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You can’t choose your feelings. They just happen. Life happens and then feelings and emotions arise — and you’re left to deal with them. In recovery. This can be difficult, especially if you’re used to medicating those feelings and emotions away instead of actually feeling them.
Transforming unhelpful ways of living is different for everyone. For one person, a commitment to not work so many hours a week may be the key to restoring harmony in his life and relationships. For another, the answer may lie in her reducing the inordinate amount of time wasted texting, tweeting or Facebook surfing instead of engaging in authentic face-to-face interactions. If we can begin by allocating even 5-10 minutes a day to fuel our mind with a healthier stillness diet, it will do wonders in no time – not only in how we feel, but in how our brain gets rewired … and our priorities too.
Relapse is a process, it’s not an event. In order to understand relapse prevention you have to understand the stages of relapse. Relapse starts weeks or even months before the event of physical relapse. In this article you will learn how to use specific relapse prevention techniques for each stage of relapse.
by Tim (Sullivan) “And then my obsession to drink was lifted.” I’ve been in program for a couple of years now and have heard this said on a number of occasions by different people. I don’t question anyone who says it, but I do know that it hasn’t happened to me, at least not yet. When … Continued
Despite memorizing and saying the Step Three prayer every day and following my sponsor’s suggestion that I read Step Three in the 12 & 12 every day for 30 days, I still was staked around the “perpendicular pronoun” I-I-I … the thing that I’m told makes up the ISM in alcoholism: I – Self – Me.
Since the brain injury, I can only think about one thing at a time. I have to take things slower, step by step. Before my injury, everything was fast…Now if I have to do something I need to plan it out and take it one step at a time. If I look at the whole picture at once, it’s too much to digest. Everything is one step at a time.
by Ed H. We came to A.A. and started to go to meetings. Then we came to believe that only a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. The second step builds on the first step. We are asked to go beyond admitting our personal powerlessness, to accept that there are powerful spiritual resource … Continued
Dr. Bob’s last words to Bill Wilson may turn out to be his greatest legacy. Speaking about the AA program, he said, “Remember, Bill, let’s not louse this thing up. Let’s keep it simple.” Step Two is a wonderful place to begin heeding Dr. Bob’s sage advice.
One crucial insight that I learned through my struggles with Step One was that the suffering and adverse consequences related to my drinking were never enough for me to reach my final bottom. Adverse consequences included many hospital trips, a few psychiatric/crisis visits, broken bones, numerous blackouts, loneliness, isolation, legal and financial problems … the list could go on and on. But until that complete and utter surrender came, I continued to fight.
Step One is always there, asking more of me than any other step likely will. From my perspective, that’s a good thing, particularly now that I’ve completed my Continuing Care program. I feel like its time to put on my big boy pants and live like a normal person, only not so normal. I heard someone once say that addicts are a little crazy. I can live with crazy, what I can’t live with is the old me, the one that lied.
