Christmas Day was two years clean. That is a miracle and I could never have done it without NA. But too tell you the truth all I have been is clean, all the pain is still there, all the guilt is still there. I've had 3 sponsors who I haven't been able to call. I know my only answer is in the Steps but how??? I haven't even been able to finish step one. Is there a easy way that I'm missing??
Hi Glenn. I'm sorry you haven't had much luck with sponsors. Mine is dead so I am working without one, but I have trusted friends with long-term time and that works for me.
In my opinion people make the steps too complicated. Again, just my opinion. When the original steps were written in the other program, people were on step nine when they left detox.
My first step was getting to that hideous feeling when using that I don't ever want to feel again. I locked onto it and wrote about it and I can call it up easily when I want to get high. I basically don't use because I never want to feel that again. Find that powerlessness and write about it.
If you are brutally honesy and you write and you share with someone else, than you are doing it right. Recovery is a process, and sometimes you just have to trust the process. We don't get instant happy pills just cause we're clean, but life does get richer and more meaningful.
Somewhere in your fourth step you will start feeling some empathy for yourself and the guilt will start easing.
Again, just my opinion since you asked. I am just telling you what has worked for me, and the people that I have worked with.
I am very familiar with how you are feeling, as I was there not too long ago. I have since been blessed with a wonderful sponsor and am working the steps with a small group of women. While all of this has helped, what helped the most was getting the hell out of my own head. For me, that meant going back to school. Your solution may be different, but whatever you do, stay out of your head. A friend of mine is fond of saying that her brain would kill her if it didn't need her for transportation. I know this is true for me too. Be Well and Stay Strong, Jaime
Hi Glenn, For me pain and confusion had become a way of life, I didn't know any other way. After creating some more pain and confusion around one and a half or two years clean, I was inspired to seek out a sponsor who was willing to work with me on some "defects of character" from my past that were still kicking my butt. I had developed some "core beliefs" about myself that led me to recreate pain. By core beliefs, I mean ways of thinking of myself, general attitudes of my place in the world, and ways of reacting to the circumstances of life. The particular defect of character that caused ME to feel enough pain to seek another way to live, was the thought that I was unloveable as myself, that love I recieved had to be earned. As you can imagine, this encouraged me to seek out relationships that were anything but healthy. I have come to understand that I can be addicted to any behavior that reinforces one of my core beliefs about myself. The character defects grow every time we feed them, as they are validated by our behavior they seem more and more true. All behavior has a payoff, and the payoff doesn't have to be a good feeling, it can just be a validation of our core beliefs, in my case that I was unloveable, without my earning that love. Addiction to drugs is only the most obvious symptom of the spiritual disease that I have. As I have moved further down the road to recovery, I have been shown that usually the healthier my behavior is, the first time I practice the new healthy behavior I am uncomfortable as hell, because I am breaking away from a "rule" that I have always lived by. There is no easier and softer way that I have found to seek recovery. No matter how intimidating it is to change the way I react to the world, no new way to live is as miserable as the way I used to live. It's far easier to live today than it was when I was out there using, without any hope. Welcome home!
Lon
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Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.----Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Thanks for all the words of encouragement, there is nothing like another addict to know what's going on in another addicts head. In one way or the other you all hit it on the nail. The worst place for an addict to be is in his own head.
I have been using every excuse not to recover. I have used everything I could to fill that big dark hole in me that opened up when I got clean. It will never end till I truely recover. But I can say it all the time , it's doing it that's the problem.
I have to get out of my head because it keeps telling me that you don't deserve to be happy. That has been drilled into my head my entire life. It's a feeling I just can't shake, and it's blocking my recovery. And you know what I'll do tonight, I will call my sponser and tell him this exact thing, see what happens, Thanks Glenn
Good luck and HP Bless . . . just remember, this is a very slow program and that is exactly as it should be. Don't expect a miracle tomorrow, but do wait for it to come and it will as long as you work the program.
