Month: October 2014

I had to make a difficult decision recently to sever a friendship with someone and it definitely was far from easy. I’ve honestly never been the kind of guy to part ways with any type of friend, but I’ve realized that sometimes this becomes necessary to do so when it’s putting my recovery in serious jeopardy.

My recovery from addiction is by far the most important thing in my life today, next to my relationship with God of course. Years ago this wasn’t the case though and when it wasn’t, I was usually known to maintain friendships with those who regularly triggered me back into a relapse with any one of my former addictions. In almost every case, how this happened always began with me befriending someone I was attracted to who was overly codependent, mentally imbalanced, or still engaging in some form of an unhealthy addiction.

The reason why I always befriended people such as this was simply for my desire to constantly play the rescuer (thinking I could save someone), as well as to avoid looking at my own day-to-day character defects (not looking in the mirror). Thankfully, I’ve done enough recovery work in recent years to work through this character defect quite a bit, but unfortunately I haven’t been perfect in it either.

About a year ago when I came to Toledo, I met someone in a recovery meeting that followed the path of this character defect pretty well. I initially believed I was truly strong enough to handle this friendship with healthy boundaries, but over time I started to see I couldn’t. Arguments and great moments of stress often consumed me in this friendship along with an increased sense of resentment, none of which was healthy on any level for my spirituality or my recovery. Yet, I continued to maintain this connection for close to an entire year until I saw the only thing it was doing was leading me right back into a hard relapse with my sex and love addiction and codependency.

I always say that when the pain of doing something again and again becomes greater than not doing it ever again, that’s when the healthiest changes are usually made in life. In my case, this principle proved to be true when I clearly saw how unhealthy I was becoming by remaining in this unbalanced friendship.

Saying goodbye to this friend and increasing the distance between them and me was not an easy thing for me to do at all. I really felt this person’s pain and sense of being rejected in doing so, which caused my heart to hurt in the process. But, I know that if I was to remain friends with this person and fully relapse into any of my former addictions, my heart and a whole heck of a lot more of my life will end up suffering far greater.

Like my Massachusetts recovery friends once said with great frequency, while I may have another relapse waiting to happen within me, there’s no guarantee I’ll ever have another recovery. With that being said, sometimes it truly does become necessary in a life of recovery from addiction to sever ties with a friend, especially when it’s putting all of that in serious jeopardy. I just thank God I was able to recognize this before it got too late…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I believe God has been showing me in various ways lately that if I want to continue on my journey towards spiritual enlightenment, I’m going to need to experience a little bit more ego deflation. One of such experiences ended up taking place here this past Friday night when I was the lead speaker at the annual AA anniversary banquet. But before I get into what actually happened that evening, it’s probably best that I start from the beginning when I was first asked to be this lead.

It was late in the afternoon on the first Thursday in August this past summer when I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of my partner’s vehicle heading west on Interstate 80. The two of us, along with another, were going camping for the weekend with a couple of other friends. As my partner carried on a conversation with our other traveling companion, my phone unexpectedly rang. On the other end of it was a woman who told me she was from a local AA committee. She proceeded to tell me that my name had been put into a mix with a few other candidates to be the lead speaker at the upcoming Area 55 Anniversary Banquet and that mine had been the one selected.

At first I thought she was kidding and that someone was playing a good joke on me simply because I had been living in Toledo for only 6 months. But when she told me she heard my lead a few months earlier at another meeting, I knew she was serious and immediately my heart started racing. She then asked if I would accept the committee’s invitation, which I responded exuberantly with a yes. After a few more minutes of general conversation with her, I hung up the phone feeling like my head was going to explode. But in all honestly, the only thing at that moment in time that was going to explode was actually my ego.

I ended up spending the rest of the car ride talking about how great an honor it was to have this happen to me. First I did this with those traveling with me and then I did it with a bunch of others over the phone. I’d go on to spend a large amount of time bringing this up at the camping trip as well, including making several more phone calls too. Sadly, this behavior didn’t stop there either.

Over the course of the next month, I also randomly began telling those closest to me about this upcoming speaking engagement. In fact, at one point I was doing a mini-lead at another meeting when I purposely shared this information to those in attendance at the end of it. When I did, the word “EGO” appeared in my mind like it was shining in big neon letters. Suddenly I felt rather guilty about what I had been doing since being asked to do this lead so I decided to contact the woman from the committee who had been at the beginning of all of this. I wanted to know if my ego-filled behaviors were just a normal reaction to this. When she told me it would be best to stop talking about it and just see whoever showed up, I agreed but unfortunately I didn’t end up following her advice.

For the next six weeks, I continued to allow my ego to find a number of other ways to tell many in recovery, and even some that weren’t, about this upcoming lead. My ego swelled more and more each time I did, until a good friend in recovery heard me talking about this and said something that stopped me in my tracks. What he said was the same thing I saw in those big neon letters in my mind a month earlier and that was that word “EGO”. Little did I realize at that precise moment in time how much it really had been ruling my life?

By the time I arrived at the banquet hall a few nights later, I have to say that I had allowed my ego to envision things that were truly selfish and self-centered. With thoughts of hundreds and hundreds of people attending, standing ovations and lines of people waiting to compliment my lead, I walked in the doorway of that hall not even knowing that my ego could barely fit in between it. Two hours later as I made my way up to that podium after being introduced, I felt completely nervous, even though I had given my lead hundreds of times previously to rooms filled with much larger groups of people. When I finally reached that podium and asked for a moment of silence, my mind suddenly went blank. It was as if all of my previous leads and experience had totally disappeared. That confidence I normally had exuded every time I gave my lead in the past was notably absent. I tried to do my best to share my story as I jumped around from one thing to the next with my mind racing every step along the way. When I finally finished fifty-two minutes later, there were no standing ovations or people getting in a line to shake my hand like my ego had wanted to believe. Instead, I just returned to my seat filled with a tremendous amount of doubt and insecurity.

When the dancing portion of the evening began not too long after that, many did come up to shake my hand and thank me, but I didn’t feel rather confident about any of it. Looking back I truly believe the reason for this was that every time I’ve spoken in the past, I’ve been filled with some type of spirit or energy that I can only say was God. But on this night, I can honestly say that I didn’t feel that presence during any of my share and I wonder if that’s only because I needed to learn this very valuable lesson. The fact is all the spiritually enlightened teachers I’ve ever read about have always been extremely humble people who work daily on deflating their ego. I honestly didn’t do much of that at all over the course of the few months I had leading up to this banquet.

While I initially did beat myself up quite a bit over this after I left the banquet that night, I decided it would be far healthier to not live with regret or even look negatively upon any of what happened. Instead, I made the decision to chalk it up as a positive lesson I needed to learn about ego deflation. Because ultimately I believe that’s exactly what needs to happen a little more in my life, especially as I continue to trudge this Road of Happy Destiny towards spiritual enlightenment.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Is it truly possible to remain clean and sober from an addiction using only sheer will power? This was the hot topic of the day at a 12 Step meeting I attended about a week ago and it’s one in recovery that often polarizes those who believe in a Higher Power and those who don’t. But I’ve discovered through my own trials and tribulations with addictions throughout life that the real answer isn’t whether one can or cannot remain clean and sober through will power at all, it’s whether one’s will power is enough to find true recovery from their addiction and in my case, it never was.

How this debate always seems to begin in any meeting is where a person shares the number of years they’ve been clean and sober and the follows that with some type of a statement about how they’ve never had to seek a Higher Power to reach their current sobriety milestone. In the latest iteration I observed of this ongoing argument, a gentleman explained how God or a Higher Power did not drive his nine years of sobriety. Instead, it was his willpower that got him there. He went on to dispute that when he does something like hold open a door for an individual, it’s his willpower making that decision to di it and not some type of a Higher Presence. He provided several other similar examples and remained very adamant about how his long-term sobriety has always been grounded in the power of his will and not anything else. Ironically, I can’t and won’t argue his point because I went 12 years living exactly the same way. But, as I alluded to already when I began this entry, while willpower may be enough in some cases to help a person remain clean and sober, I have never seen it be enough to find full recovery from any addiction.

I equate these words “full recovery” today to how I end each of my blog entries when I use the words “peace, love, light, and joy.” I never really had any of those elements active within me during all the years I was clean and sober without a Higher Power guiding my way. In fact, there were many times back then that I didn’t hold those doors open for people either. That’s probably because I was completely restless, irritable, and discontent most of the time where I thought more about myself than anyone else. Sure, there were days that were better than others and on them my willpower was definitely much stronger. And when it was, I would hold those doors open and do other selfless actions as well. But on the days where my willpower was weak, even though I might not have picked up a drink or a drug, I partook in other addictions such as sex, caffeine, or gambling. The more I engaged in any of them, the more selfish my actions became in life and the less I did things such as holding a door open for anyone. None of that changed until I finally sought a Higher Power to guide my sobriety and when I did, that Higher Power guided me into something much better, which was a life of recovery.

While I still have plenty of moments in my life of recovery where I might not feel all that great, I do have a lot more peace, love, light, and joy operating within me as compared to the days when my willpower was mostly running the show. Interestingly enough, I hold those doors open now for people not because of my willpower, but because something inside me has changed for the better. I no longer have a desire to act out on any addiction either and I also want to be selfless now in all of my thoughts, words, and actions, even on those days when I am feeling a little down. That’s an incredibly far cry from when my willpower was more in charge, because it was then you would find me slamming those doors in people’s faces instead.

There’s one last thing I think is important to mention on this debate of willpower versus Higher Power. Every sober person I’ve ever met who has avoided seeking a Higher Power either has relapsed down the road or has lived as a dry addict with that constant state of restless, irritable, and discontent. I should know as I lived that way for way too long and almost relapsed myself.

So as far as I’m concerned, willpower can only get an individual so far in the battle with addictions. But searching out a Higher Power will do exactly as the 12 Steps are intended to do, and that’s to help a person find a life filled with a lot more peace, love, happiness, and joy.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson