Month: April 2022

Grateful Heart Monday

Welcome to another entry in gratitude on this Grateful Heart Monday! For today, I wish to express my gratefulness for what I’m about to achieve in just a few days, God willing, and that is passing a huge sobriety milestone in my S.L.A.A. program.

For those who aren’t aware of what S.L.A.A. is, it’s Sex and Love Addiction, a 12 Step recovery program that works the same steps as Alcoholics Anonymous. Sex and love addiction is something I battled with quite a bit in my 20’s and 30’s. But thankfully, a few months shy of my 40th birthday, I finally began a true path of sobriety and recovery from an addiction that I felt did far more damage to my life than drinking and drugging ever did to me. And that’s probably only because the drinking and drugging part of my addition life spanned just six years, where I spent the majority of two decades living in toxic sex and love patterns.

Nevertheless, I’m just a few days shy of reaching my 10th milestone where I’ll have been free from an addiction that I know would still be there if it wasn’t for the S.L.A.A. program and God of course. By the grace of both, I’ve been abstinent from pornography, infidelity, romantic obsession and attachment, and promiscuity for a decade and I have immense gratitude for this.

This addiction is insidious and often beckons me back into it, especially when my partner and I have had those moments where we find ourselves on opposite sides of the boxing ring so to speak. It’s time like that or times when my physical and/or emotional pain have gotten the best of me where my ego tries to tell me that some of my behaviors with this addiction weren’t so bad back then and provided me more comfort than pain. If I didn’t have my S.L.A.A. 12 Step meeting on Monday nights, my sponsorship work in that program, a decent list of recovering individuals to connect with from that program, and a strong recovery relationship with my Higher Power, there’s no way I ever would have achieved a decade of sobriety with this addiction.

While I have zero desire to go back to drinking and drugging and haven’t really been tempted to do either in decades, I can’t say the same with my sex and love addiction. I think the truth behind that is that sex and love is inherent to a human being’s nature, especially touch. While a person can live without alcohol and drugs forever with no issues, it’s been proven that human beings require human touch. But that innate craving can become quite warped when that pit within grows deeper. My sex and love addiction began with the simple desire to be touched and loved, something I didn’t get much of at all growing up. The toxic behaviors that came out of my sex and love addiction all stemmed from that feeling. It may not have started out so toxic, but it eventually became that way the more I allowed it to control me. It’s why I remain so devoted to a program that plenty from other 12 Step programs haven’t understood or haven’t wanted to understand because many struggle themselves with these types of behaviors and aren’t ready to face them yet.

Regardless, I dedicate today’s Grateful Heart Monday to reaching a major milestone in my 12 Step recovery from sex and love addiction and thank the S.L.A.A. program and God for making that happen. Without both, I’m quite sure this addiction would have been the one to take me out of this world for good…but 10 years later, I can thankfully say I’m still here, doing my recovery, and heading into the next decade of sobriety from it and hopefully many beyond.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Thought For The Day

Today’s quotes are ones that I felt really summed up how I feel surrounding uncontrolled anger, something I used to struggle with greatly, and something I saw myself in with Will Smith’s recent Oscar 2022 violent outburst.

“Getting angry in a stressful situation is like trying to clean something with dirt.” (Urbanky Aurel Petru)

“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” (Cherie Carter- Scott)

“Never do anything when you’re in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.” (Baltasar Gracian)

“Speak when you are angry and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.” (Ambrose Bierce)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Daily Reflection

“He who is slow to anger has great understanding and profits from self-control. But he who is quick tempered exposes and exalts his foolishness for all to see.” (Probers 14:29 AMP)

“Hot tempers start fights; a calm, cool spirit keeps the peace.” (Proverbs 15:18 MSG)

“The slap heard round the world.” It’s been a few weeks now since Oscar night landed Will Smith on everyone’s radar and not in a good way. I’m pretty sure everyone knows by now what happened, but for some reason if you don’t, Chris Rock made a tasteless joke that night about Smith’s wife, Jada Pickett, and her lack of hair, telling her he was looking forward to seeing her in “G.I. Jane 2”. At first Smith laughed it off, but, after seeing his wife react negatively to the joke due to her having a skin condition called Alopecia that causes one’s hair to fall out prematurely, he quickly ran up on stage and slapped Rock in front of the live audience and about 15 million viewers that included me. He then returned to his seat and verbally swore at Rock twice saying to keep his wife out of Rock’s mouth. Since then, Smith has resigned from the Academy and became banned from attending any Oscar event for the next 10 years. While I’m very sad over Will Smith’s demise due to his Oscar night’s physical assault and expletives, the spiritual lesson continues to remain very clear to me when it comes to uncontrolled anger.

Having personally suffered the consequences in life from many acts of uncontrolled anger as well, especially during my alcohol and drug addiction days, I came to realize the cause was always allowing my ego to be more in control than God. It was abundantly clear that Smith was allowing his ego to do the talking on Oscar night, rather than God, which I found surprising when Smith talked later that night about his devotion and gratitude to God during his Best Actor acceptance speech.

Nevertheless, there are countless days I feel people make me angry. The most recent was a client lashing out at me during one of my alcohol and drug presentations, shouting obscenities my way in front of 50 others. How I handled it was simply talking in a calm and collected voice, one I feel came from my Spirit, that simply showed the individual he was loved even in his anger and judgments of me. In the past, how I would have reacted to it would have been far less humble, probably shouting expletives in defense.

Thankfully, I see now that the more I humble myself before God and not let my ego control my actions, the more I’m able to remain at peace and refrain from anger when attacks come my way. I wished Smith had allowed God to remain more in charge on Oscar night than his ego, because in the end, the cost of his uncontrolled anger will have far worse ramifications on both his personal life and career than if he had simply just prayed to God for help…

Dear God, I know how easy it is to become angry in this world and lash out, especially when we feel unfairly attacked. May you always help me to control my tongue and my actions and lead me more to acts of peace and love, than letting my ego be in control.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson