Good morning
My name is Greg, I am a grateful
recovering COE, I was not abstinent yesterday
Sometimes its hard to include the word
grateful in that sentence because I do not "feel" grateful
when I am writing it.
Sometimes I have to look words up to
remind myself exactly what they mean, this morning I looked up
recovery and the following is what it said
Recovery
1. an act of recovering
2.the regaining of or possibility of
regaining something lost or taken away.
3.restoration or return to health from
sickness.
4.restoration or return to any former
and better state or condition.
5.an improvement in the economy marking
the end of a recession or decline.
That all makes perfect sense,
especially #2. I often cringe when writing "I am a grateful,
recovering COE" because I don't feel grateful and I don't feel
like I am recovering because I am slipping or relapsing. But if I
look at it as the possibility of regaining something lost or taken
away, then I am indeed in recovery.
My mind is often my greatest enemy, or
the voice of my disease that infects my mind is my greatest enemy.
I feel like I did when I first came
into program: lost, confused, broken, disillusioned, however
somewhere inside of me is strength as well.
When I got my 1st year coin
in AA, the friend I chose to give it to me was also my Tai Chi
teacher and someone I respected and valued very much. I cannot
remember exactly what he said but I do remember he said he had never
seen anyone fail their way to success like I was doing. He knew of
my struggles with addiction in general, but everyone morning I got up
and I kept coming back. I have pretty much done this for the 4 years
I have been in program. There have been a few days here and there I
pulled the covers over my head and kept my head in the sand, but for
the most part I keep coming back every day. I believe that is worth
something, and it is my HP working through me even when I don't
realize it or have closed myself off from him.
I came to a realization over the
weekend after speaking with a dear friend in program (thank you A.)
We were talking about my addiction
issues and they had asked me about my other program. I was instantly
filled with fear and shame and would not talk about it. I have a
hard time talking about it with people who are in that program, so
the thought of talking to someone outside of it terrified me.
Although I am not able to say the words
out loud I feel brave enough to say that I have issues with sex.
Like food my behaviors with sex constantly push the boundaries and I
keep doing the same things over and over again, and for the life of
me I could not figure out why, until now.
HALT is something we all know
(Hungry,Angry,Lonely,Tired) I actually changed it to SALT for my own
purposes (Sad,Angry,Lonely,Tired) hunger plays a small part in
things for me and I do not discount it, but SALT is usually at the
core of my issues.
When I am not feeling SALT (which is
most of the time) I feel numb. I used to think I acted out in order
to numb out those feelings (which I probably did) but I realized that
I actually use in order to feel something, to feel alive. I feel all
my emotions very strongly EXCEPT Joy and Happiness, those a both
fleeting and rare.
When I engage in my addictive behaviors
I am flooded with an excitement and happiness that I do not normally
get in my everyday life. Its a contradiction because after I engage
in my behaviors I feel such shame, loss, anger, disappointment that
it is never worth the payout.
It did feel good to come to the
realization as to why I do the things that I do, I know I am an
addict and I am sick, but to know I keep doing these things that
shame me so much because I am looking to feel something aside from
the normal pain I feel, it's like finding that missing piece of a
puzzle that had been stopping me from making major progress
Plan of Action
Pray
Submit Meal Plan
Call Phil
Pray before/after meals
Text Phil before/after meals
Make 2 outreach calls
Make 2 outreach texts
Get Allergy Shot
Do a meeting or speaker file
Read 2 pages in 12/12
Do VO Exercises
Read 2 pages in VO book
Practice one of my scripts, listen to
lesson files for help
Look at 1 VO Page
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