Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

Are you one of those people who wants everyone to like you and really struggles when someone doesn’t, especially when you have no idea why? I am, and my first sponsor in recovery used to give me the following advice anytime this insecurity ever surfaced within me:

“What other people think of you is none of your business!!!”

Honestly, I never liked hearing her say that, but I always knew she was right. The fact is, people are entitled to feel however they wish to feel about me, or anyone for that matter, and they don’t have to explain why. Yet, my insecurities have often driven me to get to the root of the “why”, which more than not have always caused me to feel far worse in doing so.

Unfortunately, I’ve tended to also be one of those people who can be in a room of 100 people where 99 of them may truly like me, but when one doesn’t and totally avoids me like the plague, I tend to spend an incredible amount of energy focusing on them. I try to figure out exactly why they don’t, and even attempt to find ways to show them I’m a good person, all in the hopes that I may somehow receive their approval.

Pretty ridiculous, right?

Trust me I know and it all boils down to my own level of self-acceptance and self-worth, much of which I didn’t learn when growing up. So here I am in my adulthood, still facing an issue that I never ascertained as a kid and frankly, it’s been a rather difficult one to move beyond. My mind constantly seems determined to figure out why someone may not like me and in turn, I do everything I can to correct what I perceive to be the problem.

But it’s not a problem, it’s just life and people form their opinions of others for whatever their reasons. Many in fact do just that with this blog because of the things I continue to write about within it. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of people unfriend or unfollow me, avoiding me in life, and even go so far as express negative statements in the comments section because they haven’t liked what I had to say.

Yet it’s actually been a rather good thing because it’s helped to let go of some of this insecurity that’s been there for so long, deep within me. The realization I keep coming to each time this arises is that if someone has a problem with me and is unwilling to confront me with it in a loving way, then they’re not worth expending my energy on them. It’s better to simply let them sit in whatever their own uncomfortability is with me, then attempt to challenge them, because it’s really about them, and not me. It also only causes me undue stress and tension when I have confronted someone who doesn’t like me and that’s the last thing I need right now in my life!

So, I’m coming to accept more and more these days that when I know someone has a problem with me to just let it go. If God ultimately wants that person in my life, they’ll come around, and if God doesn’t, then it’s best to keep them at a distance, because it’s probably for a good reason.

Nevertheless, I get my original sponsor’s advice more so now than ever before, as essentially she was only letting me know that I have plenty of other things far more important to place my focus on, then on someone who may not like me and is choosing to hold onto some sort of negativity towards me…

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

It’s relatively easy for one to take great pride in the number of years they’ve remained sober from an addiction. But, I’ve come to believe that the amount of time sober means absolutely nothing if a program of recovery isn’t being worked throughout one’s entire life. In other words, it’s about talking the talk, AND walking the walk.

I say this only because I’ve met a number of people over the years with a good amount of sober time who I wouldn’t ever suggest to a newcomer to follow in their footsteps. Just because an individual is showing up at plenty of meetings, sharing eloquently and inspirational at many of them, and even sponsoring others, doesn’t necessarily mean they have a great recovery program, because a recovery program runs throughout a person’s entire life, both inside and outside the rooms.

Sadly, I know all about this because my deception used to run very deep, even when I was being abundantly active in the rooms.

Case in point, I once was sponsoring five people at a time through the steps, going to meetings every single day, and doing quite a number of leads where people repeatedly felt moved by the message I had, yet behind the scenes, I was still resentful at much of the world, doing childish behaviors when I wasn’t getting my way, and having sex conduct that was growing more and more out of control and unhealthy by the day.

So, while I may be rapidly approaching twenty-two years of sobriety come June this year, I really see things extremely different now and realize that a healthy recovery is far more than someone’s length of sobriety and how they portray themselves in and around the rooms. In fact, it’s more about what’s going on behind the scenes, away from those rooms that really shows a person’s true recovery.

That’s why I frequently ask myself questions now such as:

How am I treating my friends?

Am I often attempting to control everyone and everything around me?

Do people feel uplifted or drained when they spend time with me?

Am I giving more than taking, and being selfless more than selfish on most days?

These are a just a few of the self-assessment questions I occasionally ask myself to make sure I’m not slipping back into any of my old deceptive ways, where I would fully convince myself that my long-term sobriety meant something, when it didn’t actually amount to much because of the way I was living outside the rooms of recovery.

That’s why I often tell newcomers these days to not be so in awe when they see someone accepting say a 40-year medallion, because the number of days sober truly means nothing if one is only talking the talk. To assess whether that’s true or not, it’s best to take some time and get to know a person outside the rooms, as it won’t take long to see whether they really are the healthy recovering person they claim to be. In most cases, within a few times of hanging out, you’ll usually be able to see the inherent truth.

Trust me, anyone who used to hang out with me back when I was being overly deceptive in the rooms, would instantly know how sick I still was by the number of sexual innuendos and judgments that habitually came out of my mouth.

But these days it’s even easier to asses this by randomly glancing at a recovering person’s Facebook page if they have one. As what they regularly post on either their timeline or others usually paints a pretty good picture of how their overall recovery life essentially is.

The bottom line is this. It’s easy to talk the talk, especially as one’s sober year’s grow. But that’s never a good benchmark to measure whether a person is actually walking the walk. Recovery from addiction is as much about what happens outside the rooms of recovery, as it is with inside of them as well. But ultimately, it’s important to never forget that the truest test of a healthy recovery can often be when in the presence of no one, where only God can fully see the real you…

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