Just about Lost it.

I am an addict.  I will always be an addict.  I need to surrender to the fact I am an addict.

It is so easy for me to forget that I am an addict as soon as my life begins to take on some normalcy again.  After four months of staying home to focus all my time and energy on recovery.

Meaning....... attending meetings,  Talking daily to my Sponsor and only people in recovery,  Working the steps and reading the Narcotics anonymous literature.  Its easy to stay clean and surrendered to the fact I am an addict when I surround myself in a cocoon of recovery.

But what about when I head back into the real world?  What happens when I get that promotion I had been seeking?  What happens when the incredibly sexy guy starts to flirt with me?  What happens when my non addict friends and supports tell me I wont be an addict forever and that its okay to pull away from them using people?

I can tell you what happens for me.  Bad behaviors surface as a warning sign and then I am off and running straight for that white fluffy cloud of invincibility.

And that my friends is where I am at today.  My beautiful supports have picked me up from my relapse in the summer.  They dusted me off and helped me get stable on my feet.  They encouraged my first few steps and watched me start to walk again.  The minute there attention moved on to someone else that needed picking up, I was off and running at a wobbly sprint.

I am running like a drunk person away from my supports!!  Wtf is wrong with this picture?  Who do I think I am running from, and where the fuck am I running too??  Seriously  this poor lopsided, crazy woman is running down the street in her hospital gown thinking she is escaping.... what?  Her demons?  Her captors?

Probably my fucking self!!

There is way more pun in that sentence then most people would catch.  I am running from myself.

This is too hard.  Recovery is too hard.  Life is too much work.  Its too much work to be an addict trying to function in a world where everyone is a fucking unrealized addict.  Its so hard for me not to get caught up in other peoples blissful illusions.  I want my blissful illusion back.  I want to be able to fuck that super buff beautiful 25 year old that has me so bloody weak knee'd I can barely stand it.  i wanna go with my boss and finish off the bottle of Crown he is tempting me with.  I want to let my arrogance attract more power into my life.  I want I want I want..... all these things that end up killing me in the end.

Why does this have to be so hard?  Why can I not be normal, with a normal life with simple challenges and soft life lessons?  Why did I choose such a hard existence?  How did I become an addict and how to I unbecome it?  How do I live in a world full of corruption, lies and deceit and keep open and not get hurt?  I don't know how to Live.  I am on step three and I am finally beginning to understand.... I truly do not know how to play the game.

So this is me getting honest.  I had to tell the incredibly fucking sexy big boy that I cant play his game.  It will hurt too much when I lose.  In an emotional meltdown I texted another person about my utter failure at life and my compete surrender to my brokenness.  I talked to my supports.  I answered a couple questions in my step working guide and i fucking cried.... and cried.

And I am clean today.  And I didn't sex anyone.  I didn't blow my entire bank account.... only partial.  I didn't eat the entire fridge clean, only a late night snack.  I am not happy today.... but I have found peace and some serenity.  Thats enough for today.

Riding a Pallet Raft on the River of LIfe

After much analyzing and much self berating I have come to the conclusion that I am in a low time and that's okay.

I am always in a place of bettering myself.  Working expertly hard on creating inner happiness and when not achieving that, trying some new and different.  I am always doing, doing, doing.  I am master of creating my reality, I am master of breath and directing my thoughts.  I am skilled at cultivating the feelings I choose to have and am truly in full control of every facet of my life.

Everything in that above paragraph is from a place of my Ego/addict/lower self.

Learning to let go of that side of myself means learning to just flow with the river of life.  Letting go of control.  Letting go of trying to be something I am not, of feeling something I am not suppose to.   Learning to flow means accepting the direction of the river and not getting out when I decide I have had enough, or when the turn takes me in a direction that I think is wrong.  Learning to flow means accepting the peaceful ponds as equally as accepting the grande rapids.  It also means accepting the long stretches of the boring sameness.

This is a very tough lesson for me.  Just learning to be.  Just being.  Not judging, just observing whats going on within me.  Detachment has been a ten year lesson for me and one that I think is pounding at my door now.

Let me get real....

I am feeling sick all the time these days, I am burnt out from work and all the excruciating work I put into myself and my recovery in this past year.  I had a wonderful boundary setting talk with my boss the other day where I stated how hard I work and how hard I play and how equally hard I crash.  I do nothing halfway its all or nothing.  Easy does it is lost entirely on me.

I am still of the school of extremes.

When I feel under that acceptable happiness barometer I have set for myself, I get a little crazy.  If I cant get myself out of it in a reasonable time my mind slips back to memories of 6 year long depressions and I panic.  Either upping the happiness anti or beating the shit out of myself to speed up the inevitable.

What I am learning today is that sometimes we have days, even weeks where we are just not brimming with overflowing joy.  And thats okay.   I can see from past experience when I can maintain that joyous nature for extended periods, I am either high or manic.  Neither a welcomed state for me today.

So accepting below the line energy after a long season of hard outdoor work is okay.  Giving myself permission to not be in top form and practicing my standard of perfection is okay.  I am okay.   It's such a scary thought for me to slip below that line and get lost again in that misery again.  However when i see that I am practicing my self care, doing the things necessary for myself to be fully healthy then all I can do is accept the feelings and state that I am in as the state I am suppose to be in.

Compassion for others starts with compassion for myself.  I lack compassion.  I expect perfection.  Fuck step six is kicking my ass these days and flooding light all over my character defects.  Perfectionist, bully and I push to hard.  Lots of prayers have been going out to remove these defects and to move on to letting go and detaching from the behaviour and understanding that is not who I AM.

So flowing down my river in not a fancy river pontoon but a make shift pallet raft is where I will be if you need me.  Facing my inner defective demons and eating humble pie.... all of that said with an abundance of gratitude for accepting the fact that down days are as powerful and wonderful as up days.  I get to spend yet another day cuddling my beautiful yet growing like a beanpole baby girl on our gorgeous couch watching movies on a TV I bought with my hard earned money.  Life is good even if I do feel like a bag of shit.  Thanks for listening,

The 'M' Complex.

I love Mother Nature today.  All this rain in early October is not welcomed by my Boss who is trying to run a successful Landscaping business, but to me it is a much, much needed break.  Finally I have had a few days off to not only recharge these old bones but to also catch up on my house work, bill paying, grocery shopping and to even have time to relax with my girls.

I can understand the deep importance of having balance in all these area's now.  I never gave rest and relaxation other then 30 minutes of mediation daily much thought until recently.  There is something deeply therapeutic about being able to just rest not only your body but your mind for a few hours at a time.  I am always from the mind set if your not being productive then your not being.   We are human.... beings though, not human doings.   I am always the human doing and never just the human being.

Let me move quickly into the topic before I lose my nerve.  That first line sparked a topic that is much needed for discussion in my world.  A long over due discussion actually.

Mother.

I can almost hear the groan.  I don't even know where that guttural sound originates from.  My mom for the better part of my life was my best friend.  I called her for everything.  I moved her up to my northern town 9 hours from home because I could not stand to be without her.  However, somewhere along the way of addiction and recovery I have come to feel such deep intense feelings of pain, rage and contempt towards her.  These feelings confused me and now I think it is time I face those feelings so that I can move on.

How did I come up with that realization?  This is the area of life that I love most now that I am connecting with God/dess.  The signs I get, the lessons I am awarded for just being.  When I observe my life from a detached place I can see the signs that connect with one another and from those signs I get my message from Spirit.

My one year cake celebration meeting was this past weekend.  I entered into that meeting with fear and trepidation.  These past few months I have been shutting down and closing off, I couldn't really put my finger on why.  Until that meeting.  What I thought was fear over being the center of attention was actually the fear of facing my mother head on, the last link to the misery of my past.  The final puzzle piece to be placed in the picture of my pain and suffered childhood.

Letting go always an issue for me.  More comfortable in my self created Hell then the glorious light of the world.  My mother meeting my recovery was why I was sweating the celebration meeting.  My mother being included in my growing light is why I wanted to get loaded and throw it all away.  Having my mother bear witness to real love that is shared with me, love that she couldn't give me as a child and love that I now refuse from her was the reason I didn't want to invite her into my recovery.

I came to all these conclusions from what someone else shared about their own mother during that birthday celebration.  I could feel myself get hard inside and knew that I had some shit to face.  My mom doesn't read my blog, not because she doesn't want to, she does.  I told her honestly that my words might hurt her here and I truly don't want to hurt my mom.  However I am still hurting over a lot of things from my distant past and not so distant past, that need to be expressed.  This is where I process those feelings.  This is my safe place.

I cut my mom out of my life these past few months.  After the meeting I realized I wasn't afraid of being center of attention, I wasn't afraid of the intimacy.  I was truly afraid of my mother being there.  The fear I think though is double sided.  I don't want to see my mom hurt and I really did want to share that the women in the rooms of NA have loved me more fully and deeply then my own mother ever has.  I didn't want my mom to know that's how I feel.  I didn't want my mom to see how many people love me and want to see me get better because to me my mom is the food addict that created my inability to express my feelings.  I didn't want her to realize this and feel bad and slip deeper into her food coma.  I think it was equally as much of protecting her then it was not wanting to let her in.

I am seeing that this is the facing the past that is uncomfortable but sometimes necessary.  I have said to my close support group that there is gonna be a blow out between my mom and I.  I can feel the tensions building between her and I.  More my tensions projected upon her.

I have done some deep meditative healing with my sexual abuser from my childhood.  I have been graced a live phone call with my father where he apologized for all the shittiness of my childhood and his part in it.  That phone call was the most powerfully healing interaction I have ever had with another human being.  Three simple words said with true feeling... I am Sorry, by my dad, released a tidal wave of pent up childhood scars.

I have gained forgiveness with two of my three abusers from childhood, my mother is the last one.  I have seemed to leave the toughest till last.  Probably because I still have yet to accept that her neglect and lack of protection were forms of abuse and contributed the most to my pain and suffering.  And that these forms of abuse are still playing out between us on a subtle scale.  It's easy for me to over look them as she was a child herself and knew no better and still has not learned, but my logical mind is insufficient where my heart is concerned.

I am learning that a human being not doing, just lets spirit walk her through these things.  I did indeed proceed forward to the meeting with my mom, but not so much of a graceful walk as it was a slither in the shadows.  This last piece of my puzzle is a finally that closes that chapter of my book forever.  I know I have written about the ending of my book already happening, but that was before I realized this chapter is crucial to full healing.  I was trying to keep my book clean, happy and white lighted.  Unfortunately, life is not that pristine.  The sooner I accept that the faster I will recover from the addictions that keep me in a rose colored fantasy.

I guess I will sit back now and let spirit clear the air for me and stir up the dust once again.  I will get back in my little row boat and just relax with the waves of life and know that on the other side of fear is my dreams. I will tell myself that over and over again as I heave my breakfast, yesterdays supper and all my childhood emotions up over the side of the boat as each wave rocks my stomach clean.

 I am always heading towards the light even if the skies get gray.  Look at today as a perfect example.... because the skies are gray I get a day off.  Loving the Gray!!

Beautifully Broken Fantasy

Fantasy.

Do I live in a fantasy world??  I was presented with this idea at dinner with a few women the other night.  As one women shared her experience of creating these fantasy scenarios in her mind about what her love relationships should be, yet never acknowledging the reality of them in actuality, I found myself questioning my own fantastical mind.  Do I create a reality that does not exist??

My whole spiritual plight for the past ten years has been about manifesting my own reality.  I am fully aware and am an expert at creating my desires in my reality. Or am I?  Is this the illusion I live under in my fantasy world?   The program teaches me to live on lifes terms, yet I still believe I can manipulate the universe to get what I want.  And for the most part  thats a pretty accepted concept.  I think my deeper question is, whats my reality and whats my higher powers reality??

Is my reality Fantasy?  Do I keep getting into romantic situations thinking they will become something that they never can be?  Or do I say one thing and actually mean another?  Do I see my partner as something that he isn't yet but has the potential in becoming?  Owe.... that one hurt.  Yes I do  see them changing because of me.  Not that I want to change anyone, but I do feel like I will make a difference in their lives.  I want to feel important to the other person.  Is that where my fantasy begins?  I see the potential and live from that place instead of the reality of where they truly are?

What about other area's of my life?  Do I live in an alternate fantasy there too?  Have I ever been down to earth and just accepted life the way it is?  I am beginning to think not. My ex husband kept the household grounded, I was always off on some quest.   Maybe my childhood scarred me so much that I went into a safe place of make believe and have been stuck there ever since.  That  thought kinda makes me sad for me.  However it also makes a truck load of sense as well.

I have been saying for days how broken I am.  Even though its a negative term, I really do feel like some  pretty deeply damaged goods.  Not that I cannot be fixed, but its never an easy realization to see how fucked up you still are.  Remove the numbing out drugs and the distracting boys that tell you your great and your left with the broken little girl that needs some serious TLC.  And not from another cute boy.

Humpty was put back together again, I know I can be too.  But the only way to restore myself to sanity is to tap into that higher power and begin to live from that reality instead of the one I continually create for myself.  Its scary to begin to step out of the cushion of make believe into the reality of brilliant light, it blinds my eyes. My dreams and nightmares in the dark have kept me company for over thirty years.  I am comfortable there.

I meet all these single older women that tell me they enjoy and prefer to be single.  I don't want to be one of those women.  I want to have a man in my life one day... a healthy man and a healthy romance.  Once my fantasy pops will all my dreams and hopes go out the window too?  Will I just be living day to day, in the normalcy of  life with no more excitement my fantasies afford me?

Its not like these women are unhappy.  They are so serene and beautiful.  They reassure me its well worth the work.  Yet I cry just a little bit about giving up my illusion that one day my knight in shining armour will swoop in on his white horse and whisk me off into a fairy land of constant love and lust.  I don't want to grow up.  I don't want to give up the fairytale my life has been.

Even with the chaos of realization when my illusions are shattered seem more bearable then a life without the illusion in the first place.  I guess change is always scary and stepping out of ones insanity is an intense process.  I have already rocked the boulder at the top of the hill.... nothing to do now but  let it roll.

Oh this is gonna hurt I just know it.  Good-bye fantasy world,  hello........ REALITY?

How Quickly I Forget

How soon one forgets the hard times.   How quickly we tend to forget where we came from when the going gets good.   Is it arrogance or is it busyness?  Is it that classic out of sight out of mind mentality?   How dangerous is that for the addict that still has the disease of addiction pumping through their veins just waiting for the opportunity to kill them.

Thats where I am today.   Complaining about my lack of time and balance in life.  Stressing about my loss of time in meditation and prayer, lack of meetings and No step work.  To busy working stupid long hours in a physically demanding job, rushing home to cook for my daughter and spend a few moments catching up with her before crashing into my bed.   Is this really life?

..............I do remember a day when my only concern for the entire day was getting loaded.  No job to worry about.  No kids to rush home too.  No prayer other then whining to God that I am outta dope.  Life was so full of suffering and yet I forget so soon those days.  I forget the shear pain of waking up each day to the full misery of what my life had become.   The intense loneliness of isolation.   The pure animalistic nature my personality had assumed.  I forget these things as my life settles back into normal.

My gratitude has been lacking lately.  I have been focussing on the long hours of my job and missing the fact that less then three months ago I was stressing about not having a job at all.  I have been nitpicking my job apart lately where I used to hand it over to my higher power and accept things that rolled in my direction, which always seemed to work out brilliantly.  I have been fighting with my daughter more and my house is far from being taken care of properly.  What is going on with me?

I am taking back my will.  I am losing contact with my higher power.  I am stepping into my Ego.  I am making things go MY way.  How quickly I jump into the driver seat of my life.  When will I learn that I never have a good map to follow and end  up lost in the back woods?   How many times must I cycle through this pattern before I can just stay forever grounded in my higher power?  Is that not a possibility?

I find it hard to work around coworkers that live in their wills for their lives.  At first its so clear to me how much easier their lives would be if they just surrendered and turned it over, but then after time that energy of getting what I want the moment I want it wears off on me and I am back in the drivers seat of my life.  It seems to take me a few weeks before I realize that things are starting to feel shitty in my world and to begin to question why.

Thats where I am right now.  Questioning why I have fallen back into judgement and am not accepting of the way things are.  When I accept life on lifes terms then my life becomes simple and joyful, how come I trade that in for my misery so quickly?   I guess I am truly experiencing how hard it is to break old patterns and ways of thought.  Self sabotage such a huge issue.  I just cannot seem to sit comfortably in happy for two long.  I want to distract myself from it or I want to exaggerate it just to make it ugly.

I am sure this boils down to a worthiness issue.  I question what I am worth alot these days.  I am defining that in the area of romance and the opposite sex and what I am worth to them, but I never thought to step up my worth on the job front or even on the personal level of self care and my higher power.  I touched my own divinity a few months back and really embraced it.  For a short period at least before it got to bright for me and I began to slip back into comfortable.

Can I grab it again and hold it this time?

It looks like I am rained out of work again today.  I think I am going  to use this day to deep clean my house and soul.  Its time I get back to my true power and stop this misery train that I have unknowingly hopped on.  I am sure glad I have this avenue of writing to help me see my life clearly.  Thank you for being part of it.

What are Your Motives?

What are my motives??  I ask myself this often these days.

I am coming to realize that in the past my motives for everything I did were never about me.  I lived my life for other people.  I was good as a child because if I wasn't my dad would kick my ass.  I did what my friends were doing as a teenager.  When romantic affairs entered my world it was always about him.  Then my kids came along and I became the faceless mom.  Always my motives have been for other people.

I am a people pleaser.

To have someone not like me is such an incredibly uncomfortable feeling.  One that gets little tolerance from me.  I will go out of my way to be liked by all people, even the peeps I dislike.  I cannot sleep at night knowing someone harbours ill will towards me.

That of course was until I worked through an entire set of steps.  Now I am cured.  lol

I still find myself people pleasing but stop myself and ask what my motives are.  Am I doing this for them or me?   Most of the time its still about them, I find I am struggling to peel away from this pattern of putting others before myself.  Such an unhealthy thing to place others well being before your own.  Lack of respect actually for thyself.

I am learning to respect myself.  I still make mistakes.... plenty.

When I decipher if the motives are truly mine then I must begin the process of identifying myself or Little lady Vixen in the motive mix.  Vixens motives are always dark and dangerous.  Getting loaded would be her motive.  I got asked to go to a rodeo with a friend and motives where in question.....

Half of me see's the 'saving the horse and riding a cowboy' potential there as well as the possibility of slipping a little shot or too past these lips.  The other half of me is looking forward to hanging out with a close friend and learning to have fun without the sexing and drugging.  People do you know, have good clean fun.

I have been cocooned in recovery cowering in the sand wanting so desperately to get back out there and live yet I am so afraid of any challenges that should come my way that I would rather turn tail and run.  But what are my motives??  I just want to live and laugh and socialize with people.  Does that mean I have to get loaded?  

I work a program.  I have a life today that I love so much.  My life is better today then it ever was before active addiction.  I would not want to lose what I have worked so hard to build.  I would lose everything if I let that sweet poison pass my lips.  Its not worth it.  I can have fun without ruining my life.

My motives today in life are to be happy, live life to the fullest, take healthy risks and laugh till I pee my pants.... Which my daughter made me do tonight btw!

What are your motives?  Ask yourself.

Heart Racing Serenity

Balance.

I have been on the search for balance my whole life.  Whether its in the form of moderation for whatever form my addiction is taking at that moment in my life or whether it is trying  to maintain serenity within a chaotic situation.  I am always aware of my balance or lack there of.

I was sharing with a few friends lately this concept and my thoughts and theories about it.  I figured I would bring it here where I gain the most understanding of a topic I am processing through.  I have lost my balance again and strangely enough am enjoying it this time.

While I was cocooned in the rooms of my twelve step fellowship I found a solid balance.  I found my centre.  I was deep and comfortable in serenity and truly believed that I would never be removed from it again.  I prayed, meditated, and connected constantly to my higher self.  Actually all my posts in the beginning of this blog is me at my root center.   Today I feel like I am far from that place of calm and serenity.

I am not in that place of addict craziness where my world is crumbling around me and I just wanna run for the hills and bury my head in the sand.  No those days are behind me.  Not saying they couldn't find me again if I looked over my shoulder and decided to head back there.  No this knock off balance is of a different kind.  Its excitement, busyness and building.

I really thought work would slow down after spring cleanups (landscaping), but it hasn't.  I am still putting in 12 to 13 hour days and working my ass off, which is toning up mighty nicely I must say.  These long hours and focussed thought on my career as a journeyman landscaper has me busting my girl balls but taking away time for my mediation and hence my serenity.

Spending all that time at work leaves few hours for my beautiful daughter, which I spend with when I can.  I make quality out of our time now, instead of the quantity she had before I started work.  Which has been an exciting challenge for me and one that I enjoyed.. although again balance was knocked out in left field for what we had become used too.  She had me all hours of the day, now she gets me only a few a week.  Those few however are spent doing something fun together.

Between my daughter, my house keeping(cleaning and bill paying, grocery shopping) and work, where do I find time for me and my recovery?  Where do I find time for my friends and more?   This is where I am still hard at work trying to find balance.

Self care is a huge area where I find serenity and peace, making time for it has been the toughest challenge, yet the most important one as its the one that will take me back out if neglected to long.  I have been keeping up with my personal care routine which has kept me tethered, but getting time alone for myself to be one in nature has presented the most solid wall of no go.   Having no vehicle has definitely added to this challenge.  I struggle with my original reasons for not having one(cost, environmental concerns, weight gain), thinking maybe my time is more important then those reasons now.

A friend and I went out to a lake for a bit last night and I was amazed at how quickly all my stress seeped into the cool sand beneath my feet as we walked along the beach.  Walking in the lake up to my knee's in water helped me connected and balance.  I found serenity doing something for me in nature.  It was then that I realized getting knocked off balance is part of the journey of life.

We are not meant to find serenity and hold it at all moments.  We are to find our centre and then venture out from there knowing that we can always come back to centre whenever we need to.  I found my center last night in a place I wasn't looking.  I find my peace now in quality moments not quantity ones.  I don't need to stay cocooned in recovery 24/7 to be trudging the happy road of destiny.

Working, playing, mothering, loving, stressing, crying, laughing, romancing are all parts of achieving that overall serenity.  I never realized I even had a center until I was far removed from it.  I couldn't practice gratitude on a daily basis until I found myself out of serenity again.  I find myself tear filled with gratitude when serenity finds me on a road trip where I was not looking for it.

Life is meant to be lived, experienced, enjoyed.  Risks are meant to be taken, your heart wants to beat fast with excitement.  Serenity is not in those moments and I am learning to enjoy those healthy moments of excitement, of pushing myself out of my comfort zone... of growing and thriving.  No longer is my adrenaline induced by dope, its brought on by following my passions and excitements.  Sometimes that means going against the judgement of others.  Testing waters that are familiar but creating a new ripple.   Breaking the patterns, converting fear to love, living life!!

I am off balance and I am loving every minute of it.  I am going with the flow and the river is a wild one  these days.  I do know that at some point I will run into a calm pond and there I will find my center and balance again.  Until then.... whitewater rapids!

Making Amends Helps Another Addict

Making amends and one addict helping another......





I must be very mindful of how I present my thoughts and observations here.  I need to always write from my own place of being and not expose that of another.  In a previous blog I was always sharing personal stories that involved other people and I see now just how uncool that was.  When people know who I am in the real world they can put two and two together and gather a lot of info on a person even if I don't include their names.  So learning how to tell my story without divulging another's is what my goal for this blog is..... tricky business.

But again I digress before any progress.

I had to make amends this week.  An amends to a person that triggered me and my first thought was to avoid like the plague.  Run away.  Thats what I do all the time and now I am realizing in ALL situations.  I already know I am a runner in romantic relationships but I had no idea how much of a runner I am in any form of conflict.  I couldn't run this time and as a matter of fact... I am feeling any time, any more.  I am living life differently now.

I found my addict coming alive when I got around this person.  After just a few hours in the presence of this beings energy I was slipping into the realm of my Lady Vixen (my cold hearted addict persona).  Romancing and reminiscing the good ol days of doping and parties, increasingly vulgar jokes, disrespecting myself and others......   Mere moments and Vixen was back in all her glory like she never left.

Two days of this and I truly felt like I had relapsed.  I guess this is what they call an emotional relapse.  I felt and still do, dirty and used the way I did back in those days.  I feel shameful and disgraced.  All the yuck is sitting in the surface of my skin and I just wanna crawl out of it.  How powerful, cunning and baffling this disease is.  After working so hard on my recovery to fall victim so unwittingly is stunning to me.  And was each time I relapsed.... this time I didn't relapse (progress not perfection)

After day two I called my sponsor.   Cleared my dirty secret and gained guidance.  I had to make amends to this person.   I was concerned about this move as denial is a funny thing in people still making love with the disease of addiction.  Seduction and acceptance all to alluring for me.  Yet the disgusting memories and feelings kept me on course... playing the tape till the end.  I made the amends.

Quick flip of the scales lead me into a position of one addict helping another.  Because then the questions began to flow and the slow subtle acknowledgement that a problem may be afoot was to be whispered out of the lips of a suffering addict outside the rooms.  My heart like the Grinches grew three sizes that day as Lady vixen was put back in her cold cage and I rose up again in her place.  My New friend asked to attend a meeting.

Life on lifes terms is a series of challenges and obstacles to get through in the course of the day.  When I fall asleep at  night these days there is no longer one lingering obsession to occupy my thoughts.  Everyday is a different thought of overcoming or rising up or stress and frustration at a current challenge being manoeuvred.  I am in awe of the complete dynamics of  how this universe works and my tiny but seemingly huge part in it.

Another exciting week has past and I find myself slowly incorporating back into  my life.  Find work life balance definitely a new concept for me to explore and work in my world.  A concept I find terribly daunting and frustrating.... yet I continue to trudge the happy road of destiny.

Wishing you a fabulous week and a fun obstacle course.

Work it because YOUR WORTH it!

It has been over two weeks since I have talked to you and Holy Cow how I have missed you!!  It always amuses me how life can throw a monkey wrench into the most solid routines and turn everything inside out.  One minute your bored out of your mind and the next so busy that you can barely catch a small breath.  

My life needed shaking up, so for that I am grateful, but to be back here with you, even if its for a brief moment is almost orgasmic for me.  You are my personal love.

I thought about reading the Just for Today daily meditation as a topic and then changed my mind to share about how the twelve steps are playing out in my new adventure at work instead.

 Applying these principals in all of my affairs is the topic of the day.

I have had two heated, emotional truly terrifying confrontations with both my bosses at my new job and I am only one month into it.  Many moments within these past two weeks I have wondered if I had made a terribly wrong choice by stepping into this position for work.  I have been pushed to the brink of my physical and emotional limits and can almost say broke my mental limits within this job.  It has been challenging, very challenging.

The rewards of these challenges however....... My comfort zone has grown double its width and my confidence within my own being has expanded.  I have just been blasted with one of those fucking uncomfortable growth experiences again. Actually two of them back to back.

The first time I went to my bosses with my concerns  I could barely get two words out between my ridiculous sobs.  I was beyond tired and could not continue at the pace I was going... physically.  I needed to vent it out because resentments were threatening to take me out of the job at a fast run.  I wanted to quit and never return.  I knew quitting has been an insane action of mine my whole life and for things to be different I needed to handle them differently.

It wasn't pretty but I asked to speak to both bosses and let them know I was about to quit cause I couldn't take it any more and I asked for other options because I didn't really want to quit.  Before I could get that out nicely though,  I had to admit my defects, I had to state my building resentments, I had to ask for help and I had to be willing to accept the guidance.  I had worked a fifth step with my bosses about my work practices and didn't even realize it.  I practised the principal of turning it over to the powers that be in that situation.  Looking at the conversation in hindsight I| realized I almost worked through an entire set of steps within the ten minutes I spoke with them.

The results were better then I could have hoped for.  They pulled me off the job I was doing and gave me a job much more suited for me and I was so grateful and happy I could barely contain my gratitude for this  company, my life and this program of the twelve steps.  In the past I would have bolted and found a new job and decided I hated this field of work and that would have ended that.  How limited my mind has always been, until now.  I don't even understand how I made it this far in life with the way I used to live it.

That gratitude didn't last long however......

I ran into my next challenge within a few days and found myself once again pushed to my limits and this time anger was building and over flowing into my words and actions with management and co-workers alike.

 A specific boss was undermining my ability to do the job and coming at me with cutting remarks.  These little slashes of the tongue were renting huge property space in my head and causing me to make mistakes that were to large for me not to lose my job over.  As this escalated so did my concerns over being fired for my poor quality of work.  I was back in the deep pits of self loathing and stinking thinking.

............An awareness grew for me that dope used to be my answer to all pracitices of destressing and unwinding.  Finding new productive ways to let go of stress and find excitement and joy to move my mind away from the things that rent space in my head is my new focus for recovery.  When I was off work it was easy to make time and find these solutions.  Working ten to twelve hour days presents a new challenge for finding joyous stress releasers.

Thats just a side note...... on with my story....

My great creator and higher power then stepped in as the anger escalated and caused a situation that brought about an uncontrollable stab of my own tongue into my bosses side.  This caused a bit of a roar and another sit down with both bosses.   This time I was the focus of the emotional spewage.  Not backing down I again stated my frustration over the way I was being spoken too by this one particular boss and it turns out this concern had already been stated by other staff as well.  I was heard and the problem was rectified in that moment.

However what came out of that second sit down was my own blaring defect/personality trait of being highly sensitive.  My boss was frustrated by how sensitive I am and I agree'd that I do have issues with this my self.  I don't like that I take everything personally, that every small gesture gets taken in to the deepest regions of my soul, that I love hard and hurt equally as hard...... but that is me and no matter how hard I have worked at turning it over to God, it is part of who I am.

I have learned that not all defects get removed just because we want them gone, they are part of who we are and we must learn to work them to our advantage.  After the blow out in the morning that day, both bosses spoke to me separately about my sensitivity.  I expressed my own concern with this trait of mine and how hard it is for me to find a job where its not an issue.  The owner boss stated that he did not want this quality of mine squashed because on the flip side of the tears was great laughter and wonderful energy that lead the other staff to smile and laugh more.  The other boss also gets the opportunity to manage in a new softer way, learning to handle different staff in different ways.  It was a win win for all involved.

I was validated.

I am learning to stand in the truth of who I am in all situations in my life.  I am beginning to accept and stand up for who I am.  As I write this tears again threaten to erupt.  I am proud of this person I am growing into.  I am amazed by my own abilities to embrace, nurture and support myself.  Walking away from work yesterday after being awarded three days off to recoup and with both managers approval of who I am, I am again beyond grateful for what the Twelve steps have taught me not only about who I am but how to deal effectively with life on lifes terms.

Work it because your worth it...... has new meaning for me today.  I am worth it..... but working it is fucking hard!    I deserve my three days off.

.......... and now boys and girls I am outta here to get my house cleaned( I would like to see the white of my tub again)...... so I can go love my beautiful little girl and have some fun in the sun!!!

Happy trails my friends!

Applying the Steps in All my affairs

Principals before personalities   

Our common unity comes first person recovery depends on it

 Mountains out of mole hills

These are all the issues I am dealing with as I face life on life's terms in my new Job.

I have missed you guys  tremendously, I must say that first.  Everyday I think of this blog and what I want to write, yet find myself too utterly exhausted at the end of my work day to get my fingers floating across the keyboard.  I would do it early in the morning if I didn't leave so early.  Ten hour days, working my body beyond anything I have ever done before....  I am ass kicked by the end of the day.

I am entirely grateful to my program of twelve steps and traditions.  It is through the learnings and understandings of those concepts that I have been able to move through my new job outside of the fellowship of recovery.  It is these learnings that I can transfer into all of my affairs and become a truly productive member of society....  Although I gots to tell ya, It's not bloody easy.  I feel like this ol' brain is being forced into a new direction and it's rebelling at every turn.

My new job aside from being physically demanding has also put me in a position of power.  Finding balance between staying in my own higher power and letting my ego grab that power has been a bit of a struggle for me.   With anything new there is a certain level of fear involved.  Where there is any fear my ego is hot on the trail.  Instead of suggesting things to my crew I find I am dictating.  Instead of encouraging I am criticising.  These are not my normal traits for dealing with co-workers.  By the end of the week my days were longs and miserable.

Waking up this morning I was in self kicking ass mode, In my head beating the shit out of myself for being such an ego maniac all week. Desperately trying to hand it over to my higher power.  Making mountains out of mole hills.  I sometimes forget the larger picture and get lost in the details.  There are far larger problems in the world right this very moment to help me put my little power struggle into  perspective..... like the day I walked into the rooms of my twelve step fellowship, completely broken from the mass destruction I made of my life.  This is small potatoes compared to that, yet my mind is worked way up about it.

I am reminded of placing the common unity of my Crew over my ego issues.  The success of my entire team will benefit from placing that unity above my own issues of power and control.   I have been dictating the way to do things and what to do and when to do them.   I am no longer attracting my crew to follow my lead I am promoting it.  These are all concepts I was aware of going into this position, yet seem to have lost track of  the past few days.  I have become a dictator not a leader.

H.A.L.T  is another acronym that I was aware would become an issue with starting this job that I lost focus of as well.  I let myself get hungry yesterday and my day went to hell in a pretty little hand basket.  Anger started to rise and I couldn't extinguish it.  I have stopped talking to my higher power and was feeling lonely, without realizing it.... and hot damn I was way beyond tired.   This allowed a co-workers personality to become greater then the principal of working as a team.

Man all these realizations of just how much this program has given me is way beyond my scope of gratitude right now.  Upon the answers flooding my mind this morning after surrendering it, tears have threatened to wash me clean of all the stress I have inflicted upon myself this past week.  I am always amazed at how hard I am on myself, how down right mean I can be in my own head about my own body, mind and emotions.   I should be showing myself the most love, the most kindness and compassion.  It's not egotistical to love one self and to treat oneself with compassion.  I respect others greater then I respect myself... thats just ass backwards.

I have learned a lot this past week and look forward to my day off today.  For the next few weeks I am afraid to say, only one post a week will be what I can afford.  Hopefully things will settle into a routine and my body will begin to adjust and I wont be so wiped at the end of the day.  I do truly enjoy to write and derive great benefit from it.  

Have a great week, Lots of love to you on your journey!!

Are You Living YOUR Reality?

I have spent a lot of years playing with the concept of creating our own realities.  Before the book the Secret came into existence my mentor taught me the power behind my thoughts and actions.  During active addiction I knew that I was choosing to numb out instead of deal with  life.

It was too hard, too challenging to do the things I knew needed to be done in my life in order for me to truly be happy.  I couldn't end my 17 year marriage   I had tried for so many years and just could not find the strength to cut the ties that bound me to my ex.  So I stayed and tried to manage my misery in secret.... I found relief in the poison from my youth.  That escalated until I was using hard drugs and my marriage naturally fell apart from that instead of me having to balls up and own it as my inner desire.

My reality then became pretty dismal because of all the guilt I heaped on myself from not manning up to the ending of our marriage   It could have been handled so much more gracefully.  Many people got hurt from my lack of courage and integrity in that situation.   I made a mess of the already messy life I had.

 I was sick and tired of hearing about my responsibility for the reality I created.  I was afraid of my thoughts and forced my own inaction.  I stayed in my misery even outside of the marriage.  Thats when my reality really crashed because I had to face the real truth of the situation.  I was the problem not the marriage.  I was always the problem not the reality out side of me.  The world wasn't shit, I was.

Now that I am working a solid program of recovery and have began to recreate my life.  I am creating the reality I had set out to do prior the end of my marriage.  Before my crash I could envision what kind of reality I wanted.  I started to create that reality but many things had to shift.. including my marriage   Today now that I am free of that Vow,   I am single and blissfully happy.  I am embarking on a career that empowers me and awards me independence.  I am raising my second daughter the way I always wanted to my first one.  Life is good for me today.  I am living the vision I originally had for my life years before the destruction took place.

I don't have any problems with life on life terms, I live with no delusions that life is perfect.  I actually welcome the challenges that come my way, for each one I get through I feel stronger and more capable of mastering this world.  My reality is finally one that brings me full joy.  It took me a very long time to get here though and I am fully aware I have only scaled a few feet of my happiness mountain   I am looking forward to just how great the creation of my reality can and will become with the Divine driving my chariot.

How good can your reality get??

Pink Cloud of Recovery

Floating on a big giant pink cloud of recovery.  The first year of the Program is a  gift.   When obsession is lifted the freedom is all inclusive.   Just wait newbies until the real work starts......

All those warnings that the newcomer gets as the old timers watch them inflate with gratitude in the early days only to settle into the humdrum of life and wondering if this is all there is to life clean.   Sound familiar   I have seen it for myself in others and my ability to see the larger picture and create solutions before the problem presents itself had me looking for ways around this before it got me.  The part of the program that teaches us to learn from others took me a while too grasp, but now I watch like a hawk.

I have blogged about finding this solution a few  posts back in the 'Rut' post.  I will touch on it again in a little bit of a different light today.  I believe that when we first come into the program everything is new, we are learning a whole new way to live.  We have a whole schwack of  new friends to build relationships with and we have new activities to try that are not using ones.  Everything we do is new.

Its that newness that actually has us excited and feeling free.  Its that newness that keeps our focus off using and how boring life truly can be.  After a few months the newness wears  off and melancholy sets back in.  This is when the pink cloud fades and the work begins.  Because lets get real life is not different between using and not using, removing the drugs does not make life easy.   But does it really have to be work?  If we recognize that its the newness factor that kept us in gratitude can we not keep that going?  I am sure some of us used because we were bored with life.

For me, I want to keep thee excitement factor going well past the first year.  Upon recognizing this, I waited to get involved with service until the newness factor began to wane slightly for me.  Each time my life starts to lose a bit of its lustre of gratitude I add in a new hobby to learn or cultivate a new friendship.  I strive to always keep the newness factor alive and well in my life, this keeps me on a pink bubble of life.  I keep my enjoyment and amazement of being alive in active freedom by practising this in my life.  I don't accept  the concept that life  has to get tough.

I have dealt with some pretty intense shitty things in my past two years, I am actually struggling to find a job today.  Yet life on life's terms does not threaten me today.  It did in the beginning and I am grateful to my group for holding my hand through it.  Again something new for me.  Now I look at the situation differently.... I have alot  of free time with no eight hour shift in my day, so I am learning new hobbies while I wait for prospective employers to return my follow up calls.   I am still riding a pink cloud through my trials.  Two years from now I will be on to a whole new set of experiences that I am fairly certain will continue to have me loving life and living in the amazement gratitude gifts me.  For me its learning to function in my Higher power and trust the direction that power is taking me.  Even before coming into recovery I had experience with this and can see it working again in my life, where I didn't trust before I do now.


Life is meant to be lived and lived fully.   There is so much out there to learn and experience    Moving beyond the boarders of my safe little world is  what excites me and gives me passion today.  The program is what gives me the tools to stay safe while venturing out there.   Live and let Live ... it's been my motto since I was a teenager.   Again if your not moving forward you are sliding back.   I want to keep moving forward today... I see the bright light ahead of me and I am good with following that.  Care to join me?

Honor your feelings not your dope.

.....'When we refuse to accept the reality of today, we are denying faith in our higher power. This can only bring us more suffering'........ IP No 8. Just for Today

Feelings are something i am just learning to allow into my life now. Since getting clean i have used food, sex and romantic relationships to cover my feelings of the moment. Recently i have experienced a job loss and today as i write this i am unemployed with no support income of any sort lined up yet.

Can you say freaked out?

That was in my past though because right now I am not freaked out. I am somewhat enjoying the process of letting the feelings come up, because my step 11 is so powerful in my life today that i know as soon as i enter my meditative state all current feelings melt into serenity. I can almost understand the larger picture of the situation I am in and that softens any feelings i have of the situation.

This of course is not before i tried to stuff my fear with food and found i couldnt go there anymore now that i was aware of my pattern in this area. Next thing i experienced is a call from my ex boyfriend, a man i have been ignoring his attempts at contact via email.   I caved the dAy i lost my job. It didnt take long during the phone call to realize i again was just trying to get out of my feelings and current situation. So i sent him on his way in love and i went back to my feelings and my unstable situation.

This program has taught me how to trust myself to take care of my own life through the guidance of my higher power. I may be unemployed and single, but i am in touch with who i am and i am clean on all levels. Because of this i trust fully that the perfect job is being lined up for me now and the pefect man will come along when i am ready. And of course by perfect i meAn equal assets and defects.

So just for today i will demonstrate my trust in god by experiencing this day just as it is.

Thank you for letting me share, i am a recovering addict named brAndy.

Does Your God Test You?

...'we have found a loving, personal God to whom we can turn.'

The reading today is all about life on life's terms.  I heard that phrase so many times in the past few years that I never really heard it.  Until recently, when I began experiencing it.   This is where clean time does not equal recovery.  Experience equals recovery, working the steps bring about experience and let me tell ya, I have some experiences.  Most of which are not blooming with success.

Each time I was presented with the opportunity to use after I began working a solid program I got pretty angry at my God and to show that anger    I...... you guessed it...... used.  Boy, I showed her, didn't I ?!....

 This had to happen a few times before I began to understand Life on life's terms and that my God was not testing me when these situations came up.   The last time using presented itself to me I was so aggravated that the universe would allow this travesty to occur in my life, because this time I really did want to get clean and was working a hardcore solid program... could God not see that??    How could God challenge me this way and knock me off course again?  Was God not a loving god meant to protect me?  Then why was this up in my grill again??  Oh ya, I was pissed right off!

Sitting in a meeting one night, stewing in some self pity about this new test in front of me, I heard someone share.... 'Life hasn't stopped just cause you are clean now'.  Life on lifes terms echoed in my head like being yelled from the top of the Grande Canyon.  Damn.  Those stupid light bulbs blinded my brain again.

 It's not a test that I am faced with the opportunity to use, it's just life and I need to deal with it cause life will always happen whether I am ready for it or not.  There will always be people who use, there will always be liqueur stores, there will always be party's that an invite will find its way to me... because thats life of a normal person.  Isolation is not an option for me anymore.

Back to the serenity prayer I trudged.  Step one found it's way back into my hands as extra reading at the end of the night and my program peeled a new layer of the onion.  The process never ending just getting easier I guess.  This time I didn't use and I have built a more solid trust in my higher power because she walked me through it and I didn't reach out a bitch slap her for the perceived challenge.  Recovery is not easy, the first year is a gift and then the work begins... learning a whole new way to live.

So Just for Today I will have faith that my Higher Powers will for me is good, and that I am loved.  I will seek my Higher Powers help in times of need.

Thank you for letting me share, I am a recovering addict named, Arial.