Category: Recovery From Addictions

I always find it rather ironic when I go to a 12 Step meeting and find out that the material being read for the day is dealing with something I’m seriously struggling with. This very thing happened just a few days ago when I met up with two friends to attend a noon meeting I don’t regularly go to. It was a 12 Steps and 12 Traditions literature based meeting where I learned upon sitting down that the reading for the day was going to be in the middle of the chapter for Step 7. And within a few short paragraphs being read, I got to see a completely different perspective of this step and realized how much it applied to my current state of health.

If you have been reading any of my other articles, you’ll know by now that my current state of health is clearly not where I would like it to be. Each and every day, I have been enduring a tremendous amount of physical pain for several years now that doctors have been unable to diagnosis or provide any relief for. Some days are better than others, but on most, I am challenged to get through even the slightest of normal activities in life, like sitting through that 12&12 based meeting. But the irony in being at that meeting was in seeing how my state of health could be the direct result of the work I did surrounding Step 7 several years ago.

I guess it might help for those who aren’t in recovery from an addiction to point out now that Step 7 is defined in all 12 Step programs as “Humbly asking God to remove all our shortcomings.” And just over three years ago in March of 2010, I found myself on my knees asking my Higher Power for exactly this in my life. At that time, sex had become my master and my higher power, just like alcohol and drugs once had. My closest relationship was to a married man and although I knew what I was doing was unhealthy and wrong on so many levels with him, I couldn’t stop. But a day came during that month, when the mental and emotional anguish wasn’t being extinguished anymore by that substitute addiction or any of the others I got myself involved in either. It was then that I prayed to God in tears and humbly asked to have everything within me be removed that had driven me for so long to all of the addictions I had suffered from. Within a matter of weeks, the first of many different physically painful ailments began in my life. Since then, I have grown in humility as my ego has been completely shattered because of them. Unfortunately, while I haven’t acted out in any addiction for some time now, I’m still dealing with an extremely high level of physical pain. But it was one sentence that was read in Step 7 during the recovery meeting that day that helped me to look at this with a more positive attitude.

“In every case, pain had been the price of admission into a new life.”

And in my case, that seems to be holding true. The pain I have been going through since saying that prayer has brought me out of the depths of all of my toxic addictions, it has led me away from living in one shortcoming after another, and it has brought me so much closer than any other point in my life, to the God of my understanding.

Today, I’m convinced that all of this physical pain I endure daily is the release of all of the things within me that has continuously led to all of my shortcomings. I’ve even had at various times several doctors, practitioners, spiritual teachers, and friends back this theory up. While science and medicine hasn’t been able to explain most of body’s current challenged state of health, I rest my faith solely in God now that my 7th Step prayer is still being answered. I gladly welcome every bit of this pain if its the release of all of my shortcomings, and I know my humility is still being fine tuned through all of it. But best of all, I trust that these pains truly are the price of admission into the spiritual life I’ve always desired to live in. And that alone, makes experiencing them completely worth it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

In the recovery world, there is a slogan which has been around for a long time that is far from always being true. Often it’s the old-timers (people with long periods of sobriety from some type of addiction) who use this phrase but that’s not always the case either. Regardless of who says it, the statement that “Meeting makers make it…” is extremely misleading, especially to a newcomer for any type of recovery from any addiction.

Recovery from an addiction is so much more than just attending a 12 Step meeting every day. In fact, something that is suggested for newcomers to recovery from any addiction is to attend 90 meetings in 90 days. While attending a 12 Step meeting can often help in one’s path to becoming recovered from an addiction, I’ve come to learn that there is so much more work to be done in a program of recovery than just going to those meetings.

It seems as if each week now I’m being notified of yet another person who has relapsed, overdosed, or died. A group member of mine in the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) world did so just a few weeks back and he attended many 12 Step meetings diligently. But that wasn’t enough to keep him clean and sober. Recovery is so much more than that. The work to be done in it involves more than just sitting through an hour a day or several hours a day of people talking about their recovery. It involves a complete life changing experience when one undertakes that path. Going to a 12 Step meeting is just the beginning of that path. Getting a sponsor, becoming a member of a home group, taking on a position in that group, reading the literature from that recovery program, doing the writing exercises, sponsoring another, making amends, and going out to speak about one’s experience, strength, and hope are all activities that are just as important as attending those 12 Step meetings. And that’s just what one would do in their recovery circles. But what about outside of those circles?

Recovery from an addiction is not just about what one does in their 12 Step program, it’s also about how a person maintains their life outside of that program. How do they treat other people day to day such as at their jobs or in social gatherings? What do they do when no one else is paying attention to them? Are they lying, cheating, stealing, gossiping, or judging throughout their days? Are they still holding onto unhealthy and toxic people still active in the same addiction? Are they substituting one addiction for another? Each of these questions are just as important to answer and do work surrounding them as it with attending those 12 Step meetings and doing the recovery program based activities I mentioned above.

The truth is, finding recovery from any addiction is tough work. It really is so much more than just going to a 12 Step meeting. Time and time again, people come in for weeks, months, and even years, doing nothing more than just attending those meetings. And while those meetings may help that person on some level in their recovery to understand their addiction better, it’s not making that big of a dent into what causes this person to act out in their addiction in the first place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do enough to get to the root of that person’s disease.

I spent 12 years in sobriety from alcohol and drugs doing nothing more than going to meetings. My disease remained active on many levels because of it. Thank God I never relapsed with those addictions, but I can say, without a doubt, that no matter how many meetings I attended, until I was ready to do the work in all areas of my life to rid myself of the disease, I stayed relatively toxic and sick.

Meeting makers don’t always make it. For those who do nothing more than attend those 12 Step meetings, many will end up relapsing, some will overdose, and a number will eventually even die from their disease. Recovery is so much more than making a meeting. It involves some serious life altering changes that involve both work inside the halls of recovery and outside in one’s own personal life. If you truly want to find full recovery from any addiction, seek a Higher Power, turn your entire will and life over to that Higher Power, and ask for the strength to do all the work necessary to achieve that. You’ll probably still end up going to many 12 Step meetings because of it, but you’ll also find yourself doing a lot more than that too in becoming fully recovered from your addiction once and for all.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever been the kind of person who has regularly looked for an angle in which to pursue your own ends and interests when it comes to the things you involve yourself with in life? If you have, then you’ve spent time doing something that so many of us are guilty of at some point or another, and that’s self-seeking.

My first sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) often said to me that I was synonymous with the term self-seeking. In fact, there were quite a few occurrences of me calling her up on the phone and talking about the latest drama in my life, which only resulted in her responding that I had been a self-seeker and brought it on myself.

To be a self-seeker simply meant that with every action I took, my motivation was usually all about what I was going to get out of taking that action. In other words, I rarely took any action unless I was going to get something out of it. Friends would call me to ask for my help in doing their household move from one place to another and I’d want to know that a meal would be provided. In AA, I often only chose those sponsees to help through the twelve steps because I was attracted to them, or thought they seemed relatively cool and would make great friends. There were times I’d go out for a meal with someone who I really didn’t even like that much only because I knew they would cover the check. I’d only go to certain recovery meetings where I knew I’d be able to go in front of a podium, or raise my hand, just to speak for awhile and have the spotlight on me. If my family or close loved ones asked me to do any specific chore for them, I’d do it and then store it away as a poker chip that I could cash in later when I needed something in return from them. I was selective about the people who I treated to various things such as meals or trips because I was trying to impress them or draw them closer in, while there were others who I also considered friends that I never did anything of the sort for. All of this really just boiled down to one thing, selfishness and self-centeredness.

Thankfully, I have worked quite hard in the last few years to shed that self-seeking, selfish, and self-centered skin I wore so tightly around me. That really only came about through getting closer to my Higher Power. Before that, it was such a joke to me when people looked my way and laughed as they said I was being a self-seeker again. What I never realized was that was one of the main reasons why they kept their distance from me. Why would anyone really want to be close to someone who is constantly thinking of only themselves? All my conversations, all the times I was with people, and even all the times I was alone, I was focusing on what I could get out of life and not what I could contribute to it.

Self-seeking is self-serving. And self-serving is just plain self-centeredness. To grow deeper spiritually, any of this type of behavior must absolutely be removed from oneself. I am grateful that my walk with God has helped me to migrate away from that old me who was only ever looking for that angle on what I could get out of life itself. Just yesterday, I received that confirmation of this growth from my sister of all people, who was once someone that constantly told me how self-seeking I always was.

She had been struggling with her job, as well as with some health issues and instead of me quickly shifting the focus away from her opening up to me, I spent the majority of the conversation listening to her and asking questions that ended up helping her. As she was getting ready to end the phone call due to her next engagement, she said thank you and told me it was the first time she felt I was really there for her and it wasn’t all about my drama or me lecturing her. I took that as an amazing sign that all my work to grow closer to God is truly guiding me in the right direction and I’m finally feeling that my life is becoming more meaningful.

If you are searching for a more meaningful or spiritual based life as I have been, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and ask yourself whether you’re always looking for that angle on what you can get out of the actions you take in life. If you are, then you’re being self-seeking just like I once did with regularity. This will only continue to take you in the exact opposite direction of a life that is filled with spiritual depth and meaning. If you really want to change that direction, all you need to do is what I did. Pray to a Higher Power daily to become more selfless and pray to be filled with a lot more love and light. In doing so, I’m sure that you’ll then begin to see, your self-seeking will slip away for good.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson