Category: Recovery From Addictions

My father once gave me this analogy about addictions and automobiles. He said that anytime we succumb to any addiction no matter what it is, we become just like an automobile. After suffering from many of my own addictions over the course of my life, I can safely say I now understand the parallel and agree with him.

Automobiles are completely dependent on gas to run, unless it happens to be an electric car, of which it then of course requires electricity to operate. But in the case of my father’s analogy, I’m going to use the ones that run solely on gasoline like my own. When I first acquired my Camry it had a full tank of gas in it. After driving that vehicle for the first week or so, my indicator light came on to let me know it was time for a fill-up. After doing that, I then drove again for a while until that light came back on again. How long I was able to go for until the next one, and all the subsequent others, became totally dependent on they way I was driving and the age of my vehicle. The worse I drove and the older my car got, the more I had to fill up more frequently. Nowadays I’m finding my car, as it continues to age, not only needs a fill-up on more occasions than it ever used to, it’s also starting to require greater repairs and maintenance. Eventually, I know my Camry is not going to work anymore and that I will need to get a new car.

The cycle of addiction is honestly no different than the life path of a vehicle like my Camry, except for the ending. Take one of the former ones I was addicted to for example such as alcohol. I began consuming it one night at the age of 17 and clearly remember how amazing I felt inside. All of my problems seemed to miraculously disappear during those moments I was drinking that night. The next day I was completely hung over though and vowed to never have a drink again. A few weeks would pass where I kept that vow until one evening I was feeling extremely stressed about some of my family’s dysfunctionality. Suddenly I saw a light indicator come on within me for the first time telling me I was near empty and needed a fill-up, in this case with booze. As soon as I put some booze quickly down within me that night, I noticed that light went off. I filled up with quite a bit more of it that night only to wake up the next day with yet another hangover and another vow to not drink again.

More weeks would pass before I ever saw that internal indicator light come back on again, but eventually it did, requiring me to fill up with alcohol once more just to make it disappear. Soon I noticed that indicator light was coming on within me with a lot more frequency and the time in between fill-ups was growing less and less. I also started experiencing health issues around that time such as having trouble breathing, digestive problems, weight gain, and more. Doctor visits became routine, as I began needing my own regular maintenance and repairs for the growing unhealthiness inside me. It was then I started seeing that internal indicator light up on most evenings reminding me it was time for another fill-up. When my body’s normal functions started shutting down completely, that was when I called it quits once and for all and became clean and sober. Unfortunately for some though, alcoholism can lead to the death of their body, except there’s no replacing it like you can when your car dies. I’m very grateful that I never went that far with my alcoholism, or any of my other addictions for that matter.

Thankfully, I don’t feel like I’m an automobile anymore because I do not need any of those constant external fill-ups of some type of an addiction nowadays. My Higher Power is generating that from within me now, and the 12 Steps definitely helped me to get there. I practice them daily and make sure I keep going to those meetings regularly, as this seems to be the only type of routine maintenance I need these days. I’m so glad I found recovery because all addictions are really just like an automobile. They will only lead you over time to needing more and more fill-ups and repairs, until you can’t be filled up or repaired anymore. I truly hope for your sake that you don’t wait until then because there’s no buying a new body, like you can a new car…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

There’s an addiction I haven’t talked much about in my writing, mostly because I haven’t really had a problem with it like I did with so many other things in life, and that’s compulsive overeating. Thankfully, there’s a recovery program out to help those who do suffer from this addiction, and it’s called Overeaters Anonymous (OA).

Taken directly from OA’s website, “Overeaters Anonymous offers a program of recovery from compulsive eating using the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of OA. Worldwide meetings and other tools provide a fellowship of experience, strength and hope where members respect one another’s anonymity. OA charges no dues or fees; it is self-supporting through member contributions. OA is not just about weight loss, weight gain or maintenance, or obesity or diets. It addresses physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. It is not a religious organization and does not promote any particular diet. OA members differ in many ways, but we are united by our common disease and the solution we have found in the OA program. We practice unity with diversity, and we welcome everyone who wants to stop eating compulsively.”

While I may not have chronically suffered from this addiction so far in this life, I do know of many people who have. The hardest thing each have had to face in their recovery from it is that they can’t completely eliminate food from their life. This is the major difference from someone like myself who suffered from alcohol and drug addiction, as those substances aren’t necessary to sustain life. The closest comparison of what I could come up with in my own life to a compulsive overeater is the sex and love dependency I battled not too long ago.

I firmly believe that sex and love are innate to a human being just like eating is, so the idea of eliminating them completely from my life never felt right. So I was very grateful when I found Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) and Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), as there in both programs I learned how to create a list for myself (called a bottom line) of the things I once did addictively such as watching porn, of which I could never do again at all. The same principle holds true for overeaters.

There are plenty of foods that many overeaters are unable to consume again without falling into their compulsive eating habits. So to prevent this from happening, they too create their own bottom line of these things that cannot ever consume again at all. Like all 12 Step programs, OA does work and can help a person find recovery from their addiction, as long as they want to stop eating compulsively. It’s really all about willingness. The truth is, until I found the willingness to stop drinking, drugging, smoking, or doing any of the others addictions I ever suffered from, I didn’t find recovery from them either.

With that being said, I’m ending this entry today with a prayer that came from an OA meeting, as I know it can help a person find that willingness if they’re currently seeking recovery from this addiction. There definitely is help out there for compulsive overeaters and hopefully this prayer can be but a beginning for their road to recovery…

“God, today is a new day for me, and with you I can handle anything. I ask for Your protection in case sometime during the day, my desire to eat compulsively becomes stronger than my desire to abstain. I also ask for Your protection today from anyone or anything that would interfere with my abstinence. I know I am powerless over food and that my life can become unmanageable again, but I do believe that You can relieve this compulsion and restore my sanity. Help me to know what Your will is for me today and give me the willingness to carry that out. And help me to turn my entire will and life over to You God so that you may guide me through another day of abstinence. Amen.”

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I regularly attend a 12 Step meeting that asks for everyone who raises their hand to “please limit your sharing to 3 to 5 minutes”. Ironically, the sponsor who took me through the 12 Steps for the first time often told me the very same thing, but she also always added something else on to that. She’d tell me quite bluntly that anything more than 3 to 5 minutes is just going to be bullshit coming from my ego. Unfortunately, it took me a good while in recovery to figure out how right she truly was.

The fact is I used to hold most 12 Step meetings hostage that I went to by sharing for far longer than 3 to 5 minutes. Usually those shares were either about my drama I was still creating in life or the messes I used to create during the days I got drunk or high. Sadly, I never had much in the way of hope to contribute to any of those meetings, but I never really cared because my ego liked the spotlight. And the reason why my ego liked that spotlight stemmed back to my lack of having it during all of my childhood years.

Back then, I never felt like my parents or anybody in school paid much attention to me so I grew up feeling like I didn’t matter. And my discovery of alcohol and drugs would only numb that feeling for the years I did them addictively. By the time I found sobriety from both and began to check out those 12 Step meetings, I immediately started to feel like I mattered in life because all eyes would be intently on me for each of the moments I shared in them. The downside was that I’d frequently speak for 10 minutes or more where most of what I said rarely had anything of importance to help someone else.

Thankfully, my Higher Power brought that sponsor into my life and she became the first one to tell me how much I was feeding my ego every time I shared. Although I was initially offended and carried a slight resentment towards her because of it, I eventually saw it for myself. I noticed how people would get up and go to the bathroom or even leave every time I shared. I saw how many would pull out their cell phones and play on them when I spoke. And I observed how no one ever came up to me after the meeting to thank me for any of what I had to say. The reality was that I should have spent more time listening, and not talking, in each of those 12 Step meetings I went to early on in my recovery. But I didn’t and instead I spent years droning on about my miseries of life not ever realizing it was all ego and bullshit just like my sponsor had said.

I’m rather grateful to say that’s not who I am anymore and I have to thank that former sponsor and those wise words she once told me about limiting my sharing. Because of her, I’m doing my best these days to limit it to that 3 to 5 minute rule not only because I’ve learned how to spread my experience, strength, and hope in under that amount of time, but also because I absolutely want to hear from others more so than myself.

I’m just glad I don’t allow my ego anymore to convince me otherwise, but even better, I have a lot more compassion nowadays for all those who end up holding a meeting hostage like I once did. Hopefully they too will one day learn the same invaluable lesson my sponsor once taught me, by limiting their own sharing to 3 to 5 minutes…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson