Progress Not Perfection

“Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.”– Anonymous I am an introvert. I like to think. I like to think a lot! It’s not uncommon for me to be lost in thought for hours, following my stream of consciousness wherever it may lead. I used to think so much that my first sponsor banned me from thinking during the first year of my sobriety. Telling me my best thinking made a mess out of my life. Who was I to disagree?  After a year he allowed surface thinking.  My mind always caused me trouble. Much of my recovery has been spent thinking. I had such grand plans for myself.  I loved the Navy. It was going to be my career. I was going be accepted into an officer’s program and rise through the ranks. I was intelligent enough, but I couldn’t get out of my own way. It’s been over 20 years since I have served, but there are times I look back with regret. Wishing I had ta...

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 ...

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better” Albert Einstein Being out in nature is a big part of my recovery. It is as an abstract form of the 11th Step; my time to connect with the Universe. That may be a stretch, but I am not discounting the boost to my mental health and serenity. Being out in nature even for a few hours works wonders for my mind, body, and soul. There are numerous studies which back up this fact. And it beats taking anti-depressants any day. I work in Manhattan and split time between Virginia and New Jersey. I am often worn out by the hustle and bustle of modern life. I need quality downtime to recharge my soul. Getting out into nature is the best way to do this. Sometimes, life gets in the way, and I can't get out as much as I want, but always try. This past weekend my girlfriend and I (and our dog) finally had the chance to hike, and we headed out on a day trip to Leesylvania State Park. Located in Woodbri...

“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...