Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

What happens when everything feels stripped away from what you thought you were and you’re left with nothing but yourself in a mostly stay-at-home quarantined state due to a pandemic? In my case, something that’s made me feel exceptionally uncomfortable and extremely depressed.

Prior to the onslaught of the COVID-19 virus, I was doing my best to live out the underlying purpose of the 12^th Step. Averaging somewhere between 20 and 30 hours a week in addiction recovery work, I very much enjoyed doing my best to “carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.” But since this pandemic has forced many of us to stay at home more than not, I’ve been averaging at the most a few hours of addiction recovery work in any given week now. While I’ve had regular communications and meetings via digital platforms, it just hasn’t felt the same. This forced isolation has truly left me feeling totally directionless, frustrated, and questioning the point of my very existence. Part of that is because I also haven’t had a paying job in a very long time and any attempt I’ve sought for even part-time employment that I could handle with my health issues hasn’t worked out. But, I chose to accept that this is what my Higher Power wanted, for me to give back for a while, and so I have, which is why I’ve done my best to live and breathe the 12 Steps. Essentially, 12 Step recovery work has become my entire life, my only purpose, and the very reason on most days to keep on going.

As this COVID-19 pandemic grew worse though, my 12 Step work began drying up, leaving me feeling stripped of the only purpose I feel God has given me over the past decade and keeping me mostly at home. And even though I know remaining at home has been helping to keep others healthy and safe, I haven’t been feeling all that healthy and safe. I’ve actually felt tempted to give in to former addictions, chiefly late at night, just to cope, and my mental health feels like it’s beginning to waver now as well. Even the way I’ve been looking at myself seems to be suffering again, as I’ve found myself criticizing the way I look and picking apart every little blemish. All this because I’ve been feeling stripped away to nothing.

The fact is, if I can’t do my normal recovery work right now, what am I supposed to do? I can only clean my house so much and household projects have only gone so far. While I don’t foresee this pandemic lasting indefinitely, it’s really made me wonder, are all these negative feelings I’ve been having about myself been there all the time below the radar so to speak? Is this forced stay-at-home quarantine only revealing what has always been there within me? If that’s the case, I have no idea how to overcome any of these newly surfaced feelings about myself. Basically, I’ve come to realize I don’t have enough self-love for myself. Up until this pandemic, my only solution in creating self-love was in my doing, not in my being.

Thich Nat Hahn once said “We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.”

So, is it possible to just exist, to just stay home and still be happy and love myself? Yes and I know that being on this hamster wheel of constantly feeling like I have to do something has been getting me nowhere but leaving me feeling angry and empty.

In the end, I want to be ok with this feeling of being stripped away to nothing, which means learning how to love myself a lot more and learning how to love myself as God loves me, as I know in doing so I’ll be able to be at peace no matter what comes my way that forces me to stay home or be alone, like a pandemic or anything else…

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

Over the past few months, the world has gone from one extreme of reporting the Coronavirus as simply something to watch out for and remain cautious of, to the other extreme of something that should be totally feared.

While I do have some fears in my life that I currently am working on overcoming, getting sick from a virus and dying from it isn’t one of them, mostly because I’ve spent the better part of the past decade already feeling that way. I’ve carried so much physical pain for so long now, that the fear of getting sick doesn’t seem to consume me anymore, like it once did. As for the fear of dying, well when you live with great pain for as long as I have, you begin to long for what’s beyond this life in the hopes it’s far better than this one.

Nevertheless, what’s ironic about the Coronavirus is that not too long ago, it really would have been something that would have completely consumed me in fear. I probably would have washed my hands obsessively throughout the day and been concerned about every sneeze or cough that I, or anyone else around me, expelled. I would have also been one of those who would have allowed all the stuff being reported on this virus to drive me into the doctors or the emergency room to be looked at, especially if I suddenly came down with a fever.

Regardless, it’s been reported that at the most, 2 to 3 percent of those who contract this virus will die from it. In light of that statistic, that means that if somehow the entire world population was to contract the Coronavirus, that being around 8 billion individuals, the death toll would be somewhere between 180 million and 240 million. Ironically, at those odds, the chances of being someone that might contract this virus AND also die from it is about the same odds as winning the Powerball or the Mega Millions! And we all know how desperately some of us have attempted to win that and never have, even doing our best to win by purchasing countless entries.

What I find more interesting though with this statistic of 2 to 3 percent, is that one actually has a far greater chance of dying in a plane crash (about 1 in 5 million), a train crash (about 1 in 500,000), a car crash, (1 in 103), or from cancer (1 in 5) just to name a few. Yet, that hasn’t stopped the majority of us in life from flying, from riding on a train, from being in a car, or from simply going on with our lives without worrying obsessively about getting diseases like cancer.

Except that’s exactly what much of this world seems to be doing right now, obsessing in fear over a virus that doesn’t appear to be one that will ever take the majority of our lives. Close to a million people every year die from the flu, yet most of us don’t worry about that happening to us, nor does it stop us from living our lives knowing that potential is out there. Yet, with the Coronavirus, it is.

I get the fact that there is a greater chance of lives being lost from it, that 2 to 3 percent is a far larger chunk of lives than the .1 percent that die from the flu every year. And of course, I don’t want anyone to die from any virus or disease either. I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s healthy to let the fear of a virus or anything that hasn’t happened to me yet, to consume me. Unfortunately, it has for plenty of others though.

Many businesses have ceased production. Big events are being postponed. People are getting warned not to travel. Surgical masks are selling out. And financial markets are fluctuating wildly because of it all. Would all of those things still be happening if the news media wasn’t disseminating so much fear, causing so many in turn to live in fear about this virus? I don’t know, but maybe a big reason why I’m not afraid is that I accept my life expectancy is out of my control.

I’ve always believed that whatever is greater than me, God if you want to call It, or my Higher Power, or the Universe in general, is in control of when it’s my time to pass from this plane of existence. So, if it’s meant for me to get this Coronavirus and also die from it, then so be it. If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. It’s that simple for me. And for all I know, living in fear over it, may be the very thing that could cause me to get it.

That’s why I’m refusing to be afraid of the Coronavirus, because frankly, I have enough worries to work on in my life that are right here, right now, then to worry about something I may never get. And even if I do get it, I will trust my Guidance that it was meant to be and that it will do what it’s meant to do to me. Until then, I’m going to choose to keep going on with my life, doing my best to live it as best as I have been, because letting the fear of getting it and what it may do to me seems totally pointless…

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

Even if acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today, as I learned long ago on my spiritual path of recovery from addiction, sometimes it’s a really hard thing to do, as has been the case in my relationship with my brother-in-law.

A few months from now, his twin boys will be graduating from high school. It’s an event I promised myself and them I’d be there to support many years ago and yet, sadly, it looks as if I won’t be able to attend it now, simply because my brother-in-law continues to have major issues with me that he seems to struggle immensely letting go of. Whether those issues are resentments, fears, or something else altogether, I really don’t know. I have speculated for a long time that it could be related to my sexuality and his Christian beliefs, failure to let go of his negative memories of my former addict behaviors that I’m no longer exhibiting and haven’t for many years, jealousy over the close relationship I have with my sister and my nephews since he has little to none with his own, or his constant comparison of me to my deceased mother, a person he never much liked and always made pretty well known.

Regardless of whatever his reasons, he doesn’t generally welcome me with open arms. Last summer was probably the most extreme example of this during a 50^th birthday surprise he was planning for my sister. He had booked a flight for me to come without asking my schedule and availability, and when I changed the flight to accommodate my own travel concerns, covering the cost difference myself, with no expectations on him or any of his family to change any of their set plans, he cancelled my flight in anger and told me I wasn’t welcomed to attend. After rebooking the flight and paying for it in entirety myself, he chose to spoil the surprise with my sister, which led to her in tears asking me not to come because it would be too stressful. And even when I was allowed to come several months later as a consolation with a promise by him that he’d keep his distance and let my family make whatever plans they wanted with me, that got broken as soon as his plane landed from a business trip two days into my visit.

It was after that when I began to wonder if maybe I needed to ultimately work on acceptance surrounding all this. Because I’ve tried to prove myself a good person to him more times than I can count, only to repeatedly have him see the few mistakes I make rather than any of the good I do. Which is most likely why when I inquired about coming to my nephew’s graduation about a week ago, that I was told the conversation surrounding it created a terrible amount of drama for them all, leaving my nephews with the attitude that they didn’t want me to come if it was only going to make their Dad that upset.

Because of this, after much praying and pondering the Alcoholics Anonymous acceptance prayer, I told my sister it was time for me to finally let go of trying to visit her family, because my presence there is only causing them more harm than good these days, which is the last thing I want for any of them. And in all honestly, it’s also not healthy for me anyway to be a guest anywhere I’m not being fully welcomed.

While I’m sad about all this, deep down I know my sister and nephews love me incredibly, and in a different world, one where my brother-in-law is able to unconditionally embrace and love me for me, I’m sure I’d be attending my nephews’ upcoming graduation and a lot more family events. But until that world becomes a reality, until either my brother-in-law is able to let go of his issues with me or my sister and nephews choose to take a stand for me, I know all I can do is accept that the best decision for now is the one where I let go of my repeated attempts to spend time with them and to let God handle the rest…

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