Category: Daily Reflection

“I’d gladly take any day sober over all the days I was giving in to each of my former addictions.” (Andrew Arthur Dawson) 

About a week ago, I posted a very similar quote on my Facebook page and told the world I was really struggling to continue believing this, even though it’s been a widely accepted quote throughout the many rooms of recovery from addiction. But, after much retrospection, especially after reading all of the ensuing friend comments that came from that posting, I realized it’s only my ego that’s been trying to convince me of this, which is the very thing my disease of addiction wants. Why? So, that it can drive me back out there, into the depths of despair, where hopelessness and a futility of life became my constant companions.

While it is true that my life has felt exceptionally difficult this year thus far continuing to navigate the day to day trials of chronic pain, dealing with several close friend’s tragic deaths, being ostracized from my sister’s family due to her husband’s resentments of me, and overall feeling like I’m more invisible than not in this world, the reality is my life is far better than any of the days I was engaged in the pursuance of promiscuous sex and codependent love, or chasing after massive quantities of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.

Waking up in stranger’s beds, constantly feeling the need to shower because I felt so dirty, not having any sense of personality or identity with self because I kept giving my power away to toxic people who didn’t really care about me, losing time in all my states of fog, causing plenty of damage to my mind and body, the fact is through a simple reflection upon each of those years where I lived in any one of former addictions, I can see clearly just how much my present sober days aren’t half as bad as my past addiction-laden ones.

Frankly, there is only one reason why my ego fondly remembers any of my addiction-fueled days. It’s because during each of them, I didn’t care, about anything. I was shut down. My heart was closed, so much so, that I remained constantly numb, which is precisely why my ego would like me to cave in and dive back into an addiction-filled existence. Yet, I know that even though it might feel good initially to not feel all this pain and suffering, in the long run, it will only create more.

So yes, while I may not like my present circumstances of life, I most certainly like them much more than all those days when my life was governed mostly by addictions.

Dear God, I thank you for helping me to remember how dark all my days were when I lived in one addiction after another. I know that at least remaining clean and sober from all of them gives me a fighting chance, more hope, and a much stronger ability to hear You. Please keep me listening to You and not my ego, as I know my present sober days truly are much better than at any of my past addiction ones.

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

“Things will happen. You can’t stop them from happening, but you can control your reaction from making things worse. React positively. Live happily.” (Ravi V. Melwani.)

I can’t count the number of times I’ve messed with something that wasn’t quite up to meeting some standard my brain had set for it. Just the other day in fact, after a very long day, I came home to see the work a contractor had done for me in my shower. His task was to paint some old faux tile to make it look more modernized. It looked great and so I proceeded to put the bathroom back together, as I had taken everything out of it for the small job. Unfortunately, the paint hadn’t fully dried quite yet, of which I quickly discovered upon putting my shower curtain rod back up against the area where some of his work had been done. The result? A small nick in the paint that to others wouldn’t have mattered, but to me it was totally glaring me in the face.

I know I should have left it alone. After all, it was only a small nick. But I didn’t. Instead, I mucked with it, so much so that I made things much worse. That small spot turned into a much larger one, one that ended up needing the contractor to come back again the very next night to fix the mess I had made, which ended up costing me more money out of my pocket as well.

This is a repeated lesson that keeps on surfacing throughout my life. I’ve done things like this repeatedly, again and again, trying to grasp control of some “thing” my brain doesn’t like and fix it as quick as possible, only to create a domino effect of the absolute worse messes because of it.

So, what’s the solution?

Acceptance.

A word whose application seems so simple, yet something I’ve struggled with immensely for a very long time. The acceptance of things that appear less than perfect to my ego and the subsequent letting go of my attempt to control all the imperfections of life that cross my path has truly been my Achilles heel. I surely still have more work cut out for me with this and I know it most assuredly begins with continuing to work on my level of acceptance.

God, I thank You for the constant reminders that keep popping up in my life to show me that acceptance truly is the answer to all my problems today, including all the ones that I continue to create and make worse each time I don’t accept the imperfections that life brings my way. I thank you for the ongoing help and guidance you keep on sending my way to work through this issue.

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

“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one of them to say ‘Thank You’?” (William Arthur Ward)

“Act as if Andrew!” That was the suggestion given to me by my sponsor in recovery recently when I told her I was really struggling with prayer and not feeling like anything was being answered in my life. When I asked her what she meant by that, she said why not act as if God has already answered my prayers by thanking Him, rather than constantly praying for what I feel I need.

Honestly, of the 86,400 seconds that occur every single day, I probably say “Thank You” to God far less than I ask Him for something. Most of the time I find myself praying for my health to improve, instead of thanking God for all the healing that’s already taken or currently taking place. Or the fact that I pray for my relationship to improve with my partner, instead of thanking God for how close the two of us have grown and continue to grow. Or that I pray for my sponsees to get their step work done, instead of thanking God for how much work He’s done to keep them sober and how much they’ve done in turn.

The reality is it feels pretty foreign to thank God for things I’ve been praying for that I feel haven’t been fully answered. But I’ve been wondering about something ever since my sponsor made this rather simple suggestion. Could it be possible that many of my prayers haven’t totally materialized yet because my focus has mostly been on what I feel is lacking in my life and in others as well, instead of being on all the wonderful blessings that are right in front of me all the time or the ones that I know will come when they are meant to?

Maybe it’s time for me to stop praying for so many things I think I or the world needs and instead start thanking God for everything, as maybe then I might start seeing the world through a more joyful set of eyes, rather than looking through ones that have been too blindly focused in prayer to see that God has already answered quite a number of my prayers.

Dear God, I thank you for helping me to praise more than pray, to acknowledge more than ask, and to focus on what I’ve been given more than what I feel has been taken. I know I need to act as if You’ve already answered all my prayers, because the truth is, you probably have…

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