by Sally Rosa | Jan 19, 2015 | Addiction Articles, Benefits of Sobriety
The Benefits of a Deadly Disease
Chances are that if you ask ten random people the benefits of being an alcoholic, they won’t be able to list any. Well guess what random people, you’re wrong!
It took me awhile to realize that being an alcoholic, in recovery of course, is actually a blessing. Think about it, we survived! We survived and we thrived! We survived, thrived, and now have pride!
Okay, lame rhyming attempts aside, it’s absolutely true that being an alcoholic is a blessing. Seriously, where else can you gain gratitude, humility, and a spiritual way of life? I can’t think of anywhere!
Take a trip with me, readers. Take a trip with me down a road by the name of “why being an alcoholic rocks!”
We Have the BEST Friends
Duh! I have the type of friends that I can call crying at three in the morning and they’ll stay up talking to me until sunrise. Where else do you find friends like that?
In the rooms of recovery, we’re in a life or death struggle with our disease. We’re all in the same boat, whether we have twenty days or twenty years. For this reason, and many, many more, the friendships that develop are extra special.
Not only do my friends and I share similar experiences, but we also share similar thinking! We share similar thoughts, neurotic or otherwise!
So yeah, being an alcoholic rocks because we have the best friends.
We Have Gratitude
I read these articles and watch these TV shows where they talk about how people need to have gratitude. Guess what? I have it in spades!
I’m grateful I’m alive. I’m grateful I’m able to help other women. I’m grateful I’m able to let other women help me. I’m grateful my parents answer the phone when I call. I’m grateful I can hold a job. I’m grateful I can grow at a job. I’m grateful.
Remember, though, gratitude is an action word. It’s easy for me to forget about gratitude and get caught up in life. When that happens, I need to start reaching out to new women. Then I’m knocked right back on the gratitude train!
We Have Perspective
You know what happens when I get cut off in traffic, am late for work, get yelled at, spill salad dressing on my shirt, and go home to find the cat threw up on my bed? I smile and thank God I’m sober.
Think about it, we’re sober today. How amazing is that! Alcoholics and addicts are hardwired and programmed to drink and drug. Today we’re not drinking and drugging. Today we’re living by spiritual principles. Toady we’re helping others.
That’s nothing short of a miracle. And that knowledge, my friends, is called perspective. So I had a bad day? Guess what, it’s better than any day I had a bottle to my lips or a needle in my arm. End of story.
We Have God in Our Lives
As if all of the above weren’t enough, being sober also let’s us have God in our lives. Now this is the biggest blessing of them all. This is how I’m able to experience all those other blessings. This is how I’m able to look the world in the eye and exclaim “Bring it on!”
See, normies have no need for God. Well, that’s not true. Most of them need God pretty badly! But they don’t always see it that way.
Us addicts and alcoholics, though, we know the score. We know that without some form of Higher Power, we’re toast. How cool is that?
We’re basically forced into letting God into our lives. Then we find out that having God in our lives is the best thing that could ever happen. She, he, it, them, whatever you want to call your Higher Power, is a source of inspiration, comfort, hope, and, above all else, love.
Am I missing anything? Let us know on social media!!
by Fiona Stockard | Dec 24, 2014 | Addiction Articles, Sobriety For Women
The Stages of Sobriety
Although I sometimes forget this important fact, I didn’t get better overnight! It took me exactly how long it took me to grow into a woman of grace and dignity. It took me six years.
Now don’t get me wrong, the obsession to drink and use drugs was lifted as soon as I did the work. I got a sponsor within my first few weeks sober. I started working the steps. I had a spiritual awakening and haven’t obsessed over chemicals in a long time. Emotional sobriety, though? That’s a whole other story.
I was a mess of character defects, insecurities, and selfish behaviors for my first year sober. Slowly, they began to fade away as I did more work on myself. I prayed, meditated, helped others, went to therapy, and completed therapy assignments. Through this process, I began to get better in all areas of my life.
So, how do women in early-recovery move from scared girls to women of grace and dignity? The answer is time, self-reflection, and fearless work on ourselves.
To help make sense of this process, I’ve outlined the different stages of sobriety. I hope you all find them helpful! Learn from my mistakes and lessons, so you don’t have to make the same ones!
In Treatment
This is the first step to a new life. We’re freshly sober and probably out of our minds with fear, resentment, ego, insecurity, and a hundred other worries.
Rehab is a place to physically separate us from drugs and alcohol. It’s a safe environment for us to reawaken to the world. It’s a home away from home. If those examples sound kind of corny, well, deal with it! They’re 100% true!
Not only does being in treatment keep us physically safe from booze and drugs, it also allows us to learn about ourselves. Treatment is a time for reflection and realization. It’s a safe place to face the demons that kept us drinking and drugging for years.
Of course, facing these demons isn’t enough. We have to overcome them. We’re introduced to the tools we use to accomplish this in rehab. We’re introduced to spiritual principles like honesty, faith, service, and communication in rehab.
Early-Sobriety
I define early-sobriety as the time after rehab to three years. That’s a pretty long stretch of time! The important thing to remember is that the physical time doesn’t matter. Rather than quantity, we’re aiming for quality!
Early-sobriety is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where we reenter the world and put those spiritual principles into practice. It’s also where I made most of my mistakes.
I did a ton of stupid things in early-sobriety. I got involved with boys and took the focus off my Higher Power. I went to the casino and started compulsively gambling. I had more jobs than I can count on one hand, and maybe more than I can count on both hands. I practiced dishonesty instead of honesty.
There were a couple of things I did right though! I went to an all women’s halfway house. I was dating when I shouldn’t have, but I also had strong women surrounding me.
I was 100% honest with my sponsor. I told her everything good and bad I was doing. She chewed me out regularly and I deserved it!
Finally, even though my focus was often taken off my spiritual growth, I continued to work the steps. Within six months I’d completed them and began to reach out to others. Yeah, I was still full of character defects, but I was trying my best to help others.
The Danger Zone
The danger zone is my nickname for the period between three years and double-digit sobriety. I call it the danger zone because it seems like a lot of women relapse during this time.
I’m currently six and a half years sober. So, I’m smack in the middle of the danger zone! After making the same mistakes over and over during early-sobriety, I’ve started to really grow as a woman of grace and dignity.
I’m in the danger zone, but I’m doing well. I don’t enter romantic relationships, or any relationships for that matter, which aren’t healthy. I pray, meditate, and practice God-centered sponsorship. I stopped gambling! I put others’ needs before my own.
Through doing these simple (but not easy!) steps, I’m protected from drinking and selfish behavior. Of course, if I stop doing them, if I stop practicing these principles in all my affairs, I’m going to drink.
It’s that simple. If I stay balanced, I’ll stay healthy and sober. If I lose balance, I’ll end up drunk and selfish.
Long-Term Sobriety
I think of long-term sobriety as having over ten years. It’s funny, though, I’ve heard countless old-timers refer to themselves as newcomers. Now that’s humility!
I’m not at this stage yet, so I’m not sure what it’s like. I bet it’s probably similar to where I’m at now. That’s one of the many wonderful things about recovery – if I do the same things at twenty years that I did at twenty days, I’ll stay sober.
One thing I’ve heard many people with long-term sobriety say is how simple their lives have become. While, in some ways, my life is simpler at six plus years sober, it’s also more complicated. I have more responsibility, accountability, and daily tasks than I did in early-sobriety.
I image I’ll have even more at fifteen or twenty years. I think old-timers are talking about their emotional health when they say their lives are simple. I hope that’s it anyway!
Want to know how to get to long-term sobriety? It’s simple, really. Find an old-timer and ask them how they did it. The answer won’t disappoint you, I promise!
by Fiona Stockard | Nov 28, 2014 | 12 Steps, Addiction Articles
Written By: Fiona Stockard
The Big Book Broken Down – Part Thirteen
Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other to recover from alcohol and drug addiction. It was founded in June of 1935, just celebrated its seventy-ninth anniversary, and boasts over two million members.
AA’s central text is the Big Book. With a sponsor and a Big Book, AA members work the twelve steps, and “recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” (title page).
Today, I’ll be breaking down a section of the chapter Working With Others.
Working With Others
Part of getting sober is learning how to deal with our families. By deal, I don’t mean begrudgingly exist with them! No, I’m talking about being helpful, kind, patient, and loving.
That’s new for most of us! It was for me anyway. Prior to sobering up, I was nothing but a drain on my family and loved ones. It was hard to start giving instead of taking. It was hard to start comforting instead of being comforted.
My new relationship with my family began after I’d made amends and shown them that I meant business. Working With Others echoes this idea. It reads,
“When your prospect has made such reparation as [s]he can to his [or her!] family, and has thoroughly explained to them the new principals by which [s]he is living, [s]he should proceed to put those principals into action at home” (p 98).
Before I cleared away the wreckage of my past, I wasn’t able to live on spiritual principals. Once I’d made amends and, more importantly, incorporated the ideas behind my amends into my life, well, that’s when things began to change. That’s when I stopped blaming my dad for all my mistakes. That’s when I stopped arguing with my mom about every little thing.
Again, Working With Others emphasis this. It says, “[S]he should concentrate on his own spiritual demonstration. Argument and fault-finding are to be avoided like the plague” (p 98).
That’s much easier said than done! For me, learning how to live in harmony, peace, and usefulness with my family was a trial and error process. After enough errors, I started to get it right!
Then there’s the idea of continued sobriety and spiritual growth. Simply telling my parents and brother I was sorry, then continuing to act on old behavior, wasn’t going to cut it. Nope. I had to live a completely new way of life. A.A. puts it like this,
“…the alcoholic continues to demonstrate that [s]he can be sober, considerate, and helpful, regardless of what anyone says or does. Of course, we all fall much below this standard many times. But we must try to repair the damage immediately…” (p 99).
What happens if we don’t get our family back, though? What happens if our drinking and drugging was so bad, took us to such a dark place, that our family wants nothing to do with us? Well, we can still get better!
Getting sober with the support and love of family is the easier path. Just because they may not want a relationship, though, doesn’t mean we can’t still heal. The only person we need a relationship with is God. Working With Others reads,
“Let no alcohol say [s]he cannot recover unless [s]he has his [or her!] family back. This just isn’t so…Remind the prospect that his [or her] recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his [or her] relationship with God” (pp 99-100).
That’s the truth. I was lucky because, despite hurting them time and time again, my family gave me another chance. That’s not always the case. If they hadn’t wanted me in their life, I’d still have been okay as long as I had God in my life.
It’s that simple. God is or God isn’t. God is everything or God is nothing. You choose.
So, what happens once we have God in our lives? Well, A.A. says, “Both you and the new [wo]man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen” (p 100).
Remarkable things? Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?
Tune in next week for another installment of Faith Facts Friday with Fiona!
