Recovering Through Open-Mindedness

So unfortunately I have been loosing focus on what truly matters in recovery, and that is recovery in and of itself. I've become complacent in many ways and it's starting to show in my life. I'm becoming less tolerant of others, not listening, and not taking the suggestions of those around me. Honestly I've been focusing on work so much that I've completely forgotten that I am still sick with the disease of addiction. Work is going extremely well. Usually, as it is the case with most addicts, when things start going well we often start having the thoughts of 'Oh well, I can skip that meeting, I'll just catch the next one', or 'I'll just do some step work later when I get home' and then never getting around to it. This in it's purest form is the 'voice of addiction' telling me that I don't have a problem, when in all reality I do. "Our disease gives us warped information about what's going on in our lives." ~ ...

So, this post is being written with some pretty heated emotions... Well, I wouldn't say heated emotions, but just a lot of emotions all at once. I don't know really what to feel. Hurt? Used? Preyed upon? Anger? Frustration? Sadness? Joy and relief? It's all hitting me at once. During my active addiction I would often try and run away from my emotions, and just cover them up with drugs and try not to feel. I would also try and drown out my sorrows by having sex with anything and everything that moved. I thought that sex might cheer me up, and make me loose the sense of reality even for just a little while, but I only realized that doing that didn't help either. So, what happened today that has me so messed up? I'll use the words "they" and "their" to make sure that anonymity is still present, and to not assign a specific gender to this addict. An addict who I was very close to recently went back out and relapsed. Unfortunately this addict is g...

"With the love that I am shown in Narcotics Anonymous, I have no excuse for loneliness" ~ Just For Today p. 300 So I'm writing this post on my laptop while riding the bus. It's kind of funny all the looks that I'm getting while I'm just sitting here typing away. However, I have nothing else better to do and my phone needs charging so, here I sit. You know loneliness is a pretty easy thing to come by. I can't tell you how many times I've isolated myself from others during my active addiction. It was a fairly common thing to stay in, ignore people, and just use my drugs. Even when I was in the midst of other people I felt lonely. It was a pretty difficult thing for me to relate to anyone that didn't use drugs. When I first joined the Narcotics Anonymous program, I really didn't know how to act socially. It was something extremely foreign to me. I remember that I didn't really understand people or their emotions, mainly because the '...

"... we understand that the world's condition wasn't really the problem. It was our ideas and attitudes about the world that made it impossible for us to find a comfortable place in it." ~ Basic Text p. 55 You know, I was thinking about this today before I even read the Just for Today. It was pretty interesting that this was the topic for the Just for Today . I said a few weeks ago that I don't believe in coincidences anymore, and I'm coming to realize that if I open my eyes to the view around me that things usually are connected to each other in one way or another. So today was a pretty rough one. Unfortunately I can't say much because I don't want to violate our traditions and anonymity principals of the Narcotics Anonymous program. So, I'll just talk about the Just for Today . "Our attitudes and our ideas are the eyeglasses through which we see our lives. If our "glasses" are smudged or dirty, our lives look dim. If our atti...

Just got home from tonight's meeting. Definitely trying to get some people to hold me accountable for this blog. I never in my entire life ever followed through with something long term. I have always thought in the short term. Always. I'm trying to change my way of life in order to keep clean. So, the three topics for tonight's meeting were: Anger Your Last Run Living In The Solution These are some great topics and all three of them have a common theme to which I'll get to that in a minute. Let's first talk about anger. It's something I've personally struggled with all my life. Seeing my father be quick to anger and quick to snap I think was the reason why I thought anger was an ok emotion to have. I know that when I was in active addiction anger was the first emotion I had when things didn't go my way. It was tough to remain calm. My motto was "I do what I want", that was including acting how I wanted, no matter if it was right or w...