Category: Recovery From Addictions

I meet new people all the time, some of which are those that drink alcohol. Having been clean and sober now for over 18 years, many of those people find out soon enough when they spend some time with me, that I don’t drink any type of alcohol at all and that I will never be able to just have one.

It often can be frustrating for me to go to any event where alcohol is present. And that’s not for the fact that drinking is taking place because that doesn’t really bother me. Whether it be a wedding, a fundraiser, or some other social event where the consumption of alcoholic beverages is taking place, what bothers me there is when someone always ends up approaching me to ask why I don’t have a drink in my hand and then tries to offer me one. The unavoidable usually happens to where I end up getting in a lengthy conversation with them about my sobriety and how I haven’t had any alcohol in a very long time. The irony in all of it is that most of those people who engage me like this always then proceed to talk to me about how their own consumption of alcohol is healthy and normal. I’m not sure if I’m a tractor beam for those with guilty consciences about their drinking habits but for some reason, it does happen to me a lot. Regardless, it’s rather comical because after those conversations, I’m usually avoided by those people for the rest of the evening.

For those that haven’t suffered from the throngs of alcoholism and never had any serious problems with drinking, there is relatively no understanding that they are ever going to have on why someone like me can’t just have one drink. In the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) world, they call this condition “the phenomenon of craving” where if I had even a single drink, no matter what type of drink it is, I could never stop with just the one. Instead it became two, and then three and finally I was “off to the races” to getting massively drunk.

Early on in recovery, I never went to bars or other places where heavy drinking, or any drinking for that matter, would be present because of being too susceptible to that phenomenon of craving. I found that I was just too sensitive to the temptation of having a single alcohol based beverage, especially during my first year of recovery. It was even hard to go into some restaurants that had bars within them back then. But eventually being around alcohol became inevitable as it does so for most people. Whether it be that friends and loved ones would drink when I went out with them or that I was invited to some type of party such as a birthday where alcohol was present, I had to start getting used to the fact that I couldn’t avoid being around it forever.

It wasn’t easy at first but my adaptation came by usually bringing a sober companion along with me until I got used to being around alcohol. I guess one might compare that to something like learning how to ride a bike. As in something like that, I needed that support for awhile until I felt comfortable on my own. In time that did come.

Today, I’m able to go to any function where alcohol is present, as being around it doesn’t bother me anymore. I let go of needing that support in those types of situations long ago. But I have to admit that I still chuckle under my breath when I am approached at any of those alcohol-laden functions by a person who either tries to get me to have one drink or give me a long discourse on their history of drinking habits. The sad reality is that no matter how many ways I try to get them to understand my disease with alcohol, most don’t ever quite get it. Ultimately though that doesn’t really matter because I accepted a long time ago this one simple fact; that I can never have just one ever again…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Two nights ago I ventured out to an SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) meeting to pick up my one-year medallion. While I was there, I also sat through the beginner’s portion of the meeting where the topic of the evening was about withdrawal from the addiction. A newcomer had posed the question of how to handle withdrawal and what happens during it. Ironically, not a single person that shared their helpful insights mentioned anything about prayer, meditation, or God.

I’ve gone through withdrawal now from addictions I had to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, and sex and love. In each of them, the major key to getting through the withdrawal process was in turning to a Higher Power for help. To seek that Higher Power, which I choose today to refer to as God, I have utilized prayer to speak and meditation to listen. On some level at this present moment, I’m still going through a withdrawal and healing process from a lot of the toxic energies I took on when I was an active addict. On most days, I am utilizing prayer whether I’m in my car, my bedroom, out and about such as in a movie theater, or in any other place for that matter. Talking to God through prayer doesn’t necessarily mean having lofty sentences and eloquences like a sermon might have. For me, sometimes it’s just about repeating “God please help me have the strength to keep going” over and over and over again until I get through a painful moment. Other times I’m doing the listening part with meditation. I try to do at least 35 minutes every day of sitting in complete silence where I just allow myself to be a receptor of any messages that may come from God.

Through all my prayers and meditations that I’ve done over the years as I have withdrawn from addictions and gone through healing periods, I have been guided by God to the things that were healthier and helped me. Many people in that room of the SLAA meeting I went to the other night had great suggestions for this newcomer on things he could do as he withdrew from his sex and love addiction. I watched as he took notes and did the best he could to pay attention to what everyone was saying. But what I felt people weren’t grasping is that the path that his Higher Power might have for him to deal his withdrawal could be completely different than what they were all suggesting from what worked for them during theirs.

When the beginner’s portion of the meeting ended, I spoke to this man and told him how prayer and meditation helped me get the guidance I needed. I wanted him to know that his Higher Power could provide him all the direction he needed to get through his withdrawal. All he needed to do was just ask through prayer, wait patiently, and listen in quiet moments for the answers, such as through something like meditation. While most of us may never see God in a human form during those moments of seeking guidance during a withdrawal period, the reality is that God’s presence is there and we can tap into it in any given moment by just having a conversation and then being still and listening.

Withdrawal is a very challenging and difficult process to handle no matter what addiction someone is coming off of. There are infinite ways that can be helpful for an individual to navigate safely through that time period. At least in my journey’s case in life, the best and only Navigator who has helped me to do that is God. Through God’s help, I have continued to find all that I need to deal with any withdrawal, pain-filled, and healing based process. I hope this newcomer will find the same is true for him.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

About a week ago, my partner was playing a game on his cell phone that he told me was intensely fun. I was skeptical but given that I like to pass the occasional time by with a game or two on my own mobile phone, I took the bait. He told me it was a free app and that it’s name was Candy Crush Saga. After a quick search for it in the Apps, I found it and downloaded the game to my own phone. Within five days I had $20 less to my name, was definitely more irritable, and made the decision that I had to remove it.

Having already gone through previous incarnations of addictions with alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sex, and gambling, I never thought video games would become one of them too until I began playing this game. It’s methodology was simple, combining various elements of Bejeweled and Tetris, all one had to do was line up at least three pieces of candy to remove them from the board. The more pieces one could line up, the more candy that got removed. And for each level, there was a specific challenge that had to be achieved before one could move onto the next spot on a game board which really reminded me of that childhood great named Candyland.

As I started playing this game, my partner was already on Level 29 and had been so for several days. I should have taken his own frustrations as a warning sign, but unfortunately I didn’t and my ego got the best of me thinking I could do better than he was doing. The first bunch of levels were easy and it definitely hooked me. By the time I moved into the double digits for levels, they got a little harder and that’s when I learned that the game really wasn’t free if I wanted to move along quicker on the game board.

Candy Crush Saga capitalizes on this new drive that other games are doing now where the game initially is free but to move along quicker to those higher levels, a consumer can purchase “power-ups”. After sitting at one of the levels over and over again, I purchased something called a “lollipop” which basically just bashed a single piece of candy to remove it from the board. A set of three cost me $1.99 and did their purpose when they got me to the next level. There were other things that I noticed I could purchase as well such as donuts that cleared off all of a certain piece of candy from the board, sugar wheels that moved in certain directions to remove a set of pieces, and larger, more colorful pieces of candy that exploded in certain directions to remove a whole line of candy in a certain direction. Within a few more levels, I was back to being stuck and after numerous attempts to pass it, I was back to purchasing one of those “power-ups”. Suddenly, I couldn’t seem to put the game down and I was doing everything I could to get by one level after another.

I’m not sure what drew me into this game so fast but it definitely had elements that lured me in. Whether it was its bright colors, or the fact it was candy being played with, or its “crunch” noises that occurred at times, or its deep throaty male voice that occasionally said words such as “tasty”, “”divine”, and “scrumptious” when large amounts of candy were removed at a time, it definitely captivated me. What started out as fun and solely just a desire to catch up to my partner’s level turned into one urge after another to buy those power-ups and a refusal to put the game down. What was even worse was that Candy Crush Saga even had the ability to buy my way out of having to be patient by either buying more lives to keep playing the game or more “moves” when I ran out of them to get by certain levels.

By the time I got around to buying those $20 of “power-ups”, I made a vow to myself that I wasn’t going to pay a single cent to the game again. What’s funny is that a promise like that was no different than what I once told myself many eons ago when I said I would never drink another drop of alcohol again, only to be drunk yet again the very next day. While I did reach and surpass the level my partner had remained on for quite awhile, I got to level 35 and sat there myself for days trying to get by it without paying for those power ups. Over and over and over again, I’d get down to needing just one more piece of candy to be removed and it never would happen. After restarting the level over dozens and dozens of times, I made the best “power-up” move I could have made when I decided to delete the game, which ironically cost me nothing. Within 24 hours, I was a whole heck of a lot less irritable and felt much better.

With any of the addictions I ever fell into, just one was never enough. I could never have had just one beer, or one joint, or one pull of a slot machine, or one mega caffeinated soda, or one sexual romp or one of anything that qualified as an addiction for me. And sadly, Candy Crush Saga was the same. I lost count of the number of hours I dedicated to playing that game over those five days and if I took into account all those moments it occupied my brain both in playing it and when I was not, it consumed me just like any other addiction did for the complete time it was in my life. So essentially for those five days, one of my main thoughts was about getting pieces of candy removed off of a board.

It’s a good thing I have a much healthier relationship with God and myself today for I know when I am falling into any addictive-based pattern now. It’s always the same and it never feels good because everything else takes less priority in my life when I’m going down that path. Candy Crush Saga definitely was doing that for me. Thank God I no longer have that app on my phone anymore, as I learned there were at least 350 more levels beyond the one I got to, each of which were waiting to “crunch” my time, money, and energy away even more than it already had. And you know what, no game is worth that price!!!

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson