Month: July 2013

Is God My GPS?

Last weekend I was in a vehicle with two of my friends who were using their Global Positioning System (GPS) to guide them to a destination we were all heading to. Early on in this drive, I noticed they were referring to their Tom Tom GPS as “Dumb Dumb” when it started to take them in a different direction as compared to what they thought would be a better and faster route. As they veered off their GPS’s course and took some of the directions into their own hands, not only did we hit some traffic, but we also didn’t see the things on the drive that we might have seen if we have stayed on the path that was given to us. At some point during that drive, this got me to thinking on how I feel that God is a lot like our GPS.

The main point of all GPS systems from the beginning of their creation was always to remove the need to use our own sense of direction and maps usage. Over time, people have found that in using any of them, that the route it sends them on may not always be the most direct or fastest but it indeed always does get them to where they need to go. Unfortunately, people are impatient and many feel today that they don’t like the routes begin given to them by their GPS and instead are taking matters into their own hands by altering some or all of the course it gives them. In doing so, things can happen in that new route that were unforeseen such as bridges or roads that are closed, traffic snarls, missing something beautiful, and more. This is no different to what happens with many of us when we pursue any of our own destinations in life on a route different than the one God may have us on.

Throughout our lives there are many different types of destinations we head to such as schools we might attend, careers we seek, relationships we pursue, houses we buy, children we birth, etc. Imagine if God was meant to be our GPS for all of them and prayer was meant to be the mechanism for plugging in any of those desired destinations. Wouldn’t the route that is given to us always get us to where we need to go, just like our car’s GPS, even if it doesn’t seem like the best or the fastest way? Often many of us will use our free will because of this and like my friends did with that drive the other day, they followed their own path. As a result, traffic was hit and sights were missed because of their choice. This same principle holds true in our impatience in life with any of our destinations. When we use our free will and plot some or all of the way to those destinations, we experience things like leaving those colleges before graduating, jumping from one job to the next or being fired from one of them, relationships end up breaking up, divorces happen, houses go to short sale or bankruptcy, children become unwanted, and worse. What if most, if not all, of those things only occurred because we plotted our own directions to those destinations when we felt the path God gave us wasn’t the best one for us to get there?

For three very long years now, and then some, I have been enduring high levels of chronic pain and have spent much time writing about them in here. At times, I have tried to take a path different than what God has been telling me, and ended up getting more sick along the way. This only elongated the whole process of healing, almost like it feels when one gets stuck in traffic for hours and hours..

For my friends, getting stuck in traffic or missing some sights along the way may not have been that big of a deal when they ventured off their GPS’s course. But on a bigger scale in life, I’ve learned that venturing off any of the routes that God’s GPS provides, only ends up with more pain and despair. I truly don’t need any more of that so I’ve decided that while the route God’s GPS has plotted me to fully heal may not seem the best or the fastest in my brain, it is inevitable that I will get there…I just have to remain patient.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Drinking Dreams”

Recently I’ve been going through a resurgence of what many in the recovery world would call “drinking dreams” except in my case, they’re actually not about alcohol, they’re about sex.

First off, I guess I should explain for those who don’t know what I’m talking about what a “drinking dream” is.  In the Alcoholics Anonymous world, it refers to when when a person who has been sober for awhile has a dream where they’ve relapsed and picked back up alcohol again. For most who have ever experienced one of these type of dreams, all the old feelings of guilt, remorse, shame, and self-pity can emerge from just one of them, but in most cases, there is generally a great amount of relief upon discovery that it was just a dream. In the narcotics world with people who have dually suffered from addictions to drugs and other illegal substances, these type of dreams would be referred to as “using dreams”. In both cases whether it’s alcohol or drugs, usually in the first year or so of recovery, these relapse dreams are actually quite common. Unfortunately, for someone like me who has been clean and sober from both for over 18 years now, they still continue to occur ,but from another addiction that I only quit just over a year ago, which is my sex and love addiction.

Through therapy, I’ve been able to figure out that on some level, my sex and love addiction began around puberty after I was molested. And for almost three decades since then, some part of me acted out in this addiction time after time after time. Thankfully, I ceased all of those behaviors since April of 2012, but in doing so, it appears I’ve also triggered many waves of these “drinking dreams” to start happening again, except this time, they are about me relapsing into my sex and love addiction. Usually in most of them, I’m hooking up with random strangers, or doing actions that are sexual in nature with people from my past that were lustrous based. Being in a monogamous relationship now makes these types of dreams bother me all the more, especially in the ones where I know I’m cheating on my partner. I often wish I could control my dreams but lately I’ve been doing some research and reflection into why they actually occur.

I have a theory that hasn’t been proven yet, but one I believe is true. For some, these types of dreams, no matter what the former addiction, are indicative of how one could still be living in their waking life. In other words, a person may be doing some type of addiction based behaviors that are very close to actually relapsing. Maybe they are hanging out with people still acting out in those addictions. Maybe they are doing addiction based things on the Internet. Or maybe there is a part of them that never really wanted to give up the addiction in the first place. In all of those cases, any of that could trigger those type of dreams. In my case though, it’s none of those simply for the fact that I have placed so much strictness in my life to stay free from all those past toxic things I did throughout all my addictions, including the sex and love based one. So this has led me to believe that what’s actually happening is something entirely different.

Is it possible that pockets of energy that I stored within me from all of those sex and love based addiction events in my life are surfacing and releasing while I’m sleeping? Could it be that as any of that energy surfaces, the dreams acts as a release process to remove that old energy out of me. I have compared this a lot lately to what it would be like if one placed a carbonated beverage out on a counter overnight. The carbonation would surface throughout the night and release into the air and at some point, the beverage would have changed properties for good. It’s my hope that is what’s happening to me and that eventually I won’t have these types of dreams happening anymore.

The most difficult thing I really have in seeing these extremely visual representations in my dreams is the simple fact that I don’t ever want to go back to that type of life ever again. I don’t want to ever randomly hook up with strangers anymore or have lustrous based moments or look at porn or cheat on a partner or any of those behaviors that made me so sick. Up until April last year, I knew hardly anything about love and intimacy and instead understood the language of sex and lust only. Trying to reprogram this is proving to be very difficult but maybe, just maybe, my mind and body is already doing that while I sleep when it manifest these types of dreams.

Regardless, I’m grateful, because in all of those moments when I wake up after having one of those “drinking dreams”, the most important thing is still there for me to realize…And that is I’m still clean and sober from ALL addictions that I have ever lived in. Hopefully, one day soon, God’s programming within me will be extensive enough to where I’m not acting out on any addiction, even in my dream state.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

There’s Always Someone Worse Off Than You…

Growing up in my house, any serious complaints that I ever vocalized were usually met with a a reminder that there’s always someone worse off than me. So if I complained about the food I had to eat, I was told there were starving people in China. If I had issues with any of the clothes I had to wear, I got pointed out the homeless people on the streets who were missing shoes or shirts or jackets. During the times I got really sick and felt like it was the end of the world, I was reminded of those who were permanently disabled in wheelchairs or were dying in the hospitals with real diseases like cancer. Lately, when my physical pains lead me to higher levels of negativity, it seems that God has been giving me gentle nudges of this very same lesson that my parents tried to teach me.

At the gym the other day, when I was struggling to find the motivation to do any exercise, I saw a man in a wheelchair trying to do an arm only workout. There, I also saw another man having to be helped in and out of the pool with a crane who was unable to walk anymore on his own. And in another part of the gym, I saw a person that was close to 400 pounds trying to shed some of his weight in a small workout.

Last week I went downtown to Boston to watch the fireworks and while I was there, I got caught up for a moment in my head due to my bodily pain. But when I turned around, I noticed there was a quadriplegic person in a wheelchair using a blowing tube and an assistant just to watch the 4th of July display in the sky.

At the movies lately when I have been struggling to just sit there in my own pain, I have watched prior to the previews, a commercial air about very young children who have been battling cancer and are looking for support through the Jimmy Fund.

And in my recovery circles as of late, where I often am going to speaking engagements at places where people are trying to detox from their alcohol or drug addictions, I have been hearing stories from the people there about them being homeless, destitute, HIV+, Hepatitis C positive, or worse.

While my parents might have used a lot that cliche of someone always being worse off than me when I was complaining as a kid, there actually was a lot of truth to what they were saying. I may be hurting very physically right now in my life on most days, but I still do have a home to live in, food to consume daily, clothing to keep me warm, running water to bathe in and drink regularly, a car to get me to wherever I need to go, four limbs that still work enough to get me around on my own, and eyesight and hearing that are functioning to help me still see and hear things around me. Sadly, there are millions of people in this world who can’t say the same and I must continue to remember this, even in my worst moments when I just want to give up from all the pain I feel.

It may have been a saying that made me roll my eyes as a kid every time my parents reminded of those that didn’t have it as well off as me, but it’s truth has persevered throughout my life. God has continued to provide me with plenty, even in all my suffering, and I need to continue to remind myself of that, especially when I get caught up in my thinking about the woes in my life. In those moments, it is then that I need to remember that there really is always someone out there worse off than me.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson