Month: November 2013

Dreaming Of A Cracked Tooth And A Trip To The Dentist

Does anyone really like to go to the dentist? As a kid, I did, because I used to get to pick a small toy out of this treasure chest at the end of every appointment. Today, not so much, as the only thing I get when I leave an appointment is a package containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss. But in all honesty, I’m actually grateful that I ended up going to my dentist just over a week ago on the spur of the moment. And it all began with a weird dream I had the night before that visit when I thought I had cracked a tooth (but didn’t).

Some would say that dreams are never anything more than just that, dreams. I, on the other hand, have begun to see how dreams can at times, provide valuable insight to areas in my life I need to pay attention to. So maybe this is why I had the dentist on my mind all the next day after having that cracked tooth dream, or maybe not. Either way, going to the dentist is not normally something I have on my mind when it comes to my day to day living, but the I have to say the daily maintenance of my teeth is.

While I may not be the world’s best flosser, I can definitely say that I diligently brush my teeth at least twice a day and sometimes, even more. I’m sure that’s a big reason why any dentist I’ve seen for the past two decades have given me high marks and flying colors. As the years have passed though, these consistent high marks have led me to make excuses and avoid those twice a year dental cleaning appointments. But last week though, during a few hours I had time to kill, whether it was because of that cracked tooth dream or not, something motivated me to contact my dentist. I have to admit that the dentist is probably one of the last places I would ever want to be spending my free time at, so deep down I was really hoping they were going to be too busy for a walk-in, but they weren’t. Twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting in that dental chair and starting to dread what I dread most whenever I’m there, which is having my gums poked and prodded with that sharp tool, as well as the uncomfortable sensation and taste I get from their cleaning instruments and pastes. While I sat there slightly anxious because of this, the assistant informed me that they’ll be doing my annual dental x-rays prior to the cleaning. So after much biting, clenching, and holding my mouth open in various positions for both those x-rays and the eventual cleaning, the dentist finally came in where I expected my normal good news. Unfortunately for me, that ended up not being the case.

“You have a small cavity…“, the dentist casually said as I sat there dumbfounded knowing the last cavity I had was before I ever hit puberty. She further informed me I could wait a few more months to have a filling put in since my insurance wasn’t going to cover it. But the idea didn’t seem very appealing to having a cavity remain in my mouth where it would only grow worse with each day that passed. So I proceeded forward with getting the filling right then and there.

By the time everything was done, almost two hours had elapsed from when I had first entered the dentist’s office. The left side of my face, the inside of my mouth, and my throat were all completely numb from the Novocain, all of which was causing me to feel slightly anxious. As I walked out the door to leave, the dentist reassured me that everything would be fine and that the numbness would go away in about an hour. But sadly, her words proved to be quite far from the truth as it took approximately five days for my body (and its extreme sensitivity to medical procedures and medications) to fully heal from the minor procedure. I’m happy to say though, that everything is much better now with my teeth, mouth, and face.

Looking back, my Higher Power has helped me to see how my ego and its expectations made me think my teeth would always be invincible. I also realized I still have some work to do in the area of patience as I worried incessantly for those five days while my body healed itself slowly from that minor dental procedure. While it’s frustrating that I do have such sensitivity to all medical procedures and medications, I am glad that I went to that dentist appointment and took care of this sooner than later. I can only imagine if I had let my ego convince me to wait until later to fix that cavity. Knowing my track record that comes when I put something off, there’s a good chance that decision could have ended up with me getting a root canal or even worse.

The bottom line and my recommendation for all of you is this. Don’t put off your routine dental checkups if you can help it and try to pay attention to your dreams. While I’ll never know if there was something I could have done to prevent that cavity from ever forming, I’m just glad my dream became a catalyst in some way to going to my dentist. And at least now I get to breathe a sigh of relief for another six months…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Suicide Is Never The Answer…

Every year approximately one million people are dying from suicide. This equates to one of these happening at least every 40 seconds. Global suicide rates have increased 60 percent in the past 45 years and that percentage is only steadily increasing with each passing year. The sad reality for each and every person that becomes one of these statistics is the fact that this seemed to be the best and only choice left in their life. And unfortunately, my father was one of them (and I was almost too).

My father was truly a wonderful man who had a very loving and giving heart when he was alive. Regrettably, he also battled with bi-polar disorder through most of it, which is what eventually led him to become one of those 90 percent of people who die by suicide due to a mental illness. He was just one of too many people who grew seriously depressed in life and chose a path they couldn’t come back from. And sadly, this dead-end path is usually the result of their not seeking or finding the necessary help. In my father’s case, he often refused to seek any help at all, and even when he did, he wouldn’t stick with it. This caused him to continually deal with untreated depression, which is actually the number one cause for suicide in our world today. There were other reasons though why my father made the choice to take his own life besides genetics and untreated depression. What most people don’t realize is that when a person commits suicide, it’s usually the result of an accumulation of negative life experiences. The following is a list of just some of those that have led to serious depression and suicide like my father’s, where the first three shown were a major source of his.

– The death of a loved one.

– A divorce, separation, or breakup of a relationship.

– A serious loss, such as with a job, a house, or money.

– Losing custody of children, or feeling that a child custody decision is not fair.

– A grave or terminal illness, or serious accident.

– Chronic physical pain or intense emotional pain.

– Being victimized (domestic violence, rape, assault, etc).

– A loved one being victimized (child murder, child molestation, kidnapping, rape, assault, etc).

– Physical, sexual, or verbal abuse.

– Unresolved abuse (of any kind) from the past.

– Feeling trapped in a situation perceived as negative.

– Feeling a loss of hope, helpless or that things will never get better.

– Serious legal problems, such as incarceration or criminal prosecution.

– Feeling “taken advantage of”.

– Alcohol and drug abuse.

– Inability to deal with a perceived “humiliating” situation or “failure”.

– A feeling of not being accepted by family, friends, or society.

– Feeling like one has not lived up to their expectations of themselves or of another.

– Bullying.

– Low self-esteem.

This is by no means a complete list of all the things that can lead to someone becoming depressed and ultimately taking their own life. In my case, the closest I ever came to suicide was primarily due to my sexual addiction and the obsessive feelings I had developed for an extremely toxic and unhealthy man a few years ago. After one too many bouts of experiencing rejection from him, I entered my storage unit, closed its door to where my car was being stored, started it, and waited to die. Thankfully, God intervened and my story in life didn’t end as tragically as my father’s did.

While I have done a tremendous amount of work in my life to heal from my own mental illness, depression, and negative life situations; my father, and so many others, gave up before they really tried to find their own healing. Their deaths have only caused more pain in this world as it’s definitely true what they say, that those who hurt the most from a person’s suicide is all those they left behind. I spent years battling my own depression and thoughts of suicide because of my father’s death, but I’m grateful to God today for the fact that I have fully healed from it and can talk so openly about it now. I loved my father deeply, maybe even more so now with all this healing work I’ve done. I can only imagine how many souls his life could have touched for the better if he had gone that extra mile to finding his own healing and inner peace. While I can’t bring him back, it’s my hope in writing this, that I may prevent others from following in his footsteps.

So if you are someone out there right now who is depressed and considering suicide, please take a moment, breathe, and know that even though I may not know you, I love you. There is help out there, as I am a walking, breathing, and living example of that. Suicide is never the answer and your passing will only extinguish yet another one of God’s beautiful lights that exist here on Earth. Even though you might find that hard to believe right now, just know that it’s true. I believe in you and so does God, so please don’t give up, as your healing has already begun by you having just read all of these words…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Why People Relapse Back Into Their Addictions…

It’s unfortunate that it happens, but it does happen a lot…

People relapse all the time back into their addictions after varying lengths of sobriety from them.

Having attended various 12 Step Recovery meetings from AA to SLAA to Al-Anon, I have witnessed countless people sharing their stories about their relapses that came after lengths of sobriety that ranged from 1 day to 40+ years. And what I’ve come to learn is that relapses affect everyone, including those who I thought had extremely strong recovery programs.

I often find it quite heart-wrenching to listen to these relapse stories. In each of them, I frequently hear a person blaming their relapse on a job they were miserable at, their lack of money, having too much money, breakups with a partner or other relationship crises, unhealthy friendships, hanging around in the wrong places, and other miscellaneous reasons. The truth is, there is really only one cause behind every single person’s relapse and it took me a very long time to figure this out. While all of those reasons that people give for their relapse are contributory to it, the sad reality is that each placed their Higher Power and their recovery work on the back burner for those reasons.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, who founded the 12 Step Recovery programs through Alcoholics Anonymous, discovered that it was the combination of finding and maintaing a relationship with a Higher Power and continuously doing recovery work every single day, is necessary to preventing relapse and remaining sober from alcohol. The same principle holds true with any addiction, no matter what it is.

While I haven’t yet relapsed on alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes in over 18 years, I have with some of my other addictions. I could give similar reasons to why I relapsed with those addictions, like many of the other people have done when they have relapsed. If I did, my biggest one would probably have to be due to my hanging around with toxic people and engaging in sexual relationships with them. But I see clearly now that my getting involved with any of those toxic people was just the after effect of me avoiding doing the 12 Step recovery work and maintaining a daily connection to my Higher Power. In AA, I saw this happen first hand with a former sponsor of mine.

A few months ago, she relapsed back into her alcohol and drug addiction after many years of sobriety from them. She was someone you would never have guessed would relapse either. She did a tremendous amount of work in her recovery to helping others out and keeping a close relationship with her Higher Power. But just prior to her relapse, she met a man who she quickly fell for and began to put aside some of her daily spiritual and recovery routines to spend more time with him. When enough time got away from her doing those routines, she began to be tempted again with alcohol and drugs. (It’s important to note here that temptation for any addiction never really goes away completely, it only goes into remission because of one’s recovery work and spiritual maintenance.) As it might have been for anyone else, after enough temptation was placed in front of my former sponsor and when her defenses were lowered enough from not having done her daily recovery and spiritual routines, she fully relapsed back into her alcohol and drug addictions. To this day as of my writing this, she has yet to wholly return to her 12 Step Recovery work nor her Higher Power who could help lead her back there. And the sad truth, is that she may never make it back. Many never do.

I used to think I was invincible to relapse from all my addictions, especially alcohol and drugs, since so many years had passed from the last time I engaged in either of them. But after seeing this former sponsor and so many others who had many good years of sobriety and recovery from their addictions go backwards and relapse, I have realized it was only ever my ego that believed this. In fact, just a few years ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table of one of those toxic men I was sexually engaged with, and holding a beer in my hand deciding whether I should have a taste or not. Thankfully, and most gratefully to God, I did not. That was at 16 years of sobriety where my connection to my Higher Power and my recovery work was at its weakest because I had placed this toxic man in front of the both of them.

The simple truth is that any person who relapses back into their addictions after one day or after 40 years have one thing in common. They decided something else was more important than doing their recovery work and developing a greater closeness with their Higher Power. No one is invincible from a relapse. NO ONE. All it takes is to start believing that you can skip some of your daily spiritual and recovery routines until eventually, you’ve skipped too many of them. And that’s when most relapses will happen.

If you are someone that is recovering or feel you are recovered from any addiction, don’t ever let yourself believe that you are immune to relapsing back into it. But most importantly, definitely don’t ever allow yourself to put anything in front of your recovery work or your relationship with your Higher Power. Because as soon as you do that with either of them, you are taking one step closer to that relapse…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson