Tools for Sobriety (Soundness of Mind)

[MajestyJo]

90 TOOLS FOR SOBRIETY

1 ) Stay away from that first drink, taking the 1st step daily.
2 ) Attend AA regularly and get involved.
3 ) Progress is made ONE DAY AT A TIME.
4 ) Use the 24 Hour plan.
5 ) Turn your "dis-ease" to a sense of ease. Picture yourself as "recovered."
6 ) Do first things first.
7 ) Don't become too tired.
8 ) Eat at regular hours.
9 ) Use the telephone. (not just after the fact but during too.).
10) Be active - don't just sit around. Idle time will kill you.
11) Use the Serenity Prayer.
12) Change old routines and patterns.
13) Don't become too hungry.
14) Avoid loneliness.
15) Practice control of your anger.
16) Air your resentments.
17) Be willing to help whenever needed.
18) Be good to yourself, you deserve it.
19) Easy does it.
20) Get out of the "IF ONLY" trap.
21) Remind yourself HOW IT WAS. Your last drunk, the feelings etc. Picture better alternatives.
22) Be aware of your emotions. Reason about them.
23) Help another in his/her recovery, extend your hand, listen.
24) Try to turn your life and your will over to your Higher Power.
25) Avoid all mood-altering drugs, read labels on all medicines.
26) Turn loose of old ideas.
27) Avoid drinking situations/occasions.
28) Replace old drinking buddies with new AA buddies.
29) Read the Big Book.
30) Try not to be dependent on another (sick relationships). Be independent or inter-dependent.
31) Be grateful, and when you're not, make a GRATITUDE list.
32) Get off the "Pity Pot"...the only thing you'll get is a ring
around your bottom if you don't.
33) Seek knowledgeable help when troubled and or otherwise.
34) Face it! You are in control of your destiny.
35) Try the 12 and 12, not just 1 and 12 or 1, 12 and 13!
36) Let go and Let God.
37) Use the "God box." (Write down your worries and problems. Put them in the God box. Once you've done so, you can no longer think about them for that day. Use God's answers: yes, no, or wait, I have something better in store for you. Don't forget to say thanks.
38) Find courage to change through the example of others who have.
39) Don't try to test your will power. When in doubt, DON'T. (Or don't, yet.)
40) Live TODAY, not YESTERDAY, not TOMORROW - projection is planning
the results before anything even happens.
41) Avoid emotional involvements the first year - you end up putting
the other person first and lose sight of "your" program.
42) Remember, YOU ARE NOT YOUR DIS-EASE. So, take it easy on yourself.
43) Rejoice in the manageability of your new life.
44) Be humble--Humility is not in thinking of yourself more, but in
thinking more of yourself less often. Watch the ego.
45) Share your experience, strength and hope as much as possible and as creatively as possible.
46) Cherish your recovery.
47) Dump your garbage regularly - GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out.
48) Get plenty of "restful" sleep.
49) Stay sober for you - not someone else - otherwise it won't work.
50) Practice rigorous honesty with yourself and others.
51) Progress is made ONE DAY AT A TIME, not 10 years in one day!
55) Make no major decisions the first year.
56) Get a sponsor and use him/her.
57) Know that no matter what your problems, someone's had them before.
Don't be afraid to share, as a problem shared is one 1/2 solved.
58) Strive for progress not perfection.
59) When in doubt ask questions. The only stupid question is the one
not asked.
60) Use prayer and meditation.
61) Maintain a balance: spiritual, physical, emotional and mental.
62) Don't use other substances as a maintenance program.
63) Learn to take spot check inventories.
64) Watch out for the RED FLAGS ... things that give excuses for poor
behavior and inevitable relapse.
65) Know that its okay to be human ... just don't drink over it.
66) Be kind to yourself; it's about time, don't you think?
67) Don't take yourself so seriously - take the dis-ease seriously!
68) Know that whatever it is that's causing pain - it shall pass.
69) Stay as far away from the DRY DRUNK SYNDROME as humanly possible.
70) Don't give away more than you can afford oo, your sobriety comes
first and must be the number 1 priority. Protect it at all costs.
71) Take down those bricks from the wall around you; you'll be able to
see the daylight better. Let people know who you are.
72) Get a home group and attend it regularly.
73) Know that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming
train, but actually a ray of hope. Drop the negativity.
74) Know that you are not alone, that's why the "We" is in the steps.
75) Be willing to go to any lengths to stay and be sober.
76) Know that no matter how bleak and dark your past may be, your
future is clean, bright and clear if you don't drink today.
77) Stay out of your own way.
78) Don't be in a hurry--remember "TIME = Things I Must Earn".
79) Watch the EGO. "EGO = Ease God Out".
80) Protect your sobriety at all costs. Keep the light on you.
81) Learn to listen, not just hear. Be open-minded and nonjudgmental.
82) Know that if your insides match your outsides, everyone looks good.
83) If the rest of the world looks bad, check yourself out first.
84) Gratitude is in the attitude.
85) When all else fails ... punt! Up the number of meetings!!!
86) Remember FEAR = FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL!
87) If they knew better, they'd do better. Think about letting things go.
88) Handle what you can and leave the rest, don't overtax yourself.
You can only accomplish so much in a given 24 hours.
89) Honesty and consistency are key factors in recovery.
90) Let the little kid in you out - learn how to laugh from the gut.

-adapted from ideas by Bob

[MajestyJo]

“There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.”
Alcoholics Anonymous. Page 25.

What exactly is meant by the term 'spiritual tool kit' ?

Many people say that recovery didn't work for them. So seldom they are not willing to work for it. We may recover, but our disease is always there waiting for us get complacent, to forget and give it a crack into which to slip through.

I am restored from that hopeless state of mind and body but I will always be an alcoholic, codependent, an addict and these tools give me daily reprieve. It is my belief that I don't have to act out in my disease today if I pick up one of the tools of recovery. Some days, it takes more than one. It is nice to know I am allowed as many as I need.

This was done for AA but I feel it works for any 12 Step Program.


Perhaps members can add a few more that work for you, if and when you think of them.

Both the frog (getting clean) and the lights (what I call the Fellowship of the Spirit) are tools that worked for me.

[MajestyJo]

Each morning I get up and check to make sure I have all my tools in “My Recovery Toolbox”.. I never know whether I’ll need them to change my perspective, my actions or maybe even my attitude . One thing's for sure I know at some point in my day, I’ll be reaching for them…..

The Big Book and/or Basic Text

The 12- Steps and Traditions

The Slogans

The Prayers - the Serenity, Third Step, Seventh Step and Eleventh Step

My Sponsor

Recovery Friends (meetings and the phone)

The Art of Detachment

My hotline to God through Prayer

My Recovery Books & literature

My Online Message Boards and chat rooms

It was important to pick up my tools in good times and bad times to get in the practice of getting out of myself and asking for help.

The literature was a God given gift. Not just the Big Book/Basic Text and 12 & 12, but the daily meditation books. I like the ones with all the emotions listed at the back so I could look up all the reading pertaining to a feeling. It was hard for me to label them and give them a name because I had stuffed for so many years. I often just picked up a book (AA, NA, Al-Anon, Hazelden, the Bible, etc, said the Serenity Prayer, and then just opened the book and read what was in front of me. It works.

I always liked the saying, "God answers knee-mail." In today, I use that for heavy duty stuff because I don't do getting down on the knees very well. Before it was lack of surrender, in today it is old age.

There were many gifts along with the detachment. Setting boundaries, the ability to be honest, the principles behind the Steps and the Traditions.

12 Steps and the 12 Principles

1. We admitted we were powerless over the effects of addiction — that our lives had become unmanageable.

1. Honesty, acceptance and surrender.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

2. Hope, Trust

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

3. Faith, willingness

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

4. Courage.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

5. Integrity.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

6. Willingness, self-honesty

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

7. Humility.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

8. Justice and brotherly love.

9. Made direct amends to such people, wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

9. Self-discipline and good judgment.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

10. Perseverance and open mindedness.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

11. Awareness.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other codependents, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

12. Love and service.


These very depending on who you are talking to. Many say the only principle for Step One is Honesty, but I am a firm believer in all three as listed here. It says we are to do Step One 100% and in order to do that, we need to find surrender and acceptance to go with the self-honesty.

Please add any additional tools that help you in your recovery.

Something I found on a friend's site that I posted from an old site of mine.

[MajestyJo]

Going through periods of transition or transformation can be difficult. It is like a door has closed, you are in limbo because the new door hasn't open yet, you maybe able to see it, but you haven't been given the key. Not that your not willing, it is just not the time to take the first step in that direction. As it was explained in the BB, I was ready, but all the players aren't in place yet.

The state of "being" is difficult. Transformation for me has been me being prepared to move forward and make the changes. The toolbox helps me through the changes, helps me to focus on me and helps me to look within instead of outward at what others are doing.

Life doesn't get better, I do; especially if I remember to take my toolbox with me.

[MajestyJo]

When you are trying to make things happen and you get angry because no one was available. When you are reaching out were you trying to use the people you called.

I remember one day meeting my dear friend, who was the first person I had coffee with in recovery. I met him in a coffee shop, and he was just coming down from a relapse and he looked like the wrath of God, although I know God had nothing to do with it. It had been his choice, in fact, I had told him, "Guess you are going to have to sh*t or get off the pot, and I told him, 'Oh, so you decided to sh*t, did you,' and seeing this guy I felt hurt me. When I left him, I went down to the mall and told myself, I need a hug, and I travelled from one end of that mall to the other, looking for SOMEONE who will give me a hug and make me feel better. I got totally obsessive compulsive about it, and I found myself in front of the movie theatre, and recognized what I was doing, because I couldn't find one person in that mall to give me a hug. I didn't have one thought of me giving a hug to someone else. I stopped, said a prayer, turned my friend over to HIS Higher Power and asked my Higher Power for forgiveness.

When I surrendered, I walked out of the mall, and at the door of the mall coming in was a girl who called me sponsor. She doesn't like hugs but she offered me one that day. She even gave me a big white teddy bear because she knew how much I loved hugs and most times she didn't feel comfortable giving them. Most times, she went from the meeting to the bar, and just couldn't stay sober. I went about two blocks and there was my ex-boyfriend who said, "What's up kid?" I said, "I could use a hug and shared with him about our mutual friend and asked him to say a prayer for him."

As I got close to home, a good friend from NA was putting money in the parking meter and I got a hug, just because I was a member of NA and belong to his group. As I was speaking to him, a woman from an AA meeting came out of the building across the street from mine, said, "Oh, JoAnne I have been wanting to get hold of you." She gave me a hug, I introduced her to my friend, he went to work and she informed me that she had some clothes for me if I wouldn't be offended. I had lost weight, she had gained it. I had just done a reading with my cards that said, "Your female side is languishing." When she delivered the boxes later they were filled with skirts and dresses."

When I gave up and surrendered, my God met my needs. When I went looking for it trying to make it happen, it wasn't there. God not only met my needs, I was given many bonus gifts along with way.

God is good. Good is God. Thanksgiving is all year round!

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book

The Language of Letting Go

Prayer

Here are some of my favorite prayers:

Help. Please. Don't.
Show me. Guide me. Change me.
Are you there?
Why'd you do that?
Oh.
Thank you.

Today, I will tell God what I want to tell God, and listen for God's answer. I will remember that I can trust God.

[MajestyJo]

When I saw this today, I had the thought, `There is goodness in everything if we are prepared to look for it.` So often we judge people, places, and things by their cover, I was told to listen for the message, instead of looking at the messenger.

The same thing with, we carry the message not the messenger. That is enabling and putting a cushion under someone`s bottom, so they can`t hit their bottom hard enough to want to quit their drug of choice, or they switched to an alternative substance.

Part of my guilt with my son was the fact that I said to him, `Don`t let me hear of you smoking that wacky tobacco.` So he smoked it and didn`t tell me about it, and I learned through other sources.