Standing in my own way....

Often in life, I limit myself. I feel that I am less than or that I can't accomplish something that I set my mind to...this is a real part of my disease. I try to learn everyday that I can be good, I can be the person that I was intended to be. Despite my disease and addiction I am a child of God. My Higher Power wants me to be happy and healthy. I heard someone say "God doesn't have any grandchildren." I am a direct product of a divine being and for that I try and be grateful. My disease does not define me, and I feel that I have been letting it define me for several years now. I am trying to let go and not be in control, and to understand that the disease does NOT define me. I define me, my goodness defines me and My Higher Power has created me to be more than an alcoholic. This is just part of the path that I trudge. Along with a lot of other people!

Today I am grateful for:

• Friday and getting some work done outside this morning.
• The happiness I am feeling towards being a father.
• My program always evolving so that I can be better, and understand it better.
• God doing for me...

Courage to change the things I can..

In my program its always hard to know what I can change and what I cant. The reality is that the courage I need to change is simply this...do what the program tells me. Read, pray, meditate, call others, be of service. These are the things that I can do to change. It does take courage because that is so NOT me. I want to change everything by force or change things that cant be changed. Its a matter of acceptance for me, realizing that the courage I need to pick up the phone and talk to another member of AA is a lot more than the courage of picking up a drink.

Today I am grateful for:

• Getting to a meeting tonight, its my first time at this one and I am excited to see what it is about.
• Feeling more energy throughout the day.
• Discovering that one day at a time can work.
• My daughter's funny antics...
• God doing for me.....

Amends equals Amendment

I heard someone last night talk about making amends is like making an amendment to something, in other words to CHANGE something. It is not enough in this program to just say "I am sorry" and I did this and that, we must change the behavior that caused us to make this amends. Can the father who ignored his children because he drank say I am sorry then continue to ignore them for the program or work or something else? NO! We must say the amends try and heal that wound and CHANGE what we are doing. I am the worst at this. I love to say I am sorry and have no ability to change my behavior. The program is teaching me above all to change. Sometimes, I have heard, when we change the amends make themselves. I am starting my 4th step and am scared and happy at the same time. I hope that in doing this I can make true amends and move past this obsession and compulsion.

Today I am grateful for:

• My sunburn being almost gone, now to deal with peeling.
• My daughter feeling a bit better today.
• My body reacting well to the tea I am drinking.
• Work falling into place.

For the better...

The AA group exists to help all alcoholics find a better life. To be in the group is the only way to stay sober. I was listening to a speaker on my I POD last night as I was falling asleep and I heard him say that alcohol is not our problem, alcoholism is. Normal people when they have a problem with alcohol stop and their life gets better and they get happier. An alcoholic, whose thoughts and processes are pretty screwed up, who stops drinking and doesn't work a program just gets angry and hates their life. The program has allowed us to understand how to live a HAPPY life without alcohol. To treat people with respect and dignity. Also, the addict stopped growing emotionally when their addiction set in. You are stuck at your last point of when your addiction started unless you work a program. The most important part of our growth is trusting God. I can do this today, I can do this one day at a time.

Today I am grateful for:

• Maybe finding an office to be in while my job figures out where to put us all.
• My sunburn healing a bit...
• Sleeping in a little after our guests left town.
• My brother in law and his example as a father and friend.
• My wife's amazing motherhood.
• God really is doing for me what I cannot do for myself.

Restless

I seem to get very restless when I dont work the program as hard as I can. I want everything NOW. The patience part is the hardest thing to work on. I need to be more humble and learn to work on my disease with patience.

Today I am grateful for:

• Family visiting.
• Meetings this week.
• My serenity returning.

Serenity NOW!

My Saturday meeting is about serenity in relationships, something the alcoholic knows nothing about. As we are in recovery we learn how to pause, react differently and try to listen more. The most important thing I am learning is that I cannot control other people's choices or actions. It is easy for me to judge or get angry or say you should do this...but the reality is that in order to maintain serenity we cannot do that. One day at a time I am growing and learning how better to stop and listen than to interact in a negative way.

Today I am grateful for:

• My new book.
• The movie night last night with my wife, even though the movie was pretty strange.
• My daughter playing happily in her crib when mom and I overslept!
• Learning that the first two relationships I have to fix in sobriety are the ones I have with my Higher Power and with MYSELF!

Center of the universe...

Today I found myself falling into a pattern that can be dangerous to us alcoholics. Its something we all do and even more so the alcoholic. I was at work and had just had a conversation with my boss when another senior manager went into his office. I had a conversation with this senior manager earlier and thought nothing of it. However, when the door closed I immediately had my head spinning. Are they talking about me? What did I do? How can I interrupt and not be rude and hope to hear what they are talking about? Oh this is it I must be in trouble...WOW...how sick is that. All of our thinking can lead us to this, and in the drinking days I would have worried myself right to a bar. Well I still don't know what they talked about, but I can guarantee you it wasn't about me. I just thought it was. It goes back to keeping my side of the street clean and then I can deal with just about anything that comes my way. Its odd for me to try and think this way and break the pattern that I have created since I was a child. Just for an FYI to all you reading this the universe DOES NOT revolve around me. Even though I think it does.

Today I am grateful for:

• My wife and I being able to work out daycare where neither one of us has to take a full day off while our daughters daycare is on vacation.
• Waking up and not coming to...
• The beauty of the summer.
• Making my favorite meetings this weekend, I was not able to go last week.
• God doing for me...

Humility

Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. AA Seventh Step.

Although I am not on my seventh step yet, I can only imagine how we must kill our false pride when we are in recovery. It has always been a problem for me to have humility, even though I really don't like myself. But I wanted everyone to think I was great or had it all, and that created an over inflated ego. It was something watching me not like myself, and try to make the whole world like me! I am trying to be more humble in the face of the world. Trying to become a better person and for that I am grateful. Today is just one more day, one more time I have to treat my disease and be a better person. Father, husband, worker, friend all those things.

Today I am grateful for:

• Spending time with my daughter.
• Having a job.
• My prayers this morning.
• God doing for me what I CANNOT do for myself.

Routine...

I once heard that you might be an alcoholic if you find something is working and you stop doing it. That is a classic line for me, and SO TRUE!

I have trouble committing to things, commitment means to me routine and dealing with feelings and not being able to escape. And to escape, for me, is the one thing that leads me to drink. In the rooms of AA I try to stay grounded, try to learn not to escape any kind of emotion. Sad, Anger, Fear, Happiness, everything. I have found in the past when I find some sort of routine that is working I can quickly sabotage that program or plan. If I stay in the moment each day, I don't escape or stop doing what is working. Keeping my program simple and my feet grounded to where I actually am standing has helped me to understand why I try and escape. Why I try to leave whatever moment I am in, good or bad.

Today I am grateful for:

• My wife coming home from her trip, I loved my time with my daughter but Daddy needs a break!
• My daughter and I's special time, it was a great weekend.
• Being able to go to a meeting tonight, I have been unable for 3 days.
• Entourage coming back tonight, one of my favorite shows!!!

Life on Life's terms..

As an alcoholic it seems like everything is surrounded by recovery. How to act, feel, react, not feel etc. It all seems to revolve around being sober. Its almost like a job at first. The more I do it and choose the right decision the more it becomes like a lifestyle and not a job. Things will come more instinctively than before and my old thought process will change and so will my actions. That is why life has become so much more manageable. Sometimes I just have to look at a situation and say, I cant control that, I don't have the power to control it and I don't want the power to control it! That is where serenity comes into play.

Today I am grateful for:

• The exciting weekend with my daughter and mom.
• Slowly slowly coming to believe.
• My mom coming down and the ability to connect with her, even though we have years of alcoholic behavior.
• The program.
• God doing for me...

Feeling it...

I was at a meeting yesterday and the speaker spoke of intellectual sobriety and emotional sobriety. He shared how you can know something in the head, but not FEEL it and still be lost. That is where I am today. I don't know that I FEEL sobriety, and the only way for me to continue to do this is to sit in my feelings and actually have some meditation and FEEL what I am doing. It was great to hear someone explain that to me so I could actually understand the difference. I am going to sit more, listen more and hopefully feel more in my sobriety.

Today I am grateful for:

• My loving wife and daughter, the trust that keeps coming even though I have broken a lot of it.
• My phone call to a sober person yesterday that I hope helps someone dying of our addiction.
• The restful weekend and the renewed energy I feel at work today.
• Positive thoughts of a great week to come.

Independence Day!!!

As I sit here on the 4th of July I reflect on my own Independence. And frankly my dependence on what has been a major tool in my toolbox for many years. Coping with my feeling and emotions with alcohol. Shutting everything down after that second vodka hit my brain. Today I can be free of that, I can be free of the dependence. I can be independent. It doesn't matter what it is, if we are too dependant on anything our lives will become unmanageable. Food, sex, people, work, drugs, booze its all the same. If you rely too much on it and cant be free from it, it is going to ruin your life. Or at least make in unmanageable. I am grateful today that I can strive to be free, that for this 24 hours I am free from alcohol and feelings of shame and guilt that come along with that. The trick that the alcohol plays on me is the feeling of Independence when I am drinking. The catch is you are not free, you are dependant on it and the feeling is fleeting. I am glad to have realized that today. Happy freedom to all!

Today I am grateful for:

• The people who have shed blood for my freedom and have kept it alive at all cost.
• My wife and her program.
• My daughter.
• The freedom I am starting to feel.
• My meeting this morning and all it has done for me.
• People in my program who are helping me with or without knowing.

More willing...

In my sobriety I feel my old willfulness come out a lot. In takes so many forms I have a hard time trying to discern what is my old habits, a dry drunk habit or just plain stubborn. My sponsor told me to be more willing, and when asked how to do that, he just said stop controlling things. I am praying so hard to be more willing and able to do things. To let my will go and give it to God. That seems to be the hardest thing for me, getting the old self will out of the way.

Today I am grateful for:

• The fun weekend planned.
• Getting to my favorite meetings.
• Trust coming back from people.
• Trying to be willing to work hard at everything I do.

I resent that...

"Resentments or grudges do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings, but every day and every night of your life, they are eating at you." Norman Vincent Peale

In sobriety i cannot have resentments against anyone. It will hurt my sobriety. I dont think that I detach well enough sometimes. Maybe I can learn to do that better, then my resentments will be easier to let go.

Today I am grateful for:

• The reset button.
• My wife and daughter
• My job.
• One more day till the week winds down.
• The cool weather, its seems everywhere I hear about its 100 degrees or more.