A Note To An Alcoholic Friend

“I Didn’t Cause It, I Can’t Control It, I Can’t Cure It”

The 3 C’s of Alanon

It’s about jails, institutions and death.  It’s about pain and heartache and loneliness and anger and fear and resentment, to name a few.  It’s disrupting and heartbreaking and disgusting.  It’s the blackouts, the hangovers, the shakes and seizures and wondering what you did.  It’s the hell  you’re going through right now.  It consists of me saying I can’t do anything for you unless you’re ready to help yourself.  I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it and I can’t cure it.  I have compassion for what you’re going through but I cannot fix you.  Only you can make the decision to get on the road to recovery.  I pray you have a moment of clarity.  I don’t want to see you to die.  The ball is in your court. I hope you choose to play.

We Are Not Alone

We are being led. We are not alone. Our Higher Power is working Its finest and best to bring true change in us. Others have traveled this road too. We will be led to someone who can help us, someone who can provide the markers we need. We are being prepared for receiving as much joy and love as our heart can hold. ~ Melody Beattie

There have been many times in my life where I have felt trapped, alone or abandoned with nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide. It’s impossible to hide from yourself unless you are anesthetized and out cold. And that is only temporary. Once the lights come on it only gets worse. This is not a speculation on my part. It’s the truth as I learned it. It’s a different story today. I am not in my disease and I have spent, and still spend a lot of time recovering from it in one way or another. I accept that I am the sum of all my experiences, good and bad.

I remember in order to forget, in order to move through those cobwebs that would like to cling to my being like sticky little bits of cotton candy. I could stop and wallow in some of those old patterns and pities. I could bow to low self-esteem and self hate. Maybe I could twist up some resentments and anger. Or how about jealousy and rage, lies and deceit ? Oh ! I forgot drama. Lots of drama. Yeah ? I don’t think so. I could but I won’t. I’ve grown and changed over the years and that behavior isn’t in my life any longer. It tries to slip sneakily in. But I need to remember what it was like, not to become too comfortable and let my guard slip.

Remembering where the Past has taken me brings me to the Present and the gifts I receive daily. Waking Up (not Coming To), watching the sunrise from my lanai, having time to just be or create, my beautiful children and grandchildren, other family and friends, fantastic times with the man I love, working in my garden, traveling to places I never imagined, living in beauty by the ocean and being at relative peace with myself and others are just some of the gifts only a truly magnificent G.O.D. could give me. I felt, at a time passed, that I was undeserving of such gifts. Today I can smile and say “Thank You” while I accept these Blessings from Above.

What’s Dominating Your Destiny ?

Once you exercise fear and make it your practice, once you try resentment and make it your habit, once you employ aggression and make it routine, those actions will dominate your destiny. No matter how painfully you’ve been wronged, stand in love in the midst of a huge temptation to be vengeful, prideful or hold back. The real nature of love is that the person you think has betrayed you the most is actually an agent of the divine offering you the opportunity for grace.  ~ Mary Manin Morrissey

From firsthand experience I can only concur with what Mary Manin Morrissey is saying.  I’ll guarantee that by feeding and watering these “seeds of pain” they’ll grow quickly and become a part of your daily life.  (If you’re an active alcoholic you can even get an extra helping of Hurt that will go along nicely with your always increasing irritability and discontent).  Fertilize with plenty of Drama and just see how soul-sick you can become.  Those “seeds” will develop into a very healthy, extremely strong and toxic vine and it will work slowly on strangling its host, Your Spirit.  With a warped perspective, bad choices are made on a daily basis and you dig in deeper.  The people, places and things that are causing your discomfort aren’t going to go away unless you let them go; sent away with love, no conditions attached.

There is a paragraph in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that reads “If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it  anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”   This seemed easy enough to me and I liked the part about even if you don’t want if for them or mean it,  because I didn’t.   I knew I had to start somewhere so I started out praying “GOD, bless the son of a bitch”.   Every day I prayed and slowly it changed.  After a couple of weeks my prayer had progressed and came to me in love.  It was softer, gentler and forgiving.   I realized I truly meant what I was saying; that it felt good.  I’d had a change.  I was freed from that resentment and allowed the 180 degree turn from darkness to light.   By the grace of GOD I was given a new outlook on the situation, realizing how much easier it is to approach a problem in love.

I haven’t by any means gotten this down to an exact science but I’m getting better at it.  There are days when I repeat the words “tranquility and serenity” over and over in my mind to keep these feelings away.  I’ve also prayed for many other “sons and daughters of bitches” since that day and I may have to pray it again.  Who know where my mind will try to take me if I get on the bus with it again.   I have to keep focused on the good and stay off the bad.  All  is well even when the boat starts to rock if I pause and think before I react.

Today I am aware of my connection to the Universe and I am more at peace with myself and others.  I’ll gladly take that over living in my mind while attaching negative emotions to negative thoughts, in turn creating inner turmoil and drama.  Life has taken a great turn and GOD continues to bless me beyond my wildest dreams.

photo:  http://www.csindy.com