Month: May 2013

Addicted To God?

Recently, I was asked to get in contact with a person I had dated a number of years ago. A friend in AA was making amends with me and wanted to reach out and make them as well to this former ex of mine whom he had also hurt. Given that I’m in a monogamous relationship now with someone, I’ve been less inclined to maintain contact with anybody I’ve previously dated. With most of them having been unhealthy for me when I was with them, I feel today it would be detrimental to my healing path to remain in contact. It’s not that any of them were inherently bad; it’s just that there were levels of unhealthiness for my own spirit with each of them. In the case of this person, he was someone I had met while traveling abroad who was already in a relationship with another man but “had an agreement” that he and his other half were able to have a lover outside their relationship. At the time, I didn’t want to be alone, and settled for less than what I deserved by dating him for over a year of my life. So with slight apprehension, and strictly as a favor to this friend in AA who was trying to do his step work, I sent an e-mail to this ex. What I received in return, is one of the main reasons why I don’t desire to talk to any person I previously dated anymore.

In this e-mail, I reached out by saying hello and updated this person on a few tidbits of my life, which included slight details of my current partner, my involvement in recovery, where I was living now, and my newfound love for writing daily. I included links to my website and my blog and ended with my friend’s request to make a formal apology for any damage that may have affected this ex during the time we had dated. Not more than an hour later, I received his very angry and judgmental based response about how he felt I was living my life and that it appeared now to him that I was addicted to God. He went on to do what he did quite a bit when we had dated, which was to tear me apart on some level with any life decisions I was making. He ended his response by saying my AA friend can screw off and live with his actions.

Thankfully today, I don’t have to own other people’s negativity, problems, or projections. For the longest time I did, such as when I had dated this person. Since then, I’ve gotten much stronger on all levels, especially spiritually, and if there is one thing I am very happy to say about my own life, it’s that if I am addicted to God, I’m ok with that.

I’ve been addicted to just about everything in my life including alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, gambling, sex/love, shopping, traveling, and food. Each of them, I pursed with relentlessness to where nothing else mattered but me obtaining more of each of them. Friends, relationships, life’s duties, social obligations, and family were all disregarded when I indulged in any one of those addictions.

In the past year, I have worked diligently to turn my entire will over to the care of God. What initially began as 3rd Step work in my AA recovery has become more of a way of life now. Since doing this, my life has gotten so much better. I care about those friends and relationships a lot more now. I never avoid life’s normal duties or social commitments anymore. And my relationship with my sister and her kids has become much stronger as well. Even better is my outlook on life. Whereas I once was completely negative with just about everything, I find it’s the reverse now with me trying to see the good everywhere.

Is all of these positive changes due to me choosing God first and foremost in my life? I believe so. That is why I write about God on some level in every one of my blog postings. That is why I speak about God when I am at any AA meeting or speaking engagement. And that is why you will hear me talk about God on some level in any conversation I hold with anyone. God has changed my life for the better and I never, ever, want to go back to the way I once was such as when I dated a person like this ex. Back then I was godless, disoriented in life, directionless, completely ego-based, and consumed with unhealthiness in almost every facet of my life.

There aren’t enough words of gratitude that I can offer God for helping me to be released from those dark prisons I lived in for so many years. I may still have a small ways to go before I’m completely out of some of them, but I can truly say that turning my entire will over to the care of God was the best darn decision I’ve ever made in this lifetime. If I had to say I was addicted to anything anymore, it would most definitely, without a doubt, and positively be God and I have no regrets about that. Without God, my life was in the toilet being flushed away. With God, my life seems to be coming brighter and brighter each and every day. So if I had to choose any addiction to chase after for the rest of my life, you can bet your ass it will be trying to get closer God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Oh How Do I Love Those AA Slogans!!!

Ok, I’ll admit it; I’ve never really been a big fan of any of those AA slogans. After going to so many meetings over the years and hearing people use them over and over again at the podium, it’s worn me out just a little. That’s not to say that they don’t have real application and purpose in my recovery. Sometimes I do still hear one that I’ll ponder for a while. But all in all, I’m not hip on using them when I speak at any podium because I’d rather use my own words that come directly from my heart. There is one thing though that I have always wanted to do with those AA slogans. It’s been a sincere desire of mine to write about my own journey in recovery by using as few of words as possible except those which come from any slogan. The following is my story written in many of those AA slogans of which I hope you truly will enjoy…

———————————————————————————————————————-

But for the grace of God, I initially found my sobriety and a new way life beginning on June 11, 1995. For the longest time before that I just couldn’t let go and let God on any level and alcohol was my only master. I learned that best from growing up in a family where the sick didn’t know they were sick. We all were “f.i.n.e.” in our own way, but unfortunately what that really meant was that we were f—‘d up, insecure, neurotic, and emotionalmore than not. Every one of us lived in denial, which wasn’t the river in Egypt, but we sure were always drowning in it! Maybe that’s because none of us were ever fully honest, open-minded, and willing to do the next right thing…

I was the first one amongst them to become sick and tired of being sick and tired after five long years of romancing the drink day after day. The pain had become great enough and my life so unmanageable that I began to try to live life on life’s terms by pursuing sobriety. Sadly, I didn’t stick with the winners though and I didn’t do 90 meetings in 90 days so I never got the chance to see if any of those meeting makers were truly making it. I also didn’t stay out of relationships for my first year of sobriety nor did I keep coming back to learn that in AA it really works if you work it. The truth was that I had way too much “e.g.o.” and kept edging God out. Where AA said to think, think, think and when all else fails, to follow directions, I took my will back instead and didn’t put first things first.

As the years passed, I became such a dry drunk that I was seriously flammable! My disease was constantly doing pushups, getting stronger and just waiting for me to slip except that I already had because I had discovered other addictive substitutes. People often said in passing that God would never give me more than I could handle. I had a hard time coming to believe that, when both of my parents died from this incurable, progressive, and fatal disease while I was just starting to learn how to do it sober. I tried to keep on trudgin’ through all the pain and tell myself that this too, shall pass, but it never seem to. Maybe that’s because I couldn’t face living one day at a time nor could I ever seem to realize that alcohol was but a symptom. I didn’t understand that recovery was about more than just getting sober and it was a journey and not a destination.

I expected miracles to happen in my sobriety but how could they? Faith without works was dead and I wasn’t working anything. Selfish, self-centered, dishonest, and afraid to the very core, that’s who I had become. I began to wallow in so much self-pity that the phrase “Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink…”was sounding more and more like a good idea. I knew I had to quit playing God or else I really would eventually have a slip and learn it’s only a pre-meditated drunk. Ironically, it wasn’t my load that was weighing me down, it was the way I was carrying it. All of the depression I had was just years of anger turned inward. And what I didn’t know was that God could and would take care of all of it, if He were sought.

I knew that if I could just surrender to that Higher Power, the journey would begin moving me from sobriety into recovery. My anguish was what finally got me there so it must be true that pain is the touchstone for spiritual growth. After 12 long years of being in too much of it and as sick as I was in my own secrets, I told myself it was time to keep it simple silly and knew willingness was going to be the key. So I went back to AA and began to take suggestions by getting a sponsor and making use of telephone therapy. It took me awhile to get it and my sponsor would say I was trying. Very trying! I had to laugh at the analogy but I guess you can say it was hard to keep an open mind, when I had been closed off from the sunlight of the spirit for so darn long. At first I didn’t have much experience, strength, and hope and usually I brought my mess to the meetings instead of the message. I think that’s because when the alcohol is taken out of the alcoholic, there’s still a lot of “ick!” 

As the years in recovery passed, I struggled to act as if and tried to fake it till I could make it. My sponsor would remind me I didn’t get sick overnight and that while my elevator was still broken, all I needed were the 12 steps to fix it. Unfortunately, I tried to do that with half-measures, which availed me nothing. My own behaviors continued to “h.a.l.t.” any forward progress as I got hungry, angry, lonely, and tired from constantly taking my will back. I knew I needed to get out of the driver’s seat and let God drive the bus except I wasn’t. And I knew I needed to switch seats soon with God who was still my co-pilot or else I was going to drink and to drink was to die.  Even after I had a few 24 hours under my belt in my recovery, this disease was still proving to be very cunning, baffling, and powerful. That might have been due to the fact that I still continued to hang around the bad barbershops, and by doing so; I kept getting terrible haircuts from each of them.

When I finally turned over my entire will to the care of God, as I understood God, I found the courage to change and became part of the solution, and no longer the problem. I’m so grateful I didn’t quit before the miracle happened like both of my parents tragically did. Unlike them, I have worked hard to trust God, clean house, and help others and became amazed before I was halfway through the steps when I fully followed them. I began to intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me and learned that if I was to keep it, I had to give it away and pass it on to someone else. I try to count my blessings today, and always remember I’m never alone. For this reason, I frequently go to meetings, even when I don’t want to, because seven days without them will make one weak.

As I continue to live and let live in recovery each and every day, I can see now how it takes time, that change is a process, and not an event. I have an attitude of gratitude present, more so than ever before. And I believe that’s all because I finally let it begin with me. I follow God’s will everywhere it now takes me, as it never has me go to where God’s grace cannot protect me. Because of this, I have more solutions than problems today and can say I am a walking miracle.

The results are in God’s hands for every one of us including both you and me. And, I know that more will be revealed to each of us by living in the moment or in the now as any AA’r might say. So just for today, know you are exactly where you are supposed to be and it really does get better. And keep on, keeping on, because in doing so, you surely will trudge the road to happy destiny…May God bless you and keep you until then…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Finding A Healthy Escape

Life can be filled with many ups and downs. It can also be filled with an abundance of trials and tribulations. And while it can encompass a lot of good days, there are also the not so good ones too. In all of this, people will often look for an escape from experiencing those times when life seems a little under the rainbow. I should know, I’ve sought out many of them.

I don’t believe that finding an escape from reality for a short period of time is necessarily a bad thing if it’s a healthy one. Unfortunately for most of my life I engaged in too many of the ones that would be deemed unhealthy and I rarely would emerge out of them. I escaped from the craziness in my alcoholic family by living in a total fantasy world. I escaped next into an alcohol and drug addicted world when I couldn’t face my sexuality issues. After I came out of the closet, I chose to escape again into a sex and love addicted world because of many of my glaring insecurities. And over those years, I even sought other unhealthy escapes from the ones I was already living in. It’s kind of crazy when I think about it now on how I was trying to escape from one of the other unhealthy escapes I was already doing with something else just as unhealthy. Eventually I began to see that my life had just became a series of escaping life itself.

While life does need at times it’s moments to retreat, recuperate, and pamper oneself, it’s just as important to experience reality too. The truth in my life is that I never did want to experience what was going on in and around me. I didn’t want to face the fact I had very sick parents growing up. I didn’t want to face the fact I was molested at a young age by a peer outside my family. I didn’t want to face the fact I was gay. I didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like the career paths I chose. I didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like many of the people I dated and ended up in relationships with. And ultimately, I really just didn’t want to face the fact I didn’t like me! So I found escapes that kept me from walking through any of my insecurities and only ended up creating more of them as the years went on. Getting drunk, high, over smoking, chronic gambling, intensive shopping, over traveling, and overeating, were just some of the many ways I tried to unhealthily escape living life. In each of those, the escape worked for a period of time and the demons remained suppressed, but eventually, they always came back and reared their ugly heads. The point is they were never meant to be suppressed. They were not meant to be run from. And they weren’t meant to be hidden from either. What was always meant for me to do, was to face them head-on. To do that for anyone is hard work, but worth it because once one does face a fear and overcomes it, there is no need to try to find an escape from it anymore.

Over the past year in my life with God helping me now, I have done my best to face many deep-seated fears that have plagued most of my life. The more that I have continued to face them, the healthier I have become and the less I have felt the urge to go back into any of those former unhealthy escapes. Instead, I have been finding that while my mind and body may still desire outlets to tune out for a few hours from all the hard work I’m doing to spiritually grow, that I am much more able now to choose healthier ones. I have found things such as taking a hot bubble filled bath, going to a movie on my own, working on a puzzle, reading a good book, taking a walk on the beach, or going for a drive with no specific destination, can each provide me with the necessary few hours of much needed comfort. The best thing about it is that when I’m done with any of them, I find I am ready to tackle even more of those fears and worries.

The bottom line is that I don’t believe I was ever meant to fully escape from all those things that have scared me throughout most of my life. Instead, I’ve learned that I was always meant to grow by facing them directly. I know now that as I do face them and continue to grow along spiritual lines, that it’s still important for me to find those temporary escapes. The key today is to find ones that are healthy and support my path in healing. And as I partake in any of them, I always remind myself that life is worth being fully lived and any healthy escape is solely for the purpose of giving myself that much needed break for all the hard work I continue to do to grow closer to God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson