Progress Not Perfection

“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...

I am continuing my exploration of fear and anxiety in recovery.  This topic has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks. I have always considered anxiety to be my primary issue. It’s no less serious than my alcoholism. Once I manage some sober time under my belt I no longer felt I had a drinking problem, but I had a thinking problem. It's a pretty common phrase in the rooms, usually meaning the way we think about drinking or even about how we live our lives in sobriety. I had no idea how to live, let alone live sober. I have always been envious of those in AA whose only problem is alcoholism. Their lives always seemed to click for them after they got sober. But that never my experience. I was baffled, often asking why recovery didn’t work for me. Why did I have to suffer?  I didn't even know what I was wrong with me until I had six years sober. It was then I finally sought outside help. I hate using the term mental health to describe my life struggles. It connot...

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...

Great Falls Virginia  . I still have my struggles with anxiety and maintaining my serenity. In part, they are due to physical and geographical burnout. Sometimes life is life. I do what I can. I have a greater awareness of myself and my needs today. Serenity goes hand in hand with connecting with my spiritual side. This includes spending time in nature. Recent studies have advised that city living is detrimental to psychological health₁. Getting away from concrete and pavement and spending time in open green spaces is good for or us ₂. I didn't need a study to tell me that city life does not agree with me. I know first-hand having lived it. My professional life has had me sitting at a desk, staring at a computer monitors eights hour a day. Work is not the only part of my day. I have been commuting back and forth from Jersey to Manhattan for the past 20 years. I like my job, love who I work with, but the commute will be my death. The hustle and bustle of tr...

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. ...