an opportunity to learn from my mistakes, and with their actions perhaps the world may benefit somehow, in 0.0001 percent maybe, but I think that still counts. It is easy to burn the bridges. It takes longer to build them back up. Hopefully, the time spent on rebuilding will also allow for using better technologies (perspectives) on how to make it steadier to avoid easy destruction in the future.

the image was copied from http://www.chrispacke.com/2012/03/perfect-lack-of-competition/. thank you.

How to Read A Book

How do I read a book? From the beginning. One page at a time. While it goes fun, I don’t care for how many pages are left to go through. Then that may change, and I start looking at page numbers and count how many days it may take me to finish the book. Still, though, no matter how much I’m planning to read it, I don’t get to completing it unless I go one page at a time. If I cheat and skip parts, I miss something and then I find myself confused about things not making sense.

How do you walk a road toward a location? Not drive, or ride a bike, – walk? Hopefully, the way I do it. That is, one step at a time, putting one foot in front of the other. Watching your step is also highly recommended. I don’t remember if I was told how to read the book the right way, but I sure was told how to walk. It works well just the way I was told. I usually keep up a good stature and good pace, and hey, I get where I need to, even if the weather conditions aren’t as favorable as I may have wanted.

How do I live sober? Not how you live sober, or how you should live sober. That is none of my business. I have some ideas to share, though. Nothing crazy. It works just the same way as with reading a book and walking down the road. It even can be tightly related to those two. It is a one step at a time kind of a thing. Sometimes it is a foot, sometimes a couple inches. Sometimes it is a day, but in the beginning it is more of an hour. One in front of the other. When I went one step without booze a day it was easier to focus without too many thoughts, fears, and doubts attached. One step at a time, guarded by a “thank you” at wake-up time, and the other at bedtime. That’s what AA taught me. They taught me well. It works. Step by step progress may not seem like a good ride, but it is, because there are so many examples and metaphors I can find to put “one step at a time” path of living in front of you. That’s right, path of living, because everything that is to stand strong and last works that way.

the image was copied from http://entertainment.time.com/2012/06/06/a-book-lovers-guide-to-reading-and-walking-at-the-same-time/ modified by me for the sake of Saturday morning goofballingness. thank you.

Smoking Open Lights

I’ve just realized that I’ve made it for ten years without smoking tobacco or any other substance this past month. I used to count them, but this year it somehow crept up on my unexpectedly.

I most likely wouldn’t be able to come to not smoking at all if thirteen years and nine months ago I didn’t make a conscious decision to quit… drinking. Weird? No anymore, not to me anyway.

I came to the recovery fellowship and I’ve learned plenty of skills. As the result, I’ve quit drinking which would not work if I didn’t acquire a certain program of thinking and being, a life style that pushed for a healthier life in spirit, body, and mind. Thanks to that, I managed to see clearer some other unhealthy things that I did in my life, behaviors that didn’t help, such as isolating and judging others. A couple years after, “doing” the Steps, I came to the realization that I could quit smoking cigarettes with the help of the Steps wisdom since nothing else worked. This worked out successfully, as some other things. Some didn’t, but that’s life. I keep trying and among other things, I keep saying “thank you” when things work out, whether it is small or large.

“Thank you” is something so easily said, as well as “sorry” or “how are you”, and I think often we don’t really think about it, as we say it to others, or when they say it to us. I try to think about it lately, though. There are lots of things to be grateful for, even if life is not working the way I would prefer it did.

In the Fellowship I was taught to be grateful for every day. It worked when I tried it in my morning prayer. Yet I still resisted being grateful throughout the day. I was happy for sobriety yet I often resented people around me. My first couple years in sobriety were of solid sobriety but at times I felt miserable, because… well, I don’t really know why, but I think I was not there spiritually as much as I could have been. What I decided I’d start doing is saying thank you to people who did the jobs that I knew I would never do successfully. They did their service and I paid for it and I’d say thank you. Within less than ten days my outlook on life started changing for the better.

Soon after that I started working at a homeless shelter. There I met people who were angry about everything, dissatisfied with anything, and it used to distress me, but with time I learned to think they were not having a good day lifetime long. There were also people who woke up and said thank you to anything, to every little thing others did for them. I felt connected to these people, and years later I wrote a novella about that spirit of open-mindedness and gratitude for life.

I don’t think I’d be able to come this far in life and doing reasonably well if I didn’t push myself out of the dark room and allowed myself to have a different life. I used to isolate so much I’ve become a professional isolationist and procrastinator with a diploma hanging on the wall. Even in an active community of recovery with so many things happening, with so much positivity and vigor one can still live a stagnant life. I could have easily slipped through the cracks in these rooms if it wasn’t for the man named Ted. He not only welcomed me into recovery, he also gave me a good kick in the butt to live my recovery actively, and he did it with a cheer and I appreciated that. Years later our paths separated due to disagreements which is still upsetting to me, but I hope he is doing good and maybe one day we will be talking again.

Ted had a vibe full of life, and that vibe infected me, wanting more of life than just living sober. It brought forth the fruits of labor that was sober living, joyful life of recovery that keeps going on, like a wheel turning. There are many people in rooms of sobriety that I’ve met over the years. I am grateful to them all and I hope many others that are in need of help will be able to open their spirits to gratitude and trust to the world wide fellowship of AA and as the result will heal and expand their lives for much better than they ever knew was possible.

instead of a diploma, enjoy the front image that was taken by me. the punctuation (or the lack there of) game made me capture the sign and then inspired me to write this. so, thank you to whoever designed the sign ignoring the (un)holy laws of English punctuation and those who put the sign up.