Progress Not Perfection

My grandiose plan during my drinking days was to become a best-selling author.  That was my dream. Of course, I did more drinking than writing, but I always talked a good game. My idol was the lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison. Besides being the frontman of one the 60s biggest rock bands, he was also a poet and alcoholic.  I patterned my drinking career on his life. His death at 27 (from drinking) didn’t faze me. I was the same misunderstood genius he was. I wanted to be exactly like him. Trying to keep up with such legendary drunk was hard work. My efforts certainly contributed to my brief by intense drinking career. I was not built to be the type of drunk I aspired to be. My depression was too big of an obstacle to overcome to reach the heights to be a professional alcoholic.                My drinking buddies were concerned when they heard I got sober. Of course, they didn’t think I...

The love of another will not be able to fill the void left by not loving yourself." - Anonymous. I have always felt different from my peers. As a teen and well into adulthood, I’ve perceived a void in my soul separating me from everyone else. Drinking was my means of coping. But my drinking career was brief, leaving me to deal with the void without the help of booze. Relationships were one of the ways I tried fixing myself after I got sober. I was convinced love was the missing puzzle piece. It would fill the gaping hole within me. Yet, I was a social misfit and had no idea how to approach women, let alone date them. Hence, I was a spectacular failure at dating. Shy guys with low self-esteem are not in high demand. Add in paralyzing anxiety and you get a very lonely person. I improved a little over time and learned how to fall into relationships. My low self-esteem raged and I did not feel worthy of the women I liked. I would involve myself with women I ...

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” Lao Tzu      I was sober over a year by the time I turned 21. I thought I knew everything there was to know.  I believed my only true character defect was chewing tobacco and a foul mouth. I was also full of shit!  I made an effort to quit cursing and replaced Copenhagen with Camels Lights. That was the extent of my recovery efforts beyond not drinking.      Like all young adults, I lived with an air of immortality. I gave no thought to who I was or what I wanted. I left my future in the hands of fate and figured it would all fall into place in the end. In truth, I was full of fear and self-loathing and had no idea who I was or what I wanted. All I knew was that I was cursed with alcoholism and could not drink. I felt like I was missing out on life. Oh, how I resented it!      I went to meetings on a regular basis only because the...

FEAR – Fuck Everything and Run!  Flight has always been my reaction to fear, and there is no emotion I hate more than fear. Anxiety and its incessant mental ruminations always accompany it. It chews me up and spits me out. Then there is the awful feeling in my gut that steals my breath and a pulse so intense it feels as if my heart is going to beat straight out my chest. It often feels as if there is no escape from this self-inflicted torment. No matter how much I drank, I could never escape my fears or myself.  I already wrote a blog post about dealing with long-term sobriety. This post centers on the risks of unresolved fear in recovery. There are no mincing words here, dealing with fear newly sober is a bitch! When first get sober, our only conscious fear is that of getting drunk again. It could also be the possible fear of being sober. Addiction has a twisted comfort; we love our booze. The bottle was often our best friends. Letting go of it seems terri...

Our primary purpose in AA is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. In the early days of recovery, our focus is on staying away from the first drink. After we get some time sober, we need to start working on the rest of our recovery. In the beginning, I sold myself short by limiting my definition of sobriety. I did not see that being sober is about so much more than staying away from a drink. It’s a brand new way of living. Sobriety offers us a chance to have the life we never thought were capable of having. Learning to live life on life’s terms is not always easy. The first sentence of the pop psychology classic The Road Less Travelled states that “Life is difficult!”  How true is that? It's even more so for the newly sober alcoholic. We may have decade’s worth of dysfunctional living we need to overcome. This takes time. Be patient. It's frustrating, but think of time as an acronym: This I Must Earn.  Have patience. By using the principles of the...

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”    Mahatma Gandhi                An overinflated ego is a major trait of alcoholics. In our minds, we are the center of the universe and the world revolves around us. The Big Book states, Selfish – Self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles!₁  Getting involved in service work assists in ego deflation. In order to keep it, you have to give it away is a phrase often heard in the rooms. Being of service to others is a key foundation to recovery. But what if you don’t know how to give it away? What if your struggle is with yourself and your inability to connect with others? Perhaps you are sitting in the back of a crowded room feeling less than and better than everyone else? How do you shut off the voice inside your head without having a panic attack and running away? It is no...

A blessing of long-term sobriety is perspective. Charting my growth through the lens of recovery. There are many instances where I sputtered and stalled but my life is certainly better than I ever dreamed possible. Without a doubt, getting sober when I did, saved my life. It took me too long to understand the gift of sobriety.  I still don’t see the entirety of it all. I feel blessed catching only glimpses of possibilities, which range from the mundane to the spectacular. I am convinced AA is but a start to a greater life. But I have to stay centered on the principles of the program to get there. The Steps are not a one-time exercise taking me from misery to serenity. They are living guidelines that can take me as far I want to go. Practicing the AA principles in my life has brought about a dramatic transformation of being. In the beginning, AA granted the means to get sober. It offers me a safe place to go for community and support. Most of it all it gave me hope. ...

Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.                 I will be the first to admit that I had zero understanding of this step. On the surface it sounds easy enough; as the slogan says “Let Go and Let God.”   But what exactly does that mean?   I had a certain anxiety about God. I thought at best I was God’s personal jester; a puppet to be played with when He needed a laugh. How could I trust Him with my life?                    The Big Book and 12 x 12 point out that faith in a Higher Power was critical to the effectiveness of the rest of the steps.   Like many others, I turned to the religion of my upbringing for greater clarity. However, I wanted nothing to do with religion. I wasn’t trying to be saved, delivered or anything e...

The 2 nd   Step – Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.                 Rising from rock bottom is not easy. Not only are we confronted with staying away from a drink but we also face the need to change our thinking too. After admitting we were alcoholics, we arrive at the 2nd Step. Step 2 is the bridge of hope from a hopeless condition to the promise of a new life. To take this step we are only required to believe. Belief is the key word! It’s the beginning of change.                    This was a bit tricky for me. I saw the 2 nd Step not only telling me to believe in a Higher Power*, but to also admit that I was insane. My willingness to believe took a heavy stumble when it came to seeing anything positive for myself.    In the beginning all I believed in was f...