Wisdom Of The Rooms - 2022

[bluidkiti]

January 3

Quote of the Week

"Did God introduce me to the program, or did the program introduce me to God?"

In the beginning of my sobriety, I spent a lot of time resenting that I had to go to all those meetings and do all that work. “Why do I have to go to ninety meetings in ninety days?” “Why do I have to write another inventory?” “Why do I have to make a Fourth Step list of resentments, and why, especially, do I have to look at my part?” “Why can’t I just lead a normal life?” I cried. It took quite a while before the answer became clear.

What I finally realized was that all this work was part of the spiritual path I was on that led to a relationship with God, as I came to understand Him. All the work I had to go through was necessary because it enabled me to let go of my old self, and so become open to the healing and loving presence of a Higher Power. The freedom, the serenity, and the ability to live life on life’s terms are the gifts of the indescribable miracle I found through recovery.

Today, whenever I find it inconvenient to keep going to meetings, or if I become resentful that I’m still an alcoholic, I ask myself, If the program was the only way I would have found God, would I have chosen to be an alcoholic? My answer is a resounding yes! Today, I’m one of those people who identify in meetings as a grateful alcoholic. It no longer matters whether God introduced me to the program or if the program introduced me to God. All that is important is that I found Him.

[bluidkiti]

January 10

Quote of the Week

"If you can’t learn to laugh at yourself, we’ll do it for you."

How serious everything seemed when I entered recovery. Overwhelmed by the problems I’d created, a home life that was in shambles, being unemployed and unemployable, I didn’t find very many things amusing. But the people in the rooms sure did. I often sat in amazement as one after another would share horrible experiences of things they’d done, or that had happened to them, while the room roared with laughter! What is wrong with these people? I thought.

The way that people were able to laugh and make fun of themselves made me uncomfortable to say the least. Still filled with the secret shame of my own experiences and thoughts, I was much too self-conscious to share or reveal myself. I was sure that if you knew what I had done, then you’d banish me from the rooms, and I’d have nowhere to go. Once again, just like when I was out there drinking, I felt trapped and alone.

Thank God I jumped into the middle of this program and got active. As I worked my way through the Steps and my life started to improve, I soon found myself identifying and laughing right along with everyone else. In fact, after a while I had enough distance and perspective on my life that I could even begin to see the humor in some of the humiliating situations my own warped way of thinking had gotten me into. I found I had developed compassion and empathy for myself, and this allowed me to laugh again—and what a gift that’s been.

[bluidkiti]

January 17

Quote of the Week

"If you are bored in the program, then you’re boring."

I remember when I entered the program, I thought my life was over. No more parties, nightclubs, or wild, fun times. And worse, I was condemned to meetings where there were cliques of people who knew each other; I felt like I was back in high school. Sure, some people reached out to me, but I mostly wanted to isolate and keep to my secrets. And that’s when I told my sponsor how boring the program was.

I’ll never forget how patiently he listed to me. Once I was done, or had started repeating myself for the third time, he asked me some questions. “Are you asking to join people after the meetings for coffee or a meal?” No. “Are you offering to help set up or clean up after?” No. “Are you going to any of the picnics, roundups, dances, and parties that are offered?” No. “Then no wonder you’re bored. You’re boring!”

My sponsor explained that alcoholism is a disease that wants to keep us isolated so that it can kill us. He told me that people in the program insist on having fun, and as a group we’re not a glum lot. Just look at the laughter and friendships you see. But you have to take contrary action and join in if you want to be a part of. And deep down, I did. So I did get active. And what I found to be true in the program is also true in life: You get out of it what you put in to it. Today, I’m too active to be bored, and because of that, I get to live a life that is happy, joyous, and free.

[bluidkiti]

January 24

Quote of the Week

"Live life today as though you knew you were dying."

We’ve all heard sayings like this before, and for many years my reaction was, “Yeah, but it’s not my last day and the rent is due at the end of the month, and my relationship isn’t getting better, and blah, blah, blah.” As the many worries of the future consumed me, the precious days and years passed by without me, and now, at thirteen years of sobriety, I wonder where the time went.

I remember when I got thirty days, an old-timer with twenty-four years shook my hand and congratulated me. I said, “Gee, I wish I had twenty-four years,” and I’ll never forget what he said. “I’ll trade you my twenty-four years, right now, for your thirty days.” It took me many years to see the wisdom in this: it’s about the journey, not the destination.

These days, I’m very aware of the gift of another day alive and sober. I’ve seen a lot of people go out or even die, and today I live from a place of supreme gratitude. Life is precious, beautiful, and filled with opportunities to help people and make a real difference. I appreciate my life today, and I’m grateful that I’m present enough to enjoy it. Today, I live life as though I were dying, and I’m fully alive because of it.

[bluidkiti]

January 31

Quote of the Week

"Putting down the drink was the easy part. Change is the hard part."

I used to say that stopping drinking was easy; I did it hundreds of times. After a particularly bad drunk, I would wake up with that sick hangover and with demoralizing memories of what I had done. Then and there I swore off alcohol. Sometimes I lasted a week or longer, but ultimately, I would end up with a drink in my hand. Stopping drinking was easy, staying stopped? Well...

When I got sober in the rooms, I told my sponsor that I already knew how to not drink, what I didn’t know was how to live without always wanting to. He told me the key was changing who I was inside, so that the new man I became didn’t want a drink any longer. Why don’t I just change my eye color, I thought. How in the world am I going to accomplish that? He said we would do it one day at a time through working the Twelve Steps of recovery.

I must admit I felt skeptical, scared, resentful, and a thousand other emotions, but each day I took his suggestions and worked the Steps. I couldn’t see the progress I was making sometimes, but slowly I did begin to change. I remember being at a restaurant watching other people enjoy cocktails, and I found that for the first time I didn’t want one. The obsession to drink had been lifted! Now, that was a miracle. Many more followed, and over time many more things changed in me. Today, I am the new man my sponsor told me about, and I like who I’ve become.

[bluidkiti]

February 7

Quote of the Week

"I have to change what I want, to get what I want."

When I was new in the program, my sponsor suggested that I make a list of all the things I wanted and hoped I’d get from being sober. That was easy because there were a lot of things I wanted. I went ahead and made my list, and things that would feed my pride, or give me property and prestige, were at the top. I then attempted to share it with him, but he said, “Just put it somewhere safe, and we’ll look at it after we work the Steps.”

As I worked my way through the program, my outside world started to improve. After a while, I began accumulating some of the things on my list, certain that I would begin feeling better. But a curious thing happened; they didn’t fix me. In fact, the more I got what I wanted, the more I realized that I didn’t really want those things anymore. What I found is that I had changed.

My sponsor told me that because the program worked from the inside out, to get what I wanted, I had to change what I wanted to match the new me I was becoming. When we pulled out my old list and we went over it together, I understood what he meant. Happiness, serenity, friends, and security don’t come from having certain things. They come from acting in alignment with the true self I discovered as a result of the Twelve Steps.

[bluidkiti]

February 14

Quote of the Week

"Feelings are not facts."

Early sobriety was extremely uncomfortable. A universe of feelings greeted me each morning when I woke up, and I laid in bed and obsessed over each one. My emotional life became unmanageable very quickly. Frozen with fear before my day had even begun, I called my sponsor, and he urged me to let my feelings go. Once again, he tried to convince me that feelings were not facts, they were just feelings. I still wasn’t buying it and insisted that it was a fact that I was having the feelings, and that made them real enough to me. I paid a heavy price for my stubbornness as my feelings would hit me like a freight train and drag me down their tracks.

After I got a little recovery, I learned to put some space between having a feeling and impulsively acting on it. I began to realize that my feelings only became facts if I acted on them. For example, if I felt like drinking that was just a feeling. But if I acted on it—by taking a drink—then that feeling became a fact in my life. What I eventually learned is that I could sit through and survive my feelings. Like clouds in the sky, they would always move on if I could just wait them out.

Today, I’m not immune to having a full range of feelings. Especially when life gets busy and stressful, lots of uncomfortable feelings still come up. But now with some recovery and lots of experience, when I see the freight train of feelings approaching, I simply step aside. Today, I sit and watch as the train passes, and sometimes I can actually feel the wind from it as it whizzes by. Today, I know my feelings really aren’t facts, they are just feelings. And if I pause long enough, they will always pass by.

[bluidkiti]

February 21

Quote of the Week

"Try not to place conditions on your sobriety."

The first time in the program, I had a lot of conditions on whether I was going to stay sober or not. First of all, if I wasn’t noticeably better within ninety days, I was going to quit. Next, if I wasn’t happy in six months, I was going to move to England and buy that pub and live above it. Last, if I made it to one whole year and wasn’t a hugely successful Hollywood producer, I was going back to drinking forever. Needless to say, I was drunk after ninety-one days.

When I finally got sober again and committed myself to working the Steps, I had a new set of conditions. To start with, if I were suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer, I was going to get loaded. If my family were to die tragically, I was also going to drink and denounce God. And if things got so bad that I ended up in prison or on the streets, I was probably going to drink as well. My sponsor listened with amusement as I recounted my conditions. He had heard this all before. And that’s when he told me to try not to place conditions on my sobriety.

What I learned in the program is that my sobriety must come first, no matter what. All the scenarios I painted are part of life, and could indeed happen, but none of them would be made better if I took a drink. As I worked through the Steps and moved closer to my Higher Power, I discovered a peace and a strength I had never known. What I found is that my new spiritual condition is without a doubt the most valuable thing I possess, and as long as I hold on to that, I can get through anything with grace and even serenity. Today, sobriety is the only condition of my life, and so long as I have that, I have everything.

[bluidkiti]

February 28

Quote of the Week

"It will take me at least as long to get out of this mess as it did to get into it."

I drank like an alcoholic from the first time I took a drink. I didn’t drink socially or for the taste; instead, I drank to get wasted. And I did this for nineteen years. During that time, everything in my life suffered. My career went nowhere; my relationships deteriorated; my health declined. By the time I was finally at my bottom, my life was in shambles, and my choice was to either keep drinking and die or get sober.

After about four months in the program, I began to get restless. As I surveyed the state of my life, I was frustrated it was still a mess. I began to feel entitled for it to be better already. I mean, I was sober for four months already! As I saw other people in the program improve their lives, I developed a serious case of, “Where’s mine?” When I brought this up to my sponsor, he asked me how my Step Two inventory was going.

The lesson I had to learn was that my life would—and did—improve, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight. I was reminded that it took nineteen years to get to my bottom, and that it would take some time to dig myself out. Thankfully, the program gave me the tools to stay present, to work on what was in front of me, and to have faith in the process. These tools not only worked then, but they remain the way I deal with a goal or challenge today. These days, I give myself at least as long for something to improve as it took to get messed up.

[bluidkiti]

March 7

Quote of the Week

"When I entered recovery, I was dropped into the landscape of Grace."

My life used to be a living hell. Driven by an obsessive mind and a disease that wanted me dead (and settled for drunk), I was driven by a hundred forms of self-centered fear and I felt alone and defenseless. I had no tools for living, no hope for the future, and darkness filled my thoughts and painted my days. Finally, I hit bottom.

When I entered the rooms of recovery, I felt as if I had been lifted out of a sinking life raft and dropped into a great big, safe ship. Meetings gave me (and still give me) support, comfort, hope, and help. The program provided me with the owner’s manual to the life I had always wanted, and the greatest gift of all was a relationship with a loving and nurturing Higher Power.

Today, I begin my days by turning my will and my life over to my Higher Power. By surrendering my will, asking for His guidance, and then seeking to do His work, I experience a freedom, a sense of purpose, and a state of serenity that is beautiful. It is Grace. Today, I get to choose to live in this landscape of Grace, and for me that is the miracle of recovery.

[bluidkiti]

March 14

Quote of the Week

"Is this going to help me stay sober, or help me get drunk?"

When I was a newcomer I asked my sponsor if I could still hang out with my drinking buddies at the bars and still go to parties and clubs like I used to. He suggested that might not be a good idea in the beginning of my sobriety, and that instead I should go to as many meetings as I could. He said it was important to establish a foundation that would support and strengthen my early recovery. I’m glad I took his direction. It was very difficult staying sober during the first six months or so, and the experience, strength, and guidance I found in the fellowship were crucial to me.

After six months, I started attending family barbeques and get-togethers, and I discovered a whole new threat to my sanity and sobriety: long-standing relationships with family members. Unable to deal with the onslaught of old patterns, new resentments, and unhealthy boundaries, I withdrew from those situations as well. Someone suggested I might find some solutions by working the Twelve Steps in Al-Anon. Once again, I took direction and did work that wonderful program. I learned invaluable ways of honoring myself and my process, and by detaching with love, I learned to set appropriate and healthy boundaries.

After many years in the program, I still run into situations that challenge my sanity and sobriety: intimate relationships, work-related events, exciting vacations, sitting in traffic, and so on. Whenever I am unsure of how to behave or what to do, I check in with other sober people and with my sponsor. I remain open to their direction. Ultimately, though, I find their suggestions come down to a very simple question: Is this going to help me stay sober or help me get drunk? Once I answer that question, the choice is clear.

[bluidkiti]

March 21

Quote of the Week

"Keep it green so that you don’t forget where you came from."

I used to have an amazing ability to recover from a night’s—or a weekend’s—worth of debauchery. While there were days when I would swear off that kind of behavior and made promises to never drink that much, or never do that kind of thing again, inevitably I forgot the pain and demoralization and did it all over. Having the physical ability to bounce back was good, but not being able to remember the ugly consequences—and not being able to control my drinking or other abuses that led to them—caused my life to become unmanageable. Finally, I looked for a better way.

When I entered the program and got sober, the familiar cycle began again. After thirty days, I felt great physically and began to forget about my inability to control my drinking. Soon I was thinking that while there had been some bad incidents lately, these were isolated, and surely now that I had some time and knew more about alcoholism I would be more careful and could probably control and enjoy my drinking again. My sponsor suggested I work my First Step more thoroughly by writing an exhaustive inventory, and then move into the Second and Third Steps. Most of all, he recommended I didn’t drink, one day at a time.

I’m glad I didn’t. What I found is that the more sobriety I got, the more I realized how bad things really were for me. I also learned that alcoholism is the only disease that tells me that I don’t have it, and that every night while I sleep, it is in the closet doing push-ups—getting stronger and waiting for me to let my guard down. It chills me still when I hear of people going back out after long-term sobriety. To avoid that terrible fate, I’ve been taught to keep doing the things that got my life good: attending meeting regularly, helping others, and so on, rather than the things that got good. Regularly doing so allows me to keep it green, and that’s a good thing, because I don’t ever want to forget where I came from.

[bluidkiti]

March 28

Quote of the Week

"The ‘why’ questions keep us in the problem."

In recovery, I have learned that the “why” questions always keep me in the problem—questions like, “Why did that have to happen?” or “Why didn’t/couldn’t she do this?” or “Why does it always have to turn out that way?” or “Why can’t I catch a break just once?” “Why” questions not only keep me focused on the problem, they almost always turn me into a victim as well.

As I worked the Steps of the program, many wonderful things began happening in my life, beginning with an awareness of my thinking and self-talk. My sponsor taught me about the “why” questions and encouraged me to look for solutions using who, what, how, and where questions instead. It was hard at first to break my old habits of thinking, but I got better as I learned to ask better questions.

Today when I have a problem or situation I don’t like, I ask questions like, “What are three things I can do right now to remedy this?” or “Who might have experience with this that I can call for help?” or “What lessons are here for me to learn and grow from?” or “Where can I get a solution for this?” These questions help me get out of the problem and into the solution. Today, I know how to ask better questions.

[bluidkiti]

April 4

Quote of the Week

"My recovery changed when I forever gave up the hope of having a different past."

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my past—alternately feeling sorry for myself or being outraged by the wrongs—real or imagined—that were done to me. A constant theme in my thinking is how much different, better, and happier I would be if only I hadn’t had these parents, or these stepparents, or these siblings, and so on. My angst over my past fed resentments that fueled my alcoholism, and that nearly ruined my future.

But it will never be different. My past will always be my past, and, good or bad, it is uniquely mine. When I got to the program I was taught that in recovery we stop fighting everybody and everything; in other words, we surrender. At first I saw surrender as a sign of weakness, but soon I found it to be the path to freedom. By releasing myself from the pain of my past, I could see it in a new light, and the miracle of my recovery had begun.

By working the program, I am able to make peace with my past, to look at my part, and see the lessons and gifts it has to offer. And what I find is that no matter how painful or unjust my past was, with time I could see how valuable my experiences are, and how I can use them to help another. A therapist once told me, “Our deepest wounds, integrated, become our greatest power.” Once I have healed my past, I begin to see how it can help heal someone else’s.

[bluidkiti]

April 11

Quote of the Week

"Honesty without compassion is hostility."

Before recovery, I had a lot of resentments I was unaware of, and the burden of these buried feelings was heavy. They were often expressed in a passive-aggressive way when I gave my opinion or offered unasked-for advice. I thought I was just being honest, but I’ve come to see I was often lashing out and being mean. Unaware of the impact of my “honesty,” I unintentionally hurt a lot of people.

When I started working the program, I discovered a tool for uncovering, discovering, and eventually discarding these resentments. It’s called a fearless and thorough Fourth Step. When I started writing my inventory, I imagined I had one or two resentments at most, but soon found that I had hundreds. I almost needed a whole notebook just for my family! No wonder I was so spiteful.

By working the rest of the Twelve Steps, I’ve been able to let go of these resentments, and something miraculous has happened: I’ve developed compassion for others and for myself. Freed from petty resentments and imagined wrongs, I now identify with the struggles we all share as we make our way through life. I’m not better nor worse than anyone else. Newfound compassion now allows me to be open with and thus deeply connected to others. Today, my honesty is based on true compassion.