by A Women in Sobriety | Jun 25, 2015 | Addiction Articles, Recovery
Fear Won’t Kill You!
Fear won’t kill you, but it definitely feels like it will! I say this as a woman in long-term recovery who’s faced more than a few “fear situations” in my time.
Look, fear sucks. We’re told in treatment that fear is responsible for a large portion of the stupid actions we took while drinking and drugging. We’re told how corrosive and poisonous fear is, how it can warp even the best intentions.
What we may not be told, though, is how to get through fear. I was told to remember that fear stands for “forgetting everything’s all right,” but that didn’t help me much. I mean, how do we take that and put it into our lives? How can I, a fear based alcoholic, remember that everything’s all right?
With those questions in mind, I put together a guide for walking through fear in early-sobriety (or any other time in sobriety). I hope it helps you all!
Talk to Someone
This is probably the easiest way to get rid of fear (it was for me anyway), so it tops the list. Just talk to someone! It can be your sponsor, a friend, a significant other, someone at work…it can be anyone!
It doesn’t matter who you talk to, simply talking to someone makes the fear so much easier to deal with. If it’s anxiety-based fear, like a lot of mine was, then this cuts the anxiety in half.
Talking to someone could also take the form of getting a therapist. This is a great tool for women, or anyone, in early-sobriety. After all, there’s a lot more going on than simply stopping our drug and alcohol abuse!
Go to a Meeting
This tip connects back to talking to someone. Sometimes the simple act of connecting with other human beings is all we need to kick fear’s butt.
Go to a meeting. Surround yourself with other alcoholics and addicts. Surround yourself with your people! If you can, raise your hand to share. You’ll be amazed how many people come up to you after the meeting and say they know exactly what you shared about.
See, fear is based in isolation. It’s based in thinking we’re different, inferior, or fundamentally wrong. One of the easiest ways to break this type of thinking is to be around people who reassure us we’re not different. We’re the same as them. We’re okay!
Pray
The simple act of praying can help beat the heck out of fear. The way it was explained to me was like this – alcoholics and addicts are fearful people. We’re afraid we won’t get something we want or we’ll lose something we have.
The fear of those two situations causes us all kinds of trouble. It’s also all based in self. Not getting something we want or losing something we have is inherently selfish.
Guess what gets rid of selfishness? Prayer! It connects us to a Higher Power. That power, whatever it is, then allows us to think of other people before ourselves. If we’re no longer being selfish, then the fear of losing something we have or not getting something we want goes away.
Breathing Techniques
Breathing techniques are priceless when it comes to anxiety-based fear. Things like panic attacks and social anxiety can be effectively controlled by simply changing how we breathe.
Fear that’s anxiety based is a physiological response. It’s our fight or flight response. By changing how we take in oxygen, we can calm the body down. We can slow our heart rate and decrease blood pressure.
These, in turn, will make us calmer and help to diminish whatever fear we’re feeling.
Help Someone
This goes back to prayer and the idea that fear is based in selfishness. If we’re not being selfish, then we’re not going to be afraid either! This isn’t always the case, but it is a lot of the time.
So, if you’re scared, nervous, anxious, or feeling any of the other hundred ways fear manifests itself, go help someone! Not only will you be doing something selfless rather than selfish, but you’ll also be connecting with another human being.
That’s like a double whammy of fear beating goodness!
It doesn’t matter how much or how little you help someone out. It could be holding a door open for someone, helping an older person cross the street, or giving someone a ride. The simple fact you’re doing something for someone else is all that matter.
Take a Nap
Let me just say this isn’t the best advice. It’s not a long-term solution and offers no real emotional or mental benefits. Still, it helps in the short-term.
If you’re scared of something, whatever that may be, take a nap! The very act of falling asleep relaxes the body. It’s similar to using breathing techniques to calm down.
Plus, who doesn’t love naps? They’re like my favorite part of the day!
by Fiona Stockard | Jul 7, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Benefits of Sobriety
Written By: Katie Schipper
How Living Your Dreams Can Be a Real Thing!
Paralyzing Fear Can Stifle All Dreams
Fear is the ultimate culprit when it comes to living your dream. This doesn’t just apply to addicts and alcoholics in early-recovery, it applies to everyone. Fear can be totally paralyzing. There’s the fear of failure, the fear of what other people will think, the fear of what might go wrong. Then there’s the power of regret, which is really just a fear of the past combined with a fear that you’re not good enough. All of those fears and their offshoots are responsible for killing dreams before they even have a chance to see the light of day. Sounds kind of bleak, huh? Fear not, there are some ways to keep your dreams alive!
Watch Jim Carrey’s amazing speech about living your dreams
Stop Living in Regret, Start Living Your Dreams
The first thing to remember is not to focus too much on eliminating fear and regret. If you focus on the negative side of things, that’s where your energy is. You’re eliminating some of the focus you could give to living your dreams. So, don’t freak over the fact that you have fears and if you’re living with regret. Everyone has fear. I repeat: EVERYONE HAS FEAR. It’s in our DNA. It’s hardwired in our brains. We feel fear as an instinct designed to help us survive.
On a personal level, you can decide if fear drives you or you can acknowledge it and grow. So, focus on the positive. This means whatever your dream is, start believing it now. You can start living your dreams, today! Tell yourself your dream is already real. If your dream is to go back to school, believe that you’re a student. Tell yourself you’re a student and guess what? You are! Say it out loud and have faith in it.
See how one act of kindness helped a homeless man’s dreams come true
Living Your Dreams Starts With Saying It Until You Believe It
So, you repeat your dreams until you believe them. What then? You have to actually do it! Faith and intention are vital. They motivate, compel, and drive us, but you still have to get off your a*s and do it.
You can’t just sit around dreaming about something and think it will happen without any work. That’s a fantasy and a daydream. You can do anything you dream is possible. The problem is that without meaningful, consistent, and focused effort all those dreams will remain nothing more than that, dreams. Set goals and work towards them.
Focus on the Now!
There’s nothing that can be done today, tomorrow, or the next day that’ll change the past. So, stop living with regret! Sometimes this is hard. Hell, often it’s hard. From the right perspective though, it’s incredibly empowering.
If you fully believe, understand, and accept that you can’t change what’s already happened, then you also have power to put all your focus and energy into right now. What can you do differently today so you don’t ever have to feel like you want to change the past? How can you learn to turn your regret into motivation to start living the life you’ve dreamed of?
These gifts aren’t reserved for an exclusive group. If you have the willingness to state your dream, to believe in your dream, and to take action towards making your dream a reality, then you can live any life you choose. You can live without being a slave to fear and regret.
Are you a women whose dreams have been destroyed by drugs and alcohol? Seek help at a treatment center for women
by Fiona Stockard | Aug 19, 2013 | Recovery
False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR)
Having grown up in functional alcoholism and then married into it, I spent forty-two years frightened and embarrassed. I spent forty-two years! Think about how long that is!
Al-Anon helped me recognize FEAR kept showing up because I’d become comfortable with it. FEAR was my constant companion, it was familiar territory. FEAR seemed better than venturing, all alone, into the unknown.
Lessons from Al-Anon
More than anything else, Al-Anon has taught me I’m NOT alone. I never was. Lily Tomlin once said, “we’re all in this alone,” and that was true, until I connected with my Higher Power. Guess what? My Higher Power had been there all along! It led me into the rooms of recovery. Now, I have many recovering friends and a long list of supports.
Recently, I’ve been learning something most children know by kindergarden. When life’s easy, it’s easy. When life’s hard, it’s hard. My catastrophic thinking and what-if projections find me quickly when the s**t hits the fan. If I’m listening though, my Higher Power says, “come to me, child” and I do! I run, hide, and get real quiet. I focus on entrusting the whole problem (whatever it may be) to my Higher Power’s care. It never fails to work. Time and time again, God’s proven to me that he is Truly the One in Charge!
My Higher Power tells me not to be scared, that FEAR’s just an old habit. FEAR’s just a liar who tries to whisper in my ear. I need to recognize and capture FEAR. I need to put it in one of those old Mason jars, with the clamp lid. I need to bring the jar to my Higher Power, who gladly adds it to a collection.
I’ve learned to dance the Twelve-Step waltz (one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three) everyday since 1989. Since then, I’ve captured innumerable moments of FEAR and thrown them in the Mason jar. This has been challenging the lately. My family’s been dealing with a serious medical issues. Along with talking to doctors, I’ve been talking to God! I continually write gratitude lists. Of course, as soon as I reach out to my Higher Power, things start to get better. My trust begins increasing. I can stand upright, joyous for another day in this broken world.
Evidence of my Higher Power’s love, guidance, and support is real and indisputable. Therefore, God’s Grace never fails! It actually causes me to LAUGH in the face of FEAR. When life gets tough, I remember my God sightings. I re-read my gratitude list. I crawl back under the umbrella of Step-Eleven. It seems almost too easy! Real evidence is true, and true evidence conquers false evidence, handily.
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