Dr. Twerski's Sober Thought - November

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November 1

Faith and Reason

DeSaint-Exupery said, It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Thousands have given their lives for what they believe. A person who accepts martyrdom rather than deny the God in whom he believes has no trouble denying that two plus two equals four if this will save his life. While proven facts are important, they rarely inspire people the way belief does. Faith is an internal knowledge, a kind of intuition, wisdom of the heart that is in some way superior to the wisdom of the brain. More people have been inspired to sobriety by faith than by scientific fact.

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November 2

Don't Fight Success

Sobriety is not a philosophical concept. An attorney related how his first experiences with AA resulted in repeated relapses. He asked a seasoned veteran what he was doing wrong, and was told that his error was trying to understand the program. Just listen and do as you're told. I elected to experiment by listening and following instructions for just a short period of time, and here I am, 25 years sober. It has been wisely said, Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other. Sobriety is achieved by doing, not by thinking.

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November 3

Learn From Your Mistakes

God created humans, but humans continue to create themselves. The writer Oscar Wilde said, It is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it. The changes that our actions make in ourselves are not cast in stone and can be undone. This is why amends work and why they are necessary. Unless we make amends, we allow the effects a wrong act had on our personality to remain. Making amends is a cleansing process. Whatever we were created is the raw material of which we are made. With our actions we fashion ourselves into the ultimate object.

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November 4

We Are Alike But Not the Same

One pitfall in recovery is the idea I'm different. If we think principles in recovery apply only to others, this is guaranteed to result in relapse. As far as our addiction is concerned, we are all alike, and the rules of recovery apply equally to everyone. But, as far as our mission in life is concerned, we are unique. I turn my life over to the will of God, because whatever He wishes me to do is my personal assignment. In that way I am extraordinary, and no one else can do that which I am supposed to do. Being unique is a responsibility to be zealously guarded.

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November 5

Get Sober: You Deserve It

Recovery must be for ourselves. Self-esteem is pivotal in recovery. Not only will people with self-confidence have no need to escape from reality, but they will also endure any discomforts of abstinence for their own sake -- just as many people are ready to do for the sake of others. One of the reasons sobriety for others' sake does not work is that others parents, children, friends -- are not always around. In absence of the stimulus for abstinence, relapse may occur. The self, however, is always there, and recovery for oneself can be permanent.

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November 6

Keep it Simple

People who have difficulty with the Twelve Step program are unusual indeed. What could be more obvious than: Don't drink and don't die. What could be simpler? We can only analyze something complex, because something absolutely simple doesn't have any components. A compound can be broken down into its elements, but an element cannot be analyzed. Imagine, then, the frustration we experience in trying to analyze the recovery program, one of whose axioms is 'Keep it simple!' The beauty of the Twelve Step program is its utter simplicity. Only an unusual mind would try to analyze it.

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November 7

Miracles Can Happen

Higher Power awareness can occur in different ways. A recovering biologist said, I was looking through a microscope at a fertilized ovum, and it struck me that within this single tiny cell lies the capacity of thought and feeling and creativity: to compose a great symphony, to write a masterpiece of literature, or to discover a life-saving procedure. Strange, this never occurred to me all the years that I drank. Miracles occur all around us. Sobriety cleanses the mind and allows it to perceive the truth. Once we recognize the miracle of sobriety, it is much easier to see miracles everywhere.

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November 8

Putting God in Charge

For people with inflated egos -- who consider asking for help to be an admission of weakness -- reality consists either of the impossible or that which they can do themselves. As a result, they either give up on things that could be accomplished with help or foolishly tackle things alone that are beyond their capacity. Enlisting the help of a Higher Power puts reality back into proper perspective. This is an essential ingredient of recovery. Of course, when we accept this and relinquish the fantasy that we are our own highest power, the concept of God as I understand Him becomes feasible.

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November 9

From Mirage to Reality

Addiction is a mirage; sobriety is real. The person who sets out toward sobriety may not see the goal, but the goal is real nevertheless. A veteran recovering addict described first steps in recovery as someone waiting to cross a river and told to start rowing. But there is no boat, he protests. Never mind! he is told. Just begin rowing. The boat will appear. When scores of people assure us that as we begin to row the boat will appear and we can safely cross the river-and when such assurance is based on abundant personal experience, we gather the courage to begin rowing. The sobriety boat indeed appears.

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November 10

Keep Your Mind Open

The mind is the essence of a person. Whereas we must remember our mistakes in order to rectify them, once we have taken adequate corrective action, the incident should be put out of mind. Ruminating on it constitutes reliving the experience. The mind cannot operate at optimum efficiency if it is encumbered by baggage of the past. Unpleasant events that linger have a negative influence on the function of the mind. A refusal to let go of the past impedes working with the present and toward the future. If past actions have injured someone, we must indeed make amends, but then we must let go.

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November 11

Living a Lie

Lying is as impractical as it is immoral. Falsehoods have no existence in reality, and must be retained in memory. A faulty memory will soon expose the false nature of a statement. Retention of falsehoods will diminish the brain's capacity to store useful information. Excuses, cover-ups, and frank distortion of fact characterize addiction. Many recovering people have expressed a sense of relief that they no longer need to tax their memories. Some have said that the euphoria of early sobriety comes from casting off the burden of living a falsehood. To live a lie is not only unethical, but also stupid.

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November 12

Grasp One Small Thing at a Time

One day at a time is not an AA brainchild. The Talmud said, If you grasp a small amount, you will have it. If you grasp too much, you will have nothing. Our eyes are often bigger than our stomach, and we take much more than we can possibly digest. The only proper approach to reality is to take bite-size portions. Then we do not take more than we can handle, nor are we frightened away from attempting to achieve. Sobriety is just one of many challenges to be taken in bite-size pieces. The proper amount for the average individual, regardless of the challenge, is one day at a time.

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November 13

Think Before You Make Your Move

How often do we wish more situations were changeable! A rabbi who had difficulty impressing a person with the gravity of his behavior invited him to a game of chess. Several times the rabbi asked to retract a move. Finally, the latter's patience was exhausted and he said. Once you have taken your hand off the piece, the move is final and irrevocable. The rabbi said. If a move in a mere game is irrevocable, how much more so are moves in life? If what we are about to do may become unchangeable, how much thought have we given it before doing it?

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November 14

Do We Know Our Destination?

We cannot know where we are unless we know where we should be. God asked man, "Where are you?" -- Genesis 3:9. The question has meaning only if we have a goal in life. Then it means "Are you a bit closer to the goal than yesterday, or farther away?" Or "Are you on the path altogether?" The problem is not that we may have chosen the wrong goal, but that too often we have given no thought to any goal. We only consider the how of life, and not the why. In addiction we had the wrong answer to How? In all likelihood, the question Why? had never even arisen.

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November 15

Solitude or Fellowship?

In addiction and recovery, we discuss the Steps and pertinent issues in recovery, we find a sponsor, exchange numbers, and broaden contacts with sober people. But above these, recovery meetings have a value by virtue of their being a gathering. Religious leaders have always known there is strength in group activity. When people pray together they reinforce one another's belief. A guest speaker said, There is nothing I could do without you, and there is nothing I cannot do when I have you. The you is the fellowship everywhere -- an incomparable source of strength. We share this strength at meetings.*