Whiplash

Ask and You Shall Receive

I woke up this morning and prayed for God to help me. Before I left my office for lunch today, I posted a blog asking for help. You see, I’m struggling on the road to recovery and I need help. I realize that when left to my own devices, I drink. I just can’t do this without the support of others.

When I returned from lunch, I needed a little kick in the ass. My previous post left me feeling a little sad, a little lonely. So, I went over to Holly Whitaker’s blog because  I could use some of her feisty spirit in my day. And what the fuck did I find? The answer to my prayers!

Seriously.

Just like that.

Holly has teamed up with Tammi Salas to offer a 40 day e-mail program to help those of us trying to do this sobriety thang. The best part? It’s only $35! I have been wanting to join Holly’s Hip Sobriety school since I first read about it, but I can’t afford it at this point in my life. But now? Now I can get a daily dose of wisdom and support from Holly and Tammi, a consistent program to keep me focused on my path for 40 days. Squeeeeee! Here’s a blurb from Holly’s blog:

Someone pinch me. I cannot wait until tomorrow morning! Is 3 o’clock in the afternoon too early to go to bed? 

Non-negotiables

Just yesterday, I read a blog post by Laura McKowen about Non-negotiables. The post is lovely and I recommend reading it in full. The idea is that everyone should have daily or, at least, regular, habits, rituals, etc. that aid in living a spiritually, physically and mentally healthy life. We should carve out time for ourselves and not feel guilty about it. 

I totally agree.

I don’t have any non-negotiables, but I’ve been thinking about what mine will be, about what I need. If drinking has taught me anything it’s that I’m a creature of habit. So, it makes sense that I should create some new, healthy habits to aid in my recovery. Without further ado, here are my work-in-progress non-negotiables:

Prayer: I mentioned in my previous post that I didn’t grow up praying. It’s not something I’ve ever really done, but thanks to the suggestion of someone in AA I have myself a very simple prayer for every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to bed. I’ll ask God every morning, “please help me” and when I get through a day without drinking I’ll send up a very robust “thank you!”

Daily Mantra: I’m going to carve out time right after I wake-up and pray to reflect on the daily mantra that will be provided by Holly and Tammi’s e-mail course mentioned above. I’m hoping that the daily mantras will lead me to…

Write: Whether the writing is good or bad, whether I post something or not, I want to write every day. I find writing cathartic. Writing makes me feel more connected even if no one ever sees it. My words are out there in the universe and, as I’ve seen today, sometimes the universe responds.

AA Meetings: I will continue to attend AA meetings. I think I’m going to try out some new meetings and go to the ones that really resonate with me. 

Hydrate: I have an issue with weight that I hope to resolve at someone point, but in the beginning of recovery I’m going to give myself a little leeway. Not drinking takes priority over losing weight. For now. However, I know that I need to introduce some sort of healthy body-related habit and that’s going to be getting enough water. I am terrible at keeping hydrated. (Isn’t that so strange for a recovering alcoholic?) This seems to be something small and easy that I know I can stick with.

There you have it! My non-negotiables. What are yours? Do you practice them daily?

Blackout

Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola was the first addiction-related memoir I read. I was so enthralled that I read it in one day! Below are 14 quotes from the book that struck a chord with me. I highly recommend reading Sarah’s memoir. Even though our lives looked very different, the book took me back to places I had forgotten and feelings I only wish I could forget. However, the book isn’t all walks of shame and gut-sinking guilt. She’s now sober and happy and the book left me feeling hopeful. I hope it does the same for you.

1. “I’ve always been mixed up about attention, enjoying its warmth but not its scrutiny. I swear I’ve spent half my life hiding behind a couch and the other half wondering why no one was paying attention to me.”
2. “Alcoholism is a self-diagnosis. Science offers no biopsy, no home kit to purchase at CVS. Doctors and friends can offer opinions, and you can take a hundred online quizzes. But alcoholism is something you must know in your gut.”
3. “What a poignant commentary on my own self-worth—I recast myself in my own daydreams. I wondered what it would take to change this. If I could ever collapse the space between my imaginary self and the human being sitting on the bench. Was it even possible? Because you can be a lot of things in this world, but you can never be another person. That’s the deal. You’re stuck with yourself.”
4. “But my problem wasn’t a deficit of acceptance. It was too much. I drank however I wanted, and I accepted the nights that slipped away from me. I ate however I wanted, and I accepted my body was a home I’d never want to claim as my own. Sitting on that linoleum floor, surrounded by empty foil wrappers and my own disgust, I wondered if I could use a little less acceptance around here. Or, to be more precise: Acceptance was only half the equation. The other half was determining what was unacceptable and changing that.”
5. “Mine was a recipe for unhappiness. I was fixated on my weight but unwilling to do anything about it. And I couldn’t do anything about it while I was drinking, because booze left me roughly 1,200 calories in the hole four times a week. There’s not a miracle diet in the world that can pull you out of that quicksand.”
6. “Self-destruction is a taste I’ve savored much of my life. The scratch in my throat left by too much smoking, the jitteriness of a third cup of coffee, the perverse thrill of knowing a thing is bad and choosing it anyway— these are all familiar kinks, and one feeds the other. But was it possible to change my palate—to crave something good for me, to create an inspiration spiral instead of a shame spiral?”
7. “They say drinking arrests your emotional development at the age when you start using it to bypass discomfort, and nothing reminded me of that like sex.”
8. “I read an interview with Toni Morrison once. She came into the literary world during the drug-addled New Journalism era, but she never bought the hype. ‘I want to feel what I feel,’ she said. ‘Even if it’s not happiness.’ That is true strength. To want what you have, and not what someone else is holding.”
9. “Addiction was the inverse of honest work. It was everything, right now. I drank away nervousness, and I drank away boredom, and I needed to build a new tolerance. Yes to discomfort, yes to frustration, yes to failure, because it meant I was getting stronger. I refused to be the person who only played games she could win.” (Emphasis added)
10. “Whether God exists or not, we need him. Humans are born with a God-shaped hole, a yearning, a hunger to be complete. We get to choose how we fill that hole. David Foster Wallace gave a commencement address at Kenyon College, a speech that is a big like a sermon for people who don’t want to go to church:” ‘In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.’ (Emphasis added)
11. “I finally understood alcohol was not a cure for pain; it was merely a postponement.”
12. “When I cut out alcohol, my life got better. When I cut out alcohol, my spirit came back. An evolved life requires balance. Sometimes you have to cut out one thing to find balance everywhere else.” (Emphasis added)
13. “We all live in the long shadow of the person we could have been.”
14. “When I sit in a room with people once considered washed up, I feel at home. I’ve come to think of being an alcoholic as one of the best things that ever happened to me. Those low years startled me awake. I stopped despairing for what I didn’t get and I began cherishing what I did.” (Emphasis added)

If you like what you see here, you may want to check out the interview with Sarah Hepola done by the girls at HOME Podcast.

Rob Bell

Loved, loved, loved this HOME Podcast interview with Rob Bell of whom I had never heard. He manages to make Jesus-based spirituality palatable. Something that’s hard for me to swallow. In the beginning of the interview he speaks of the time when he was newly a Pastor and a colleague suggested he spend time in AA meetings, and to listen and learn. So, he did. I can attest to the “bullshit free zone” he describes in meetings and how a meeting is a place of true community wherein people really carry each other. ❤ Check it out!

If you like what you hear in the interview, here’s a link to Rob Bell’s podcast The RobCast.

Sleepy Soul

First, You Take a Drink

My Favorite Things

First day of sobriety: August 28, 2016
Days Sober: 19

In my debut post The Whys, I mentioned that, as part of my recovery, I am attending AA meetings. I love them. 🙂 I love the fellowship and I love how I feel when I leave: full of hope and joy, and in a state of zen. BUT… My path of sustained sobriety will not only consist of AA. Currently, I am devouring everything there is that has to do with addiction, alcoholism, sobriety, recovery, etc. This includes, but is not limited to, books, blogs and podcasts. I thought my own blog would be a great place to share some of my favorite things that I find interesting or helpful or life-changing.

HOME is the show that takes up the big questions of life through the lens of addiction recovery.

Currently, I’m obsessed with a podcast called HOME hosted by Laura McKowen and Holly Whitaker. The first three podcasts cover their reasons for starting the podcast and their individual stories. Thereafter, each episode covers topics like friendships, dating and work as they relate to recovery. Like listening to individual stories in The Rooms of AA, I find myself nodding along with Laura and Holly as parts of their stories echo my own. Check it out! Oh, and check out Laura’s and Holly’s blogs while you’re at it.