Letting your Guard down..

In sobriety, or recovery, letting your guard down can cause many problems. The reality is that the relapse happens weeks before the first drink. Not working the steps on a daily basis will make this happen. In my recovery I have let my guard down too much, and that's when the drink can do whatever it wants with me. I am powerless. It's not my will power isn't strong enough, its that I have NO power over the drink....none what so ever. The beauty is that I can reset at anytime during the day, or everyday when I need. God wants me to be happy, God wants me to be clean and sober and God wants me to be the best husband and father I can be. No matter how hard I try, I CANNOT beat this disease, its only God that can help me or actually DO IT for me. I have not been giving him my disease lately, I have been holding on to it for myself. That is where my downfall is, holding on to my alcoholism. Each day I give it up I succeed, but when I keep it, I don't.

God is working in me what I cannot do for myself.

Today I am grateful for:

• The reset button when things go wrong.
• Knowing that I am exactly where I need to be.
• The truths I learn when I don't do what I need, and the truths I learn when I do what I need.
• My wife and her support. Even in the midst of Chaos.

Emotional hurt from the past

The more I go through the process the more I can feel that I can change the pattern I have. I really can see actual things that I am changing, direct result of the program. I see how I am not trying to manipulate every situation and every thing that goes on around me. It is a miracle for me even to give a little control to my higher power. I am happy each day that I can try and do this just a little bit.

Today I am grateful for:

• The work week and having a job.
• Spending time with a friend who can help me think clearer.
• My meeting schedule for the week.
• My family and the struggles we went through making us stronger.

Honesty

It doesn't matter how honest we are from day one, it only matters how honest we are PERIOD. I sit and am in the process of doing my fourth step. IT HURTS. It makes me sad and frankly it is brutal. One thing I know though, is that the wreckage of my past will always come back to haunt me unless I can clear it and forget it. Uncover, discover, discard. My wife and I are going through this about a thing that came up from 2 years ago. I didn't tell her this thing, because I haven't done my fourth step, but sometimes you just need to be honest. So I came clean about everything related to the matter and other things. It made me feel good, but made our relationship strained. I guess when you are in recovery the wreckage will always be there until you get rid of it, and the way you deal with it shows your growth.

Today I am grateful for:

• My daughter.
• My wife.
• My amends and hoping they will be accepted.
• My cross talk meeting and being honest.
• Leaving it to God.

Powerless...

I am back to the blogging world. I took a break because frankly I wasn't working a strong program. I thought that I could do this without this aspect of my program. What happened? I became grumpy all the time, restless, and irritable. Don't even talk to me about discontent. It seems that when we get away from the drink, life inevitably gets in the way. It could be a trip, someone saying something we didn't like, or just plain life...it can take us from our program if we are not careful. I am powerless over those feelings. I am powerless over how being a dry drunk makes me feel. I hope that I can learn from that and work a harder and harder program everyday.

Today I am grateful for:

• The program I know I need, and the work I have done to keep me here.
• My wife and her program.
• Not having to walk this road alone.
• Completing my first 3 steps and the chance to get real with another alcoholic on Saturday about them.
• My mind clearing from the fog of an emotional hangover.
• That I trudge the road with so many others.
• That God does when I seek him.

Pause, react...

The best thing I can do for myself is to slow down, pause, then react. Drunk, sober, clean or not it is a lesson everyone can learn. Usually our initial reaction to something or someone is emotionally charged, therefore leaving us to react in an emotional way. The reality, however, is if we take a moment and breathe, and God willing, think about our reaction we can have a more positive experience. It is human nature to protect ourselves, emotionally and physically, in any way possible. Therefore, we react as such. Self is first. If we slow down and think about the situation and circumstances, we find that we react with others in mind first, and that is what our Higher Power would have us do.

Trust God, Clean House, and Help Others.

Today I am grateful for:

• My daughter and her special smiles.
• A little bit of financial security.
• Letting go of petty differences.
• My wife's trust as I get ready to go away for a couple of days for work stuff.
• The little voice that can calm me down and help me understand that waiting is better.

Idle Time..

In sobriety Idle time can make your brain go one hundred miles a minute. The reality is that we must find other things to do to occupy our time, hopefully productive things. It never ceases to amaze me how much my mind can go crazy just because I have nothing to do. I try and fill my time up now with things that can be productive. That is the only way to combat our disease.

Today I am grateful for:

• The nice weekend.
• Getting my chores done this morning before the in laws arrive.
• My daughter's grandparents coming..
• Letting go today and letting God.

Grateful

Today I am grateful for:

• Closer to the weekend!!!
• My body feeling better and better each day.
• The love of my wife and family.
• Trying to help another alcoholic who is trying to find his way to the program.
• My daughter's vocabulary, it makes me laugh.

Quality...

I read somewhere today about the quality not the quantity of sobriety. It is important to me to really be IN recovery. Before it was about counting days and saying I have this much time, and while it is important to have that, it is more important, FOR ME, to live better. Live in recovery. To face problems, make amends, be gracious, humble, all these things that the program gives us, these are the things that are important to me. The quality of my sobriety today is the most important thing.

Today I am grateful for:

• A crisp summer morning.
• Not missing the garbage trucks, as I forgot to put out the cans last night.
• A fresh week full of promise.
• Meetings that I like all over!!!!!

Sitting in discomfort....

At a meeting today a person spoke of doing his personal inventory. He said it was taking so long because after 25 minutes he had to stop because of the shame, guilt, pain etc...Since this is a crosstalk meeting, I politely challenged him and said "that is what the program is about, sitting in those feelings, feeling them and changing. If we don't do that we are covering up our feelings with something other than alcohol."
That is the point of this program, and becoming a better person in general. No one wants to admit that they did things which are so awful most normal folk would cringe. Or discover our feelings that hurt. The goal is to really FEEL what that is like, and then get rid of that feeling. To get a paradigm shift we must sit in our feelings, get through them and grow. That is the only way to grow in life, to confront. The more we shut the door and ignore the worse things are.
I pray I can confront things that are coming up in my inventory, both daily and my inventory from my past. Thanks to this program, I believe I can...

Today I am grateful for:

• Not shutting the door on my past.
• A 10th step inventory with my wife yesterday that helped us discover why we were "irritated" at one another.
• My loving daughter.
• My meeting showing me that we all need to grow, no matter what.
• That by the Grace of God....

Restless, Irritable and discontent...

These three words describe every alcoholic at some point. These can also describe every alcoholic who is not in recovery, even if they are not drinking. I found myself that way this morning, as the traffic was backed up for no reason, and it was going to make me late for my meeting. Then as I arrived at the meeting, really no regulars were there, leaving me to a strange meeting basically. My mind kept racing, wanting to leave, what good was this going to do me...etc...and basically pissed off. As I listened to the speaker, he talked about an antibiotic he is on that makes his fuse short and he is irritable. I paused and then a relief came over me, that pill used to be alcohol for me. It made me irritable, restless and discontent. Today I can overcome those feelings by working the program. So I paused, cleared my head and reset for the day right in the middle of my favorite meeting. Good thing I did, because there were some great shares, and I reconnected with a guy I met a while ago in the rooms. Point being, we don't need to have these feelings or act on them. We don't have to be restless, irritable and discontent anymore. We can be free of those feelings....thank God....

Today I am grateful for:

• Our local carnival that we can walk to!
• The rooms and the quiet peace I find there.
• A reset button, thank goodness.
• The calm feeling I get when I hit my reset button...
• Work going smoother....

Random Fridays...Suiting up...showing up...

The miracles of the program never cease to amaze me. The healing that happens everyday around me is great. Trying to become something else and to heal what is inside me never was a possibility in the past. In recovery there is a way and a hope of healing myself, and the people that I have hurt. The program teaches us to be better, think better and live better....one more day.

Today I am grateful:

• Coffee this morning from my beautiful wife.
• FRIDAY!!!
• Having somewhat of a vacation to look forward to..
• My weekend meetings and a fair with my family...

Staying the course...

The beauty of the program is that as long as you correct and stay your course you can stay in recovery. I have learned that I can start over each day I have to, many times if need be, just to make sure my thinking is where it should be. There are events and things that are going to happen that set me OFF!!! But if I can stay the course, correct my heading I will be ok. Remember if you are travelling 10000 miles and you set your bearings one or two degrees off, by the time you get to your destination, you will be nowhere near where you want to be.

Today I am grateful for:

• Pausing before reacting at a work incident last night.
• My wife's fabulous poker playing, won us a little money!!
• Correcting a course which would have taken me to places I don't wan to be...
• my daughter and her smile..

Post on the go. I'm just grateful to be alive today. I have a lot of Joy.

Freeing...

"I didn't think a lot of myself, but I thought a lot about myself." AA Member

Its true when I was drinking and not in recovery that I was very selfish, yet I hated who I was. I know that is odd, but I think every alcoholic feels the same way. Our "self" was the most important thing, however we couldn't admit that we hated who we were. In recovery it is freeing to know that we can think of others and not be enslaved with our selfish thoughts. "Free me from the bondage of self..." as it says in the third step prayer. The bondage of alcohol is what kept us and the freedom from that is the freedom to love ourselves and others.

Today I am grateful:

• A friend is helping us get discount hotel rooms for our vacation, hopefully to Maui!!
• The coffee being made already this morning.
• A restful night.
• My meeting last night, and feeling a little more free each day.

Self seeking is leaving....

I more and more feel less and less selfish! Does that make sense. There were times that all I wanted was for me. That I only thought of myself and nothing else. Today it is changing. I care more about people, family and work. My thoughts don't automatically go to what is best for me, but what is best for others as well. I am not perfect. There are still so many times that I seek what can fulfill me right away. I need to center myself when this happens, get grounded and help others. It happens alot when I haven't checked in at a meeting or when I haven't read or prayed or meditated. Keeping myself grounded is the only way to live one day at a time, and if I don't then I cant promise myself the daily reprieve. Today I will have that reprieve and take advantage of not drinking.

Today I am grateful:

• Work slowly coming together.
• Surviving the first time speaking at a meeting, and people saying that what I shared helped them.
• Having everything I need today for a great day.
• A restful night uninterrupted by alcoholic waking up...shakes, etc...