Month: December 2014

Practicing Recovery In The Midst Of Another’s Resentment

Sometimes I find life in recovery to be rather difficult, most noticeably when someone is holding some pretty serious resentments towards me, and especially when that person comes in the form of my sister’s husband.

As I sit here at the airport and reflect back on the last few days I spent with her family, I realize the most challenging part of it all was in my ongoing tension with her husband. It was quite stressful to say the least given it felt like I was walking on eggshells the entire time I was there. Unfortunately, he continues to harbor resentments towards me that at this point, I’m still unclear of what they’re about and why he’s been unable to let them go. The only thing I do know is that he continues to openly claim I’m not doing my work in recovery and cites out each time I do anything that he deems as selfish.

Much of what I went through on this trip there, as well as several others prior to this, continue to remind me of a past that still haunts me. What I mean by this is how I’ve done my absolute best these days to rectify my past wreckage and practice selflessness in as many ways as I can. But even with that and even after doing a long stream of things selflessly, one action that could be deemed selfish is the only one ever commented on or apparently seen.

Sadly, this has been all too true of my relationship with my sister’s husband. I have spent the last three years trying to repair the damage I did to him and his family. I have not only made my amends but have also been practicing a living amends by demonstrating I’m not the same selfish person I once was. While my sister has definitely seen and thanked me for my changes and grown closer to me in the process, her husband has harbored some very strong negativity towards me and done his best to avoid me when I’m around.

On some level because of this, I always feel like a leper when I visit my sister’s family, as I watch her husband not have much of a desire to play board games or watch movies or even engage in a simple conversation with me. While I gave it my all this past trip to be overly friendly to him, to compliment him on several occasions, and to show him the same love, forgiveness, and peace that I know God would ask of me, there was an overall level of iciness still felt from him during my entire stay. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that this can happen sometimes in recovery from addictions.

I understand today that not everyone is going to fully forgive me for my toxic past. And I also accept that not everyone is going to like or embrace me, even if I am doing everything I can to live a spiritually centered and unconditionally loving life. Sadly, I know I can’t make my sister’s husband see the hard work I’m placing into my recovery these days, nor can I make him let go of any resentments he continues to hold onto towards me either. After all, recovery has taught me the only person I can really work on and change is myself, which is what I’m going to keep on doing.

So whether my sister’s husband ever changes or not, I don’t know. Regardless, I’ll continue to offer him the same unconditional love I’ve been offering and pray he’ll one day fully let go of his resentments towards me and return the same. And hopefully he’ll also eventually grasp one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my own recovery to date in that the only person who truly suffers from carrying any resentment is actually themselves…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Andy’s Woodsy Adventure – Chapter 3

Q: Why did the can-crusher quit his job?

A: Because it was soda pressing!

Hey there people! It’s time for another entry in my ongoing adventure story! I hope all of you had a great Christmas and got lots of cool presents! Andrew was a Bah Humbug this year and didn’t buy me anything! Can you believe it?! Oh well, Mr. Beanpole is alright I guess because he gives me lots of gifts year round, which is kind of how it should be right? Anyway, here’s Chapter 3 of Andy’s Woodsy Adventure. And in case you might not have read the first two yet, here’s the links to each.

https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/12/10/andys-woodsy-adventure-chapter-1/
https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/12/18/andys-woodsy-adventure-chapter-2/

Andy’s Woodsy Adventure – Chapter 3

“AHHHHHHH!”

“AHHHHHHH!”

“AHHHHHHH!”

I screamed at the top of my lungs several times hoping that each might do something, anything, like possibly reopen the entrance to the cave. But nothing happened of course, except for me growing hoarse, and my heart racing quite a bit more. I became totally frozen in fear half expecting to suddenly feel some warm heavy breathing on my cheek.

Note to self. STOP WATCHING SCARY MOVIES IF I EVER MAKE IT OUT OF HERE ALIVE!!!

I frantically fumbled in my pocket for my small flashlight only to hear it crash to the floor due to my hands shaking so badly. Now I had no way of seeing anything other than the thick blackness around me. A few tears dripped from the corner of my eyes as I began to wonder whether I was going to perish in this dark prison. But then I remembered the numbers of the floor and how they lit up in purple each time I had stepped on one of them. Maybe if I just slowly moved in one direction, I’ll walk on one again making it re-light?

My left foot slowly crept forward in the direction of where I thought the room’s opening had once been. Then I moved my right foot. And then the left again. Surprisingly, a very dim purple glow abruptly appeared. I looked down to see it was the number “8” relit again, which helped me to breathe a small sigh of relief.

While there was still a considerable amount of blackness surrounding me, I was at least able to see my small flashlight lying nearby. I quickly grabbed it and turned it on, grateful not to see any weird creatures staring and snarling at me anywhere in the large cavernous room. After taking a few deep breaths hoping it would stop my heart from feeling like it was going to jump out of my chest, I pondered what to do next.

Somehow these numbers on the floor are a puzzle. But how do they work?

Ugh! I never really liked puzzles much. They always hurt my brain. I fondly remembered one time taking an old Rubik’s cube that I had grown tired of trying to solve and peeling its colors off just so that I could put them all back together on each respective side. A smile briefly lit up my face with the thought, and with it thankfully came a spark of inspiration.

Scurrying over to the closest number nearby, I illuminated a “16” after placing my foot upon it. I rapidly then jumped onto the “19” again, which was still only a few feet away as well. Now both were lit up causing the room to mostly be visible again in that bright purplish color. This time I didn’t extinguish the light from my flashlight though as I stepped on the “77” once more. One by one the lights of each of the numbers disappeared again descending the room back into the same darkness as before with the exception of the small light still emitting from my flashlight.

“8-16-1977” I said aloud. Like anyone was really listening to me…

“1-8-1977” I repeated the other number combination aloud as well hoping desperately to find some type of connection. I got they were dates. But what kind of dates?

“I REALLY HATE PUZZLES!” I screamed at the top of my lungs hoping the cave would understand my frustration and help me out.

Dates. Dates. Famous dates? Dates of…UGH! I don’t know!!!

“WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE A STUPID PUZZLE?” I shouted angrily at the cave. I half expected it was going to talk back to me. It didn’t of course.

“Birth dates???” I mumbled to myself.

Hmmm…Birth dates…I moved my flashlight around the room and thought about my own birthdate. It couldn’t be that easy…could it?

Looking around I saw the “6” not too far away and stepped on it watching as it began to emit that eerie purple glow. The “11” was on the other side of the room though, which forced me to tiptoe around a bunch of other numbers to get there. After doing the same on my way back to get to the “19” again, I observed how most of the cave and myself were basking once again in that almost soothing purplish color.

But where is the number 72???

I panicked for a moment and then I saw it…tucked away almost all by itself in one of the far corners of my current prison. After reaching it in somewhat of a weird movement to get there without touching any other number, I slowly placed my right foot down upon it, causing it to burn purple like the rest of the numbers I had already pressed.

At first I thought nothing was going to happen other than them all going out again, but then…

I began to hear separate noises from two different locations around me. Both were similar to each other and similar to something I had heard not too long before. It actually sounded as if large rocks were grinding and crunching against each other. Relief started to set in as I watched the granite door reopen to the cave, emitting a very dim light from way above. And then I saw it…the source of the other similar noise.

A clear crystal pedestal, about the height of one you would see in a church for baptism, slowly emerged from the floor, directly in the middle of the cavern. And directly in its center was a much tinier crystal pedestal several inches high and wide. At its top lay a brightly glowing purple crystal. It was slightly larger than the size of a golf ball and shaped with many sides positioned in weird angles.

As the pedestal came to a complete rest at its full height, the enchanting radiance of the purple crystal beckoned me to come closer…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Daily Check-In Call

There are plenty of people who probably wouldn’t agree with some of my sponsorship methods in 12 Step recoveries. But there is one in particular that seems to garner the most dissent and that’s the daily check in call I require of each of those I take through the steps. Ironically, I was once one of them that thought it was an unnecessary and cumbersome task, until I eventually saw how invaluable it was on my own path to recovery.

Before I ever started working on my recovery from a life of addictions though, I didn’t think much about recovering from anything. Life was pretty much about me and my selfish wants, needs, and desires, 24/7. When I met my first sponsor and was given the lowdown on her requirements for sponsorship, one of them was that I needed to call her every single day and check in. What that entailed was me letting her know how I was doing for the day, if I had made a meeting that day, and whether I had any pressing issues to discuss with her.

Initially I had no problems keeping to this specific requirement. In fact I rather enjoyed doing it because I used it to complain a lot during them about the drama still going on in my life at the time. But after six months or so had passed following her guidelines and sponsorship, my life had grown more stable, which is precisely when I began balking at the necessity of continuing to call her every single day.

She never batted an eye though anytime I was irritated with having to keep calling her each day. Her answer as to why it was still necessary was quite simple. She said if I couldn’t remember to at least take a few minutes out of each day to check in with her, then I most likely wasn’t thinking about my recovery at all that day.

She was right.

Soon after I reached the year mark working with her, she dropped that requirement to do the daily check-in call and left it in my court to reach out to her when I wanted. At first I kept it up for awhile but ultimately I started giving other people, places, and things much higher priorities in life than my recovery. The more I did that, the less I found myself wanting to do those daily check-in calls. And the less I found myself wanting to do those daily check-in calls, the more I returned to that life that was pretty much about me and my selfish needs, wants, and desires, 24/7. Years later I finally understood the true purpose of the daily check-in call was really just a benchmark for the state and health of my recovery. This is why I now utilize the same requirement for each of my own sponsees.

Sometimes I have a good chuckle when I see one of them walking in the same footsteps as I once did, getting resentful about having to call me each day. But time and time and time again, each time a sponsee starts missing days or tries to utilize text messages as a substitute for the daily check-in call, the only thing that’s really happening is their recovery is sliding backwards. Most who go this route just end up relapsing or becoming a dry addict on some level, which is exactly what I did.

So while there will most likely always be those who won’t agree with some of my sponsorship methods like this daily check-in call I require of a sponsee, I know my technique works. Why? Because practicing it has led not only me, but also many others, into a life with a much healthier recovery. Thank God I still have that, and thank God for each of my sponsees who discover that as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson