Control is what I call the "C" word. Not only because it is part of the three "Cs" but because I couldn't comprehend the word powerlessness until I substituted this word.

All my life I tried to control, to be in control, and all my life no matter what I did, I got hurt anyway.

Control is an illusion. The one it hurts the most is me, yet like my days of using, it hurts those around me. My intentions were good, I thought my motives were good, I didn't know I was trying to play God with other people's lives, including my own.

I tried controlled drinking for many years. It didn't work. Even if I didn't have more, I always thought more, and I was never at peace. In my relationships, I was always looking for love and attention, and there just never seemed to be enough. Today I know that what ever I took, it couldn't have possibly filled up the emptiness within me. I was empty, with no self-love and all I took fell on fallow ground.

When I try to control my life, it leads me back to insanity. It takes me away from God and back into active addiction. Even if I don't physically pick up my drug of choice, my thinking can go before me.

Denial gets in the way of my full recovery. It keeps me sick and prevents me from finding the total acceptance of my disease. Unless I can take the first half of this step 100% I open myself to relapse.

Many say relapse is part of recovery. Relapse is part of my disease. You have to have something in order to have laspes or slips in your thinking which takes you back drinking.

Denial allowed me to keep an open door with one foot in recovery and the option of putting the other one back to living on the edge, back to the caretaking of others and not taking care of myself, back to looking for some person, place or things to blame for my life and my decisions.

Recovery is all about me. When I deny that fact, I stay sick. It doesn't matter how many people around me are using or what they are using; it is my reaction and how I deal with these people that is the problem, unless I can find the solution. The soluton for me was the Steps. Learning how to apply them to my life. To heal, to grow, to find the real me, and not live through other people's concept, ideas, projections, identities and find my own truth.

In today, I am an addict. I used people, places and things to escape reality and to help me cope with life. One day at a time, I do get better. I am a recovering addict whose drug of choice can still be more....

Each morning I have to take this Step. I am powerless over people, places and things and my life is unmanageable when managed by me.

Feel the truth In every moment, in every circumstance there is a new truth to be discovered. Life is rich with possibilities for deeper, more profound understanding.

You are, at the same time, all-encompassing essence and also a particular momentary expression of that essence. You live in this moment and you live beyond it.

Discovering truth is a matter of confirming in experience what you already know in your essence. The way you know it is truth is because it resonates so perfectly within the depth of who you are.

Truth is not something you must be told. Truth is truth because you recognize it so completely.

Living successfully in this moment and in this world is a matter of connecting your outer life to your inner truth. The most effective, fulfilling choice in any situation is to live the truth of who you are.

In pure truth there is no fear, no worry, no anxiety or anger. Feel the truth that is within you, and let it guide your every choice.

-- Ralph Marston

Just last night was sharing with someone about this. It is about finding our truth. Experiencing our own life and no longer living it through others.

For me, it is about not playing old tapes, but making new ones in living colour!

What do I believe in? What do I want for my life? What do I need for my own health and wel being so that I can be there for others? When I am focusing on others and not on my own recovery, the well runs dry. I need to remember that I need food for the body, mind and spirit.

Can't fault the last statement. If I am living in those feeling, I am not working my program or not working it to the best of my ability. When fear is near, God is here. I need to have faith in that. That is my truth.

There is negative in life. That is a given. It is what I can do to change it into a positive that matters. Turning a blind eye and pretending that it isn't there isn't the solution.

This was posted at Recovery Inn in 2010

In today, I see the disease through my son. He thinks I don't understand, because he used my drugs of choice and moved onto other things. He things because he uses other drugs, it makes him different. He doesn't want to admit the problem is him not me. It is not the substance, it is the dis-ease.

Often what I thought was my truth was self-justification.

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All my life it seems that I have been in competition. I always wanted to be number one, I wanted to be the center of attention, and my whole attitude was "Feast your eyes upon me, I'm here, I'm here, it's too good to be true, but I'm here, I'm here!" It was a name of a song way back when, and I took it as my theme song.

When I came into recovery, there wasn't much of that bravado left. I was an empty shell. I looked at everyone and I compared instead of identify and I stayed sick. I had to stay away from open speaker meetings because I would walk away and say I didn't do that, or I would shut down and I wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't be open to anything the speaker said.

Today thanks to recovery that is no longer true. I use to look around the rooms and say, "I want what they have!" Today, I go into the rooms, and there are few people who have what I haven't already been given or made aware of. That is not bragging, it is fact. I have worked very, very hard on my recovery for the past twelve years. I have had people come up to me and say, "I want what you have!" I respond with, "Well unless you are prepared to work really really hard and do lots and lot of service, you won't get it." They generally end up walking away.

Many times in recovery it has been lonely, because I have joined groups and women have left. Ironically, I am not in competition. I am not out to run a race. I don't want anyone's man. For most of my recovery, I wouldn't have taken him in a lucky bag, I had a lot of anger issues around men and my past. I had some with women too and that is why I joined a Woman's Group for the first three years of my recovery, and why I am in a CA Women's Group today.

The fellowship is small, it need support, and I have been give many gifts in recovery, much awareness, and a spiritual connection with my God, who has granted me a lot of blessings. I believe those blessing were a result of service, nothing more, nothing less.

I am not bad looking for an old lady, and I find it rather humorous to have women draw their men away from talking to me, I have had women leave the room when I started to share, and I never had a black out when I was drinking but I have in sobriety. I have had at least four relationships that I don't remember feeling a thing.

I was anxious last night when I went to detox that the newcomers may not identify and would shut down and shut off because I was there for CA and I have never used Cocaine or Crack in my life. But the substance doesn't matter, and thankfully I was able to put that message across. The problem is me, and the Twelve Steps are to fix me not my addiction because I have a thinking problem, not a drinking and drug problem, the man one God and I are still working on, although the new relationship is coming up to one year.

Alcohol and drug cause a soul sickness. It is a family disease and affects not just the addict and alcoholic, it affects those around them.

I have been given so much, that at two years I wanted to tell the world. At twelve years, I have been given the opportunity. At three years I quesitoned my existance, my reason for being. I went to two meetings a day for two years and at least once a day I heard, "Give back what was given to you!"

My tongue was a weapon for many years, I tore strips off of people, I took them apart and forgot to put them back together again. My way of making amends to these people is to share the knowledge that has been given to me, that comes my way from great spiritual teachers, from the newest of newcomers, to the oldest long-timer. Up until two years ago when I took sick, I was still doing seven to 10 face to face meetings a week because of service.

I was told if you aren't in a relationship, get involved in service. If you are having difficulty in your own life, get out of yourself by helping others. If you want to keep it, you have to give it away, but the key is, you have to have it to give.

My spiritual advisor told me that I can learn two things in recovery. How to work it and how not to work it. Take what you need and put the rest on the shelf, although for the first few years it was 'forget' the rest.

Please, don't compare identify. I don't want your recovery and I hope you don't want mine because you may get drunk or go out and use if you do. Please find your own.

Posted on another site in 2004.

It is something I still need to remember. We didn't all travel the same path to get to the doors of recovery. We don't always follow the same ideas as to what we need for our recovery in today. I just know that I am on a journey and I hope you will share your journey with me. Hopefully, we have one goal. To stay clean and sober in today.

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Love this, it reminds me that I can't allow things to rent space in my head.

Worry can be such a worrisome thing! It is not easy to let it go.

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Balance

Tonight at the meeting I attended, I was glad that it was a woman speaker. As I said earlier, I felt like I needed a meeting where I could sit back, shut up and listen.

The speaker mentioned the word balance only once. She said she had a problem with it. I could so identify. For me, it is an Aries thing. Our opposite sign is Libra, which is balance personified. I went over to thank her for sharing and I said, "You wouldn't happen to be an Aries would you?" She said, "Yes!" Her birthday is a day after mine. I gave her my definition of an Aries, "The left foot is moving forward and the right food doesn't know it has to move yet." It can cause you to stumble and lose balance.

I need to get out of the way so I don't stumble over my own feet that can take me in the wrong direction.

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This was something I posted in 2004. That was a long time ago. How time flies. So glad I am still here.

Keep coming so you don't have to come back.

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The 12 Promises of AA gave me hope and they are what kept coming back. I wanted that new freedom and a new happiness that the first one offered. When I walked through the doors of AA, I got hope. I saw people staying clean and sober, doing what I had been trying to do for eight long years. I couldn't comprehend years, but days and months gave me a realistic goal. Before, I could stop, but I couldn't stay stopped. In today, I have stopped using, one day at a time for 25 years.

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Lessons are good any time.

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The Three headed Dragon

Long long ago in ancient times in a far away place..over the sea and though the valleys there was a place called SELF.
In Self was many villages and towns. Self was run by a King..kindhearted soul, benelovent to His people.
The Three headed dragon came through Self, plundedring & reaping, damages to homes and the townsfolf and outlying villages.
The king saw the grief and the loss of his peole and thought long and hard on what could be done.
Finally it came to him. Slay the dragon...

He gathered his very best men, two of them , and said..This may be dangerous but we must slay the dragon.
The two guards agreed and went forth from the castle to find the dragon.
Weeks passed....then came the awaited day for the king
There was a messenger saying the guards were returning.
the guards came to the King and said here is the head of the dragon...He is dead.
The King put out the word and celebrations began
the townsfolk and the villagers came together & honored the guards
With the feast the King prepared
they began plans & started rebuilding
All was well within the world of Self.

Yet there was an ominousness no one could describe
But they were grateful nonethe less for the Peace


Hence the dragon returned
It had regrown the ugly head --more fugly than before
And once again there were fires with
Flames that shot from the dragon's nostrils for miles
and Plundering and such destruction.
People died and the loss was great.

The King was saddend by this.
He suffered loss too
And the loss he saw in his people componded his own great loss.

He knew once again they must slay the dragon.
He banded together his strongest men
One of his greatest armies and told them what he had told the guards
"This may be dangerous but we must slay the dragon."
He asked if they were willing and they agreed
The army went forth from the castle and gathered their equipment and their armor.

They left--knowing it was dangerous...
knowing the loss the dragon had created fueled them with energy

Weeks passed...then a month...the dragon was sly
He hid from them
he toyed with them but finally after many strategic maneuvers
They had him and they cut two heads off
they returned to the castle and the King.

To the King they said here two heads of the dragon...He is dead.
The King put out the word and celebrations began
the townsfolk and the villagers came together in honor of the guards
With the feast the King prepared .
They began plans & started rebuilding
All was well within the world of Self.

Yet, once again, there was an ominousness no one could describe
But they were grateful none the less for the Peace

A short time after all rebuilding was complete
there was that familiar sound
Hissing, thundering, Peals of fire
and once again there was tremendous horrible destruction.
The loss and the destruction was greater than they had ever known.
There was mourning, crying, sadness, despair and desolation in the serene place known as Self.

The King was dismayed and said "Good God Almighty....HELP!"
it was more like a prayer.

The King went on to bed after this and tried to sleep
but sleep would not come
His soul was tormented and in anguish.
Suddenly a light appeared in the corner of his room.
the King rubbed his eyes, shook his head,
The light was still there
the light then became a vision
In this vision the solution came
there within a grave in this vision the dragon was in a grave minus all three heads.

The next morning the King called several armies together and said
This must cease!!
I had a vision and in the vision the solution came to me
The dragon must be slayed and this time all three heads must be destroyed to end this once and for all time.

No one backed out...
All soldiers were willing.
For they loved their place called SELF.
They said what they needed to say to their families and
They went forth after they gathered their belongings and their equipment.

It was a very long time but the day did come when once again the messenger shouted the arrival of the armies to the king.
The King was anxious and met them at the gate.
The leaders of the armies came forward with haste
to speak to the King.
In earnest they told him of the losses within their ranks..
The dragon, they said, was cunning baffling and powerful.
he hid from us, manipulated us, toyed and played with us
But because banding the armies together makes us a tenasious group
we do have all three heads of the dragon.

Soon the remainder of their armies came forward and yes there they were
With them were all three heads of the dragon.
They had been victrorius, They had conqured the dragon.
Two men alone couldn't do it
One band of soldiers couldn't do it
But banding them all together
The dragon was slayed a
And finally with a sense of relief self celebrated and rejoiced...
The king put on his very best feast and all came from miles around.
There was dancing in the streets,
There was Peace at last...
At long Last there was peace in the land called SELF.


Herein lies the moral of the story...The dragon was King alcohol...the three heads were named [not in order] One was named The use or substance
Another was named delusional thinking [aka: Stinkin thinkin]
Last one was Emotions --this included the spiritual malady

All three had to be dealt with for Self to be victorius and successful over King alcohol.

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This is a post that I found on another site made by BW, it could already be posted here. I am posting it now, because it spoke to me. It is a good reminder to me to take a look at myself to see where I am at in today.

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This is what I need to do, I have been focused again on my self-admitted alcoholic instead of doing what I need to do for my own health and well being. He gets sicker and as his disease has progressed, I realize mine has too.

I have been trying to step out of my isolation by getting out to meetings, playing bridge, and buying things that I need, which included buying clothes that fit since I lost weight. It was like I didn't have the money to do it, because I found myself back in my old fear of not having enough to eat and filling my cupboards, refrigerator and freezer, just in case.

It is good to do these things, but for the right reason. When I get needy, I get greedy.

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As most people know, one of my loves is Bejeweled 3 and at one stage of my life, I had to turn my thinking about the game, over to my HP.

Well I thinking I am slipping or my HP has a sense of humor. I do mostly play the game for relaxing, because I don't find it very challenging, and for the most part, good score or bad score, I just enjoy the game.

Well tonight, after not getting a score over 150,000, I said, "I don't care if I make a million, I just want a score over 500,000. At one point, I thought the score was over 620M, but I think I must have read it wrong, because when I looked again it was 562M. So I had a little chuckle, and then I didn't find it so funny. I think just maybe it was in the back of my mind, "Here come the million, here come the million...! Wouldn't you know it, I crashed at 991,325, my best score was 62,950 for one move, the kind of hands I was getting when I made me promise to quit when I got a score over 500M. Of course there is that voice says, you came so close, try again, but a promise is a promise, and that is it for tonight.

Hope you have a good Saturday. I hope to do some shopping. Not for clothes, but for food.

Originally posted Nov. 5, 2010 on another site. It could be here too.

Love this, it helps me to stay in today. When I stay in today, there is always hope

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Something I wrote in 2011.

[IMG]Will always be grateful for the lady who took me to my first meeting and told me, "Remember you are a child of God and God doesn't make no junk! http://angelwinks.ca/images/thoughtp...ughtpod985.jpg[/IMG]

No one can make me do anything, unless I give up my power. When I surrender, I am empowered to do what I can't do alone. It is only through my God that I can.

When I see words like this, it reminds me of the song, The Little Engline that Could. He starts out thinking he can, and ends up knowing he can. I need to change my thinking. It is about me and my attitude.

Grateful for this site and the opportunity to share my recovery with you. Thank you for being a part of my journey.

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Written in 2009

Today I can admit I don't know. My attitude before recovery and in early recovery was "I'm a leading authority on everything, just ask me." My boss use to say, "I hate it when you are always right." He fed my ego. I thought ego was a man thing. Then I learned it meant easing God out and I realized that I had been doing that for years.

So many times I played God with my own life and tried to be God of others always thinking I knew best and thinking that my motive and intentions were good, but in reality, it wasn't for the good of the whole it was what was good for me.

In today:

The willingness to say "I don't know," is humility. We need to become teachable, but if our mind thinks or it is shut off because it thinks it knows it all, it is not receptive to change and not willing to let go of things that no longer work in our lives.

H.O.W. it works, Honesty, Open-Mindedness and Willingness to do what ever it takes to stay clean and sober in today.

Today is my birthday. i thought it was the reason for the way i was, until I found out that I was an alcoholic. I was in denial when I came to the doors of recovery and even though I stayed clean and sober, the denial was still there. It wasn't until I saw myself in others nad had a dream at 2 years sober and saw myself as others saw me, that I could no longer deny my disease. I used alcohol like I used everything else. I was not only an alcoholic and an addict too. I always knew I was an addict, so that is probably why I stayed clean and sober.

Through this program I got to know myself and strengthen my belief and faith in my God. He was greater and larger than I ever though possible, and I could see how i limited Him by my narrow outlook.

They say we need honesty, open mindedness and willingness to make this program work. it is a one day at a time program and it saved me from a life of hell.

This weekend is one of beginning. Christ died on the cross, but more importantly to me, He rose again and sits on the right hand of God and intercedes for me.

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Had to make choices today. My son turned off my alarm, which I didn't hear even though it was at the end of my bed. He knew I hadn't slept last night, so he let me sleep.

I had a choice, let it go or call Darts. I chose to call Darts and they offered me a ride to the hospital at 5 pm and pick me up there at 8 pm to come home. Normally, I don't do night time unless it is to my NA groups. I said yes and things came out beautifully, a taxi arrived at 4:45 pm just as I came out of the building. My drive came into the hospital and called my name, too cold to wait outside, and it was 7:43 pm,so they were early instead of me having to wait. So grateful. Looks like I made some good choices.


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Had to make choices today. My son turned off my alarm, which I didn't hear even though it was at the end of my bed. He knew I hadn't slept last night, so he let me sleep.

I had a choice, let it go or call Darts. I chose to call Darts and they offered me a ride to the hospital at 5 pm and pick me up there at 8 pm to come home. Normally, I don't do night time unless it is to my NA groups. I said yes and things came out beautifully, a taxi arrived at 4:45 pm just as I came out of the building. My drive came into the hospital and called my name, too cold to wait outside, and it was 7:43 pm,so they were early instead of me having to wait. So grateful. Looks like I made some good choices.


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They say that when we experience our first traumatic experience or pick up that first drug, we stop growing emotionally if we stuff the feelings and emotions attached to it.

Maturity for me was being able to handle life on life's terms, something I hadn't been able to do for many years because I shut them out with the blanket of denial or stuffed them using alcohol, pills, work, food, relationships, etc.

That has always been the hard part, "...the wisdom to know the difference." I had to stop trying to play 'god' with my life and that of others. All I can do is my part, and allow my God to do His. I needed to remember H.O.W. Honesty about myself, open my mind to other ideas other than my own, and willing to go to any length to maintain my sobriety. I am powerless over people, places, and things. I can't control it, I didn't cause it, and I can't cure it. Always good things to remember. Stay in the moment, stay in today.

Emotions, I have to acknowledge them in order to let them go. I am powerless over people, places, and things.

I had to go to meetings to learn what it was I was feeling. I found myself reflected in the rooms of recovery by those who went before me and those who were still in the recovery rooms.