Month: June 2022

Silly Joke Friday

Silly Joke #1

A newly hired nurse listened while the doctor yelled out “Tetanus!” with his patient. Then later he yelled “Measles!” with another. Soon after it was “Mumps!” with another patient. When he yelled out “Shingles!” with the last patient of the day, she asked the nurse who had been there a long while, “Why does he keep going on like that with each patient who needs a vaccine? ”Oh, that? He just likes to call the shots around here…”

Silly Joke #2

Before celebrating a baptism, the deacon approached the young father and said solemnly, “Baptism is a serious step. Are you sure you’re prepared for it?”“I think so,” the man replied. “My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for our guests.”“I don’t mean that,” the deacon replied. “I mean, are you prepared spiritually?”“ Oh sure,” came the reply. “I’ve got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey.”

Silly Joke #3

A man named John is feeling unwell, so he goes to see the doctor about it. The doctor tells him, “Well, it must be your diet. What sort of greens do you eat?” John replies, “Well, I only eat peas. I hate all other green foods.” The doctor looks at him and says, “Well, there’s your problem. All those peas are clogging up your system. You’ll have to give them up.” John asks the doctor, “How long should I give them up for? I mean, I really like eating peas.” The doctor replies, shaking his head, “Well, forever I’m afraid. If you don’t, you’ll get sick again.” John is shocked by the doctor’s suggestion, but he decides to give it a go. Sure enough, he starts feeling loads better after a couple of weeks and realizes that he’ll never eat peas again. Anyway, one night, years later, he’s sitting in a bar having a conversation with friends. One of them says, “I’d love a cigarette, because I haven’t had a smoke in four years. My wife persuaded me to give them up.” Another guy says, “I haven’t played a game of golf in three years, because it cost me my first marriage. So I gave it up.” Then John says, “That’s nothing. I haven’t had a pea in six years!” When a pretty blonde sitting at the bar nearby overheard this, she jumped up and yelled , “Oh my, that sounds dangerous! Where are you storing all that urine anyway?”  

Bonus Silly Joke

Little Johnny, always known for saying inappropriate things went out for a drive with his father one day. Upon returning home, Johnny’s mom asked, “What did you see, today honey?” Little Johnny replied, “3 idiots, 1 dumb fool, 4 morons, and 1 damn sexy fox that Daddy said I can never tell you about…”

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

Thought For The Day

Today’s quotes surround the subject of temptation, something that came knocking on my door through social media on the day of my 50th birthday that my 12 Step recovery and my connection to God helped me to fully resist and move forward without any issues…

“Temptation usually comes in through a door that has deliberately been left open.” (Arnold H. Glasgow)

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down. He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit. He’ll always be there to help you come through it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 MSG)

“Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory.” (Frederick William Faber)

“Most of the time temptation begins with something good: food, rest, God-approved sex, the need to be loved and accepted.” (Todd Hunter)

“If we don’t want temptation to follow us, we shouldn’t act as if we are interested. No one ever fell over a precipice who never went near one.” (Richard L. Evans)

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

A 50th Birthday Addiction Temptation From The Past…

Over the last several weeks, I’ve mostly wrote about things related to turning 50, something I celebrated on June 11th. Today, I wanted to continue in that line of discussion in reference to my 12 Step recovery work, as on my 50th birthday, something happened connecting me to an addiction temptation from the past, triggering me into some old addictive thinking.

First, and foremost, there always seems to be a discussion going on in the 12 Step recovery community of whether a person is fully recovered from their former addiction or someone who’s consistently recovering. I’ve made the mistake of getting into this debate with others and it tends to go nowhere. I think what matters is how each sober individual sees themselves, which in my case is a person still recovering from their disease and always will be. Why I say this is because every time I’ve assumed I was fully recovered from my life of addiction, I’ve relapsed into yet another one. And with what I’m about to say happened on my 50th birthday, assuming I was a fully recovered individual could have led to a very bad result.

That being said, whenever my birthday rolls around, I typically thank every person who wishes me a happy birthday in the way they reached out, whether that’s by phone, text, or on social media. My feeling is that if someone can take the time to send me a birthday wish, it’s important to thank them back, to show my gratitude. So, on my 50th, as I was in the midst of doing that very thing on my social media, I was appalled when I saw I had received a birthday wish from the very person I had a deeply adulterous relationship with over ten years ago that eventually drove me into 12 Step recovery for sex and love addicts. It was this relationship that led to my health falling apart and much of my financial ruin.

Frankly, I was shocked after I saw this person had reached out because we weren’t connected on Facebook. But, for them to reach out on a special day where I was also going through tremendous physical pain and mental anguish, I thought it was rather apropos because I’ve found addiction tempts me the most when I’m at my lowest. In this case, after seeing their birthday wish, my former disease immediately said, “Oh, it’s just a thank you I’m sending back, it’s not that big of a deal.” Thankfully though, I have a lot more of God guiding me than me guiding me because of my 12 Step recovery, as I quickly came to my senses and deleted the message and blocked them from communicating again. Ironically, thirty minutes later, temptation struck again, as this same individual had used a second Facebook account and sent me a second birthday wish, to which I just as quickly deleted and blocked as well.

Here’s the reality, while the birthday wish itself may have been sincere in nature, would it have been healthy to respond to? Here’s a good way to answer that. Would it be a good thing for a recovering alcoholic to connect one afternoon with former drinking buddies still doing the same heavy drinking, or a drug addict choosing to hang with a former dealer for a night, or a gambling addict opting to go grab breakfast one Sunday morning at a local casino? The answer to all three is no, it wouldn’t be a good thing. Because, as the old saying goes, you hang in a barbershop long enough, you’ll eventually get a haircut. Even opening the door ever so slightly to this former individual I had once toxically loved, by responding with a brief thank you, gives my old addiction a chance to come back. Essentially, it’s breathing life back into it in that action itself.

In the end, seeing this individual briefly return to my life via two Facebook birthday wishes made me clearly remember why I went into the SLAA program in the first place. Thankfully, my 12 Step recovery and my relationship with God helped me to resist a 50th birthday addiction temptation from the past to someone that at best, once loved me at best as a sexual outlet for their frustration in life, and at worst, with abuse I never want to experience again in this life…

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