Category: Recovery From Addictions

Is it possible that the leniency shown to famous people when they’re brought up on criminal charges delays them from fully learning the spiritual lessons they’re meant to learn?

Time and time again I see the news reports that show some type of a famous person has been arrested again on a serious charge. One of the most common ones these days seems to be a DUI. Most of these charges are frequently dismissed or are reduced to something quite minimal such as community service. While I can’t say for sure whether any of those charges ever have real truth behind them, I’ve had the tendency to believe there must be some when it comes to repeat offenders. Justin Bieber is one of those lately who keeps falling under this category as he’s been racking up criminal charges across the country. In recent years it was Lindsay Lohan though who was the one constantly in the news for getting arrested again.

I’m pretty sure that stars such as Bieber and Lohan feel great relief when their charges are completely dropped or reduced to something minimal. But I often wonder if that leniency is exactly what leads them to become those repeat offenders. In the recovery world I live in, many of my friends didn’t get that lenient treatment for the same type of criminal charges. Instead some have permanently lost their ability to drive a vehicle, some got extended jail time, and others had to go through extremely intensive programs for rehabilitation. There is a positive thing though that has come out of these more intense sentences that the courts gave them. They’re not a repeat offender anymore and they are extremely active in their 12-Step recovery.

I have a friend back in Boston who is one of them as he spent many years in prison for his alcohol and drug related behaviors. It was enough to wake him up and find recovery and today he’s a fine standing citizen who has been sober for many years now. He doesn’t regret being in prison for all those years because it was the wake up call he needed. I have many other friends who also don’t regret their sentences either because it was exactly what they needed to learn the spiritual lessons they needed to learn. It was exactly what motivated them to find recovery and stay in recovery. And it was exactly what led them to find a Higher Power to continuing guiding them on a healthy path. Famous people who get those high-priced lawyers may avoid the hefty sentences, but they also avoid the pain that could motivate them to stop doing the negative behaviors their doing that leads them back to getting arrested.

I’m not sure if things will ever change in the legal system for these stars, especially when money seems to always solve their legal problems. But I can still hope and pray that each of them may one day hit rock bottom like I once did many years ago before one of their charges is one they can’t get out of. While it may seem like they’re above the law for now, eventually they will always end up learning those spiritual lessons, it just may take a lot more time, and a lot more arrests.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

One of the biggest reasons why it took me so long to find sobriety from alcohol and drugs was the fact that I couldn’t imagine having fun in life without them. The truth was that I thought the idea of getting sober actually sounded quite boring back then. I was only 23 years old at the time and in my mind, drinking and drugging was just what you did to have fun. Sadly, this is exactly why so many people, especially young adults, struggle to achieve sobriety and stay in recovery, and I was definitely one of them.

Before I drew that first full day sober from alcohol and drugs, my social life solely consisted of going to parties, raves, clubs, bars, pool halls, barbecues, and various other locales where the norm was to get drunk or high. In my mind back then, the only time it wasn’t an occasion to do those things was during my workday. For some reason I never crossed that threshold. Maybe that’s why the idea of getting sober sounded so boring to me back then because I associated it with the only area of my life where I was sober, work. And work was totally boring to me.

I didn’t achieve that first full day sober until my life really got out of control from the alcohol and drugs. When it did, I started checking out Alcoholics Anonymous in June of 1995, and at that time, there weren’t many young people trying to get clean and sober. In addition, the young people’s groups that are so readily present today weren’t really around back then. This made me feel like a fish out of the water, as the rooms seemed filled mostly with people in their late 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s and beyond. I didn’t stay around very long in those rooms for this reason and instead I sought out other addictions to keep myself numb and to continue my illusion of what having fun was.

By the time I came back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, twelve more years had passed. I wasn’t that young anymore and had discovered I wasn’t having fun with any of my addictions either. I wanted to find happiness in life in a completely different way so I decided to give the 12-Step process of recovery my full attention. While it took me a few more years to achieve that, I eventually was able to get there and that’s when I began seeing that life had a vast amount of things to enjoy, and none of them were associated to any of my addictions.

I learned how to have fun going to meetings, having coffees and meals with others, partaking in game nights, going to beaches, playing sports, heading on road trips, hiking, biking, seeing movies at the theater and so much more. What was ironic was how all those things either seemed completely boring to me during those addiction-fueled years, or they had to have one of my addictions present for me to take part in any one of them.

Thankfully, I’ve learned how to have a lot more fun today clean and sober not only from alcohol and drugs, but also from all of my other addictions too. Every day I find something new to enjoy in life and my brain no longer is telling me that sobriety is boring. In fact it’s just the opposite today as the idea of drinking and drugging, and doing any of my other addictions these days seems totally boring.

The point I’m trying to make here is this. Whether you are young, middle-aged, or older, there is a lot of fun to be had in a clean and sober based life. While your ego and brain may be telling you otherwise, once you invest yourself fully in recovery, you too will see that sobriety really isn’t boring at all. And before you know it, you’ll also start seeing how an addiction-based life is what’s really boring…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I wrote in yesterday’s posting about several important things to consider when one begins working on their 8th Step. I decided after posting it, that it might be best to add a few more words on the 9th Step as well. For those who don’t know what the 9th Step is, it reads as follows:

“Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

As I mentioned back in a much earlier posting, making an amends is not about saying “I’m sorry” and moving on. It’s also not really about you at all. What the 9th Step is truly about is the addict humbling themselves as they own where they were selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and afraid in front of whoever it was they harmed. It’s about helping those we harmed to find healing from the pain we caused them.

As also previously mentioned in an earlier posting, there are times when it’s actually not healthy to make a direct amends. Using an example from my own life, I had an affair with a married man many years ago. His wife never knew about any of what when on between him and I. She was never of his “extra-curricular” activities with me, as he liked to once call them. Through much prayer and reflection, I realized it would have caused her great harm and pain if I had made an amends to her, even though I was definitely willing to make it. Sometimes, there are situations like this where it’s best to just let the direct amends go for good and perform a “living amends” instead.

A “living amends” is simply when a person begins to live their life in a way where they’re not repeating the same harmful behaviors that once affected others on a daily basis. In the case of this affair I once had with that man, I no longer live my life to where behaviors such as that are acceptable on any level. Regardless of the fact that I’m currently in a relationship, my belief system today would never support an affair with a married man, even if I were single. Thankfully, my hard work in recovery has gotten me to this point and it’s involved a lot of “living amends”, as well as a large number of direct ones too. Making some of them weren’t easy, especially when I had caused someone great harm during my active addiction-based years.

Many recovering addicts like myself frequently experience less-than-welcomed gestures during our attempts to make some direct amends. This is all part of the process and is really quite a humbling experience. It is extremely important to note that I never argued back at someone who showed their anger or hatred towards me, because my only job on this step was to own the harm I had done. I learned that the more humble I made myself during each of these amends, the greater the peace I would experience later. The less humbling I made myself, the more my ego took over control and all that did was lead me to avoid making those amends at all.

The ego is a funny thing in that it really doesn’t want to be humbled…ever. It also likes to try to convince a person that an amends doesn’t have to be made when a person can’t be found. But in today’s day in age with the Internet, many of those people that are owed an amends can be found quite easy actually. In those few cases when someone truly seems to be off the grid, a little prayer to one’s Higher Power can often help to locate that person. There was a time when I prayed to mine to find someone so that I could make my amends to them, and not too long after, I ran into that person on a commercial street one day and got the opportunity to do so.

There are a few final points I’d like to make on the 9th Step. It’s important to note that making a direct amends should not take place over a phone, and definitely not through an e-mail or text message either. None of those are all that humbling and they definitely don’t help to smash the ego of the addict. And if one of those amends is with a deceased person, that doesn’t mean the person can avoid making it either. The amends I made with my mother came long after her death and it was done on a beach after I had written a letter to her. I burned that letter that day and felt so much better after completing that amends. Even though my mother wasn’t alive for me to humble myself in front of her, my action of doing the amends anyway was critical to my recovery. It showed my willingness and it showed my ego that it wasn’t in charge anymore.

So if you happen to be someone who’s on your 9th Step and is beginning to make those amends, please remember that this step is far greater than just saying I’m sorry and moving on. It’s a lot more about humbling yourself and it’s definitely about living a new life where the ego is no longer in charge. It involves searching as hard as possible to locate all of those you caused pain and it’s truly about having enough willingness to make an amends, even when a person isn’t alive anymore. And please remember one final thing.

The 9th Step isn’t as much about healing you…

It’s really more about healing everyone else that you hurt, as they deserve that as much as a healthier you…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson