by Sally Rosa | Oct 15, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
Hardcore Sobriety
I was lucky enough to get sober with a bunch of Big Book thumpers. Actually, scratch that, I don’t know if I’d have gotten sober without them. Really, I was graced enough to be given the gift of sobriety from a bunch of Big Book thumpers.
If you’ve been sober for any length of time, you probably know what a book thumper is. If you haven’t, let me tell you!
Big Book thumpers are individuals in recovery who stress the importance of working the twelve-steps and spreading a message of hope, straight from Alcoholics Anonymous, more commonly known as the Big Book.
These are the women at meetings who aren’t afraid to call bulls**t when they see it. They’re the one’s who’ll crosstalk, giving newcomers the advice they so desperately need to hear. They’re the ones you see smiling and laughing until the conversation turns to the steps, then they get deadly serious.
In short, they’re the ones saving lives.
Going to Rehab & My Introduction to Book Thumpers
I didn’t get sober the first time I tried to. Like many alcoholics, it took me a few tries. That isn’t to say it’s impossible to be a one-chip wonder, plenty of people are. Still, most alcoholics I know needed to be beaten up pretty good before they became willing.
I was living in a halfway house in Delray Beach. I was going to aftercare and twelve-step meetings everyday. I also couldn’t stop drinking and drugging. Eventually, I ended up back in rehab. This was the definition of a blessing in disguise!
While in treatment, a group of women heavily involved in H&I (Hospitals and Institutions) brought meetings in. These were hardcore book thumpers! I didn’t take their numbers, or even talk to them really, but a seed of hope was planted.
Getting Sober Thanks to Book Thumpers
Seeing these women and their passion for spreading the message of recovery, gave me hope. Plus, they were saying things I’d never heard before. They didn’t rehash the same old “don’t drink and go to meetings” slogans. Good things they didn’t! Not drinking and going to meetings kept me sick! If I could simply not drink, I wouldn’t need twelve-step recovery in the first place!
Instead, they were saying things like “Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles” (Big Book, p. 62).
Or, “Instead, the problem [alcoholism] has been removed. It does not exist for us” (Big Book, p. 85).
They were calling themselves recovered alcoholics. What an idea! You mean I had a chance to recover? To get better? Not to sit around, miserable as f**k, until I inevitability drank again?
The 12-Steps & Staying Sober in the Real World
And then came the fateful day when I got out of treatment. I wasn’t in the safe and protected rehab bubble anymore. I was in the real world. Was I going to stay sober?
Well, a close friend took me to a meeting she described as “different.” Turns out, it was a step-study meeting, packed with book thumpers! They weren’t the same women who’d brought the H&I meeting into my rehab, but they preached the same message.
I got involved almost immediately. I asked a woman to sponsor me. A few days later, we sat in Moe’s (great burritos, btw!) and worked the first three steps. It took a total of about fifteen minutes. Then she got me writing. The dreaded fourth step!
It turns out the big bad fourth step wasn’t so bad after all. Neither were steps eight and nine. None of the twelve-steps were scary or hard! Maybe I had that gift of desperation people talk about. I don’t know. I just know that I started to feel better and I was going to do whatever I could to keep that feeling going.
Being a Book Thumper Myself
Six years later, I sponsor women the same way. I’m a book thumper! I get girls into the steps quickly. They get better quickly. Of course, very little of their success or failure has anything to do with me. It all has to do with their level of willingness.
When I was first getting sober, my book thumper sponsor asked me, “are you willing to go to any length for your sobriety?” I had no idea what she was talking about, so of course I said yes. I thought she’d have me go to a lot of meetings or something like that.
Today, I know what she really meant. Going to any length means exactly what it sounds like. It means doing what my sponsor asked. If your sponsor is a book thumper, she’s going to ask you to get into the Big Book. Do it. Trust me, that simple book is the key to a whole new life!
by A Women in Sobriety | Jul 14, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Benefits of Sobriety
Written By: Katie Schipper
Enjoying the Gifts of Today by Living in the Moment
Nothing is More Important Than Living in the Moment
The intensity with which we naturally think about the future is so strong that, more often than not, we’re not living in the moment. Instead, we’re completely missing out on the only thing that really exists, the exact moment that we’re in.
A whole lot is lost by focusing on the future and outcomes – it causes, and in turn is caused by, anxiety, fear, and worry. Thoughts about the future are valuable, yes, but they should NEVER come at the expense of the present moment. Learning to be mindful of what’s right in front of us is one of the gifts of being in recovery. It’s not always easy to be mindful, but conceptually speaking, it’s pretty simple. Not to mention, there are endless reasons why it’s worth exploring.
Learn about Jim Carrey’s speech on living in today!
Living for Today Requires Practicing Mindfulness
The absolute and unavoidable reality for every person is that someday they’ll take their final breath. Someday they’ll die. The majority of us have knowledge of, or say in, when that day’s going to come. You can plan your future around this day. You can plan your future out day-by-day, week-by-week, even year-by-year. You can plan what you want to be doing years from now. You can do plan to an obsessive degree, but in the end, you may never see the day when your planning comes to fruition.
So, the real why of practicing mindfulness and living in today is that we have no way of knowing which day will be our last. If all our days are spent worrying about the future, do we have any room left for joy? Do we have any room left for actually living?
Now, that doesn’t mean we have to float around with no direction, or become a monk, or live outside of society, though we can do all of these if we want to. It means a very radical shift in thinking. After all we’re programmed to plan, think, and worry about the future. It seems to be written in our DNA. But thoughts of the future don’t have to control us.
Mindfulness takes on a stronger meaning for addicts and alcoholics because our sobriety begins over each morning when we wake up. Our sobriety is contingent upon our action that day. It doesn’t matter what we say we’ll do in the future, and the past doesn’t guarantee that we’ll stay sober for today. Nope, we have only this exact moment to choose not to pick up a drink or get high. We learn that living in the moment, and applying the knowledge we gain in recovery, helps us stay sober. More importantly, it helps us enjoy the gifts of today!
Learn how to be grateful for today
How to Practice Living in the Moment and Enjoying the Gifts of Today
Mindfulness and living for today are simple concepts. Remember though, simple and easy aren’t the same thing! It’s simple enough for a child, but the actual practice takes time, maybe even a lifetime, to really learn.
A good place to start in any mindfulness practice is to focus on your individual breaths. From there, notice the things around you. What sounds do you hear? What’s under your feet or in your hands? What can you see directly in your vision? What do you smell? Try to notice these basic senses without thinking about your to do list, what’s for dinner, or an argument you had. Try to notice what’s right in front of you for sixty seconds.
Mindfulness is a practice that helps you enjoy the gifts of today. Knowing that all we have is now sets us free to live fully in the only moment that’s real – this moment.
Find a women’s alcohol treatment center that will help you learn how to live in today!
by A Women in Sobriety | Jul 9, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
Written By: Katie Schipper
Giving Back Is Whats It’s All About
You Get What You Give
There’s a saying in recovery that gets repeated so often it sometimes loses its power. It goes a little something like – you’ll get from your sobriety exactly what you put into it.
This initially sounds like another annoying cliché that at some point had meaning, but it’s much more than that. The truth is, recovery can be viewed as a metaphor for the rest of your life. What you put in, you’ll get back (and usually, you get back a little more than expected).
Giving Back and Learning to Try
The early stages of recovery are usually very uncertain territory. Even if you’ve tried to get sober before, or gone for periods of time without drinking or using, the time it sticks is usually a particularly desperate time. Now, this isn’t always true, but seems to happen a lot. Desperation is one of the best gifts an addict or an alcoholic can receive, but with desperation comes fear and uncertainty about what to do next.
That’s why a drug rehab for women, an IOP therapy group, counselors, and people in meetings suggest the freshly sober woman doesn’t wait to focusing on her recovery.
There’s a window within this desperation that’s opened by pain. Once that pain begins to subside, the window starts to close. At some point, if work on your recovery hasn’t begun, the initial pain and desperation will have subsided enough that reasons for staying sober magically disappear. At this point, drinking and getting high seem totally reasonable. However, if you start making changes while this window is open, there are some pretty immediate benefits.
It’s in this space that newly sober women discover the value of trying. Many of us feel like we’ve been trying desperately for months, years, and lifetimes to effect a change, yet nothing’s happened. Most opportunities come up as dead ends in active addiction. Even for those women who managed to maintain a home, or hold onto a job or relationship, there’s usually a pervasive feeling of emptiness and self-doubt. Those feelings make the idea of trying for anything sound overwhelming. On a personal and individual level, you have to be fed up with yourself to the point that change and effort seem the better option.
One of the beautiful truths of recovery is that from that place of desperation often comes a wellspring of hope. Still, the only way to get there is to try, in spite of past experiences that taught you trying’s fruitless.
This is the “giving” portion of getting back what you give. You have to try. You have to show up in spite of changing moods and circumstances. You have to put forth an effort regardless of how you feel.
Read more about becoming grateful through giving! It’s so easy!
Getting Back What You Give
The flip side of giving back and trying and working and consistently showing up is what you get in return. The reality of giving is that it has very little to do with what your actions. It has more to do with the willingness to try giving.
The idea isn’t to reach a certain step, or a certain life goal, or a certain benchmark by a certain time. The idea is to move through recovery with your eyes ever on willingness, honesty, faith, and other ideals of spiritual growth. With those concepts as your focus, the universe (God, your Higher Power, who or however you conceive of a loving consciousness) gives back to you endlessly. Of course, there are material gifts for hard work (if you get a job and save money, you can move into an apartment and buy a car, etc.), the real reward take the form of what we sought in the bottle, the pill, and the powder. The real reward is peace. Peace of mind, body, and soul.
What you find when you give yourselves to recovery is that within you there’s a treasure you can access at any time. It’s always been and will always be there. That is what makes the work, the seeking, and the effort so worthwhile.
Read about the blessing you get in sobriety from giving
by Sally Rosa | May 27, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Katie Schipper
What is Sponsorship?
In twelve-step recovery programs, sponsorship is vital. A sponsor has a singular purpose – to take another alcoholic or addict through the twelve-steps so that that woman may in turn take others through the steps. Sponsorship began in AA before it even had a name. Sponsorship began when Bill W. wanted to drink and found a solution through sharing what he knew with another alcoholic who couldn’t stay sober on his own. That alcoholic was Dr. Bob.
Who Can Be a Sponsor?
Today, particularly in Delray Beach and the surrounding areas, the options for finding a sponsor are endless. There are different fellowships and different types of recovering addicts and alcoholics in each one. Finding a sponsor only seems intimidating until you actually do it. A sponsor is someone who knows how to help an addict when all other attempts have failed. A sponsor is someone who knows how to help an addict when family, friends, and significant others can’t. Sponsorship is a vital part of recovery.
Read about the dangers of resting on your laurels
How to Choose a Sponsor
So, how does someone go about finding a sponsor? You might have heard the phrase “find someone who has what you want” at meetings. This is a good starting point, but you might not know how to identify that person. You might not be totally sure what it is that you want. As a newly sober woman, you might have concerns about trusting another female. It’s in a newcomer’s best interest to set aside these fears and take the first leap of faith in recovery, choosing a sponsor in spite of fear.
Looking to connect with other women in sobriety?
Suggestions on Sponsorship
While choosing a sponsor is as informal as anything else in AA, there are a few simple suggestions offered by those familiar with twelve-step fellowship.
The first is to find someone with experience. For some, this might mean someone who has at least a year between herself and her last drink or drug. However, that’s not a requirement. It’s simply a guideline. After all, Bill W. started sponsoring Dr. Bob when he had six months.
You might want someone with multiple years or double digits.
A very basic rule of thumb is to find someone who has completed all twelve of her steps, with a sponsor of her own.
Another basic suggestion is to find a sponsor who herself has a sponsor, someone who’s an active member of the fellowship. Those active in recovery seem to have an idea of how to help addicts and alcoholics.
Another suggestion for finding a sponsor is to simply ask someone with whom you feel compatible.
It’s also suggested that newcomers look for someone who seems to be enjoying her sobriety.
Don’t just pick someone who looks good or sounds good in a meeting. Ask yourself, does your sponsor practice what she preaches? In recovery, action always speaks louder than words.
No two people sponsor in exactly the same way. What might be ideal for one woman could be disastrous for another. The willingness to believe that someone may be able to help is an incredible first step in recovery. Besides, the relationship between a sponsor and a sponsee is unlike any other. Don’t believe me? Go find out for yourself!
