Category: Recovery From Addictions

Recently I’ve been going through a resurgence of what many in the recovery world would call “drinking dreams” except in my case, they’re actually not about alcohol, they’re about sex.

First off, I guess I should explain for those who don’t know what I’m talking about what a “drinking dream” is.  In the Alcoholics Anonymous world, it refers to when when a person who has been sober for awhile has a dream where they’ve relapsed and picked back up alcohol again. For most who have ever experienced one of these type of dreams, all the old feelings of guilt, remorse, shame, and self-pity can emerge from just one of them, but in most cases, there is generally a great amount of relief upon discovery that it was just a dream. In the narcotics world with people who have dually suffered from addictions to drugs and other illegal substances, these type of dreams would be referred to as “using dreams”. In both cases whether it’s alcohol or drugs, usually in the first year or so of recovery, these relapse dreams are actually quite common. Unfortunately, for someone like me who has been clean and sober from both for over 18 years now, they still continue to occur ,but from another addiction that I only quit just over a year ago, which is my sex and love addiction.

Through therapy, I’ve been able to figure out that on some level, my sex and love addiction began around puberty after I was molested. And for almost three decades since then, some part of me acted out in this addiction time after time after time. Thankfully, I ceased all of those behaviors since April of 2012, but in doing so, it appears I’ve also triggered many waves of these “drinking dreams” to start happening again, except this time, they are about me relapsing into my sex and love addiction. Usually in most of them, I’m hooking up with random strangers, or doing actions that are sexual in nature with people from my past that were lustrous based. Being in a monogamous relationship now makes these types of dreams bother me all the more, especially in the ones where I know I’m cheating on my partner. I often wish I could control my dreams but lately I’ve been doing some research and reflection into why they actually occur.

I have a theory that hasn’t been proven yet, but one I believe is true. For some, these types of dreams, no matter what the former addiction, are indicative of how one could still be living in their waking life. In other words, a person may be doing some type of addiction based behaviors that are very close to actually relapsing. Maybe they are hanging out with people still acting out in those addictions. Maybe they are doing addiction based things on the Internet. Or maybe there is a part of them that never really wanted to give up the addiction in the first place. In all of those cases, any of that could trigger those type of dreams. In my case though, it’s none of those simply for the fact that I have placed so much strictness in my life to stay free from all those past toxic things I did throughout all my addictions, including the sex and love based one. So this has led me to believe that what’s actually happening is something entirely different.

Is it possible that pockets of energy that I stored within me from all of those sex and love based addiction events in my life are surfacing and releasing while I’m sleeping? Could it be that as any of that energy surfaces, the dreams acts as a release process to remove that old energy out of me. I have compared this a lot lately to what it would be like if one placed a carbonated beverage out on a counter overnight. The carbonation would surface throughout the night and release into the air and at some point, the beverage would have changed properties for good. It’s my hope that is what’s happening to me and that eventually I won’t have these types of dreams happening anymore.

The most difficult thing I really have in seeing these extremely visual representations in my dreams is the simple fact that I don’t ever want to go back to that type of life ever again. I don’t want to ever randomly hook up with strangers anymore or have lustrous based moments or look at porn or cheat on a partner or any of those behaviors that made me so sick. Up until April last year, I knew hardly anything about love and intimacy and instead understood the language of sex and lust only. Trying to reprogram this is proving to be very difficult but maybe, just maybe, my mind and body is already doing that while I sleep when it manifest these types of dreams.

Regardless, I’m grateful, because in all of those moments when I wake up after having one of those “drinking dreams”, the most important thing is still there for me to realize…And that is I’m still clean and sober from ALL addictions that I have ever lived in. Hopefully, one day soon, God’s programming within me will be extensive enough to where I’m not acting out on any addiction, even in my dream state.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I don’t like feeling angry or resentful towards anyone anymore. I know I have written about this before but felt I wanted to bring just a little more light to it today.

Until the day comes when I can reach an absolute state of peace in my mind, body, and soul, I believe it’s inevitable that at some point or another a person, place, or thing is going to set me off, triggering anger and resentments. The work that’s cut out for me when that happens is to get it out of my system as quick as possible. Harboring those feelings is like saying I want cancer within me, which of course I don’t. The best comparison I have to what anger and resentments do within me if I don’t work on removing them is like telling a cancer patient their chemo treatment is going to be paused for awhile. What this does to that patient is allow any cancer cells left within them to begin to multiply again making them grow more sick.

With all the work I’ve done in my recovery from addictions, as well as the quest I’m on to grow closer to God, it makes me feel very sick, ugly and uncomfortable now when I harbor those feelings inside me towards anyone or anything. Thankfully, one of my spiritual teachers has helped me to learn a few very important lessons around those times this might happen and has also given me a very simple tool to aid in their removal process.

The most important thing this teacher has taught me around anger and resentments is that they are only mirrors for me on some life lesson I haven’t learned yet within myself. In other words, when I get angry or become resentment, it’s just a mirror for something within myself I’ve yet to face. Understanding that has helped me so much to do the next thing she taught me, which is how to remove those unwanted cancer like feelings when they get within me. “Pray for love, forgiveness, and peace for whomever or whatever you feel angry towards…” this spiritual teacher has told me. I know this may sound trite but it really does work. It may not be immediate, but with consistent effort, I have always gotten positive results.

So when something happens to me today where I start feeling those toxic feelings, I immediately look for the mirror first and ask myself what is it about this situation that I am not facing within myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying areas of my life now that still need work because of this action. Then, I pray for God’s love to come into the situation for all parties or entities involved. This helps to grow compassion within me and aids in the next part where I pray for forgiveness for everyone and everything involved in the resentment, including my own part in it because I always do have a part. Lastly, I pray for peace within myself and for all of the rest of those involved in the resentment so that everyone may move on from the negative experience. As much as this may sound too simple, it really isn’t. The hardest part in all of it is overcoming my own ego, which only tells me in each of my resentments, “I’m right, and they’re wrong!” And the only way I have found to move beyond that false statement, is to smash my ego by realizing it doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong. What matters is to let it all go and for everyone and everything involved, to move on in life free from all those toxic feelings.

The last place I want to be in today is where I’m a miserable, angry, and resentment person. It’s a terrible state to be in that is no different than getting cancer. The one and only solution that has worked for me to move beyond those times I feel that way is to pray for love, forgiveness, and peace. It may be initially difficult to do as my soul battles my ego for control, but in the long run when my soul wins, so does God, so does my recovery, and so does everyone else.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) within Massachusetts, there is this thing that people take part in called a “Commitment”. When I first moved to this state, I had no idea what that was. My idea of an AA meeting was always where either one person just shared about their full story of addiction or where people just raised their hands and talked about whatever was on their minds. In this state though, things are done a little different, as many AA groups have monthly standing obligations on a calendar to go to other meetings, hospitals, detox centers, halfway houses, and prisons just to share about their recovery to others who have suffered or are still suffering from addictions. And each one of those obligations is what is referred to here as a “Commitment.”

It’s funny looking back now at the first commitment I came across in this state. In my first week of moving here, I had been invited to go to my closest friend’s home group which was on a Friday night in West Bridgewater. The group was named A New Way of Life and when I arrived there, having no knowledge of commitments or what they were about, I told my friend I needed to speak about what I was going through. When he informed me about these things called commitments and how a group was coming in that night to speak about their experience, strength, and hope in recovery, I told him I had a lot of that even though I didn’t. To me AA had always been about a dumping ground where one would lay out their garbage at everyone’s feet just to get it off their chest. I did this for years when I attended any meeting and this was what I was wanting to do that night as well. Prior to that night, all I had were twelve continuos years of being nothing more than a dry drunk with no hope and no recovery. I pushed him to convince this group, who I had no affiliation with, to let me speak anyway during this meeting. Ironically, I was called up to share, and when everyone was there to be inspired, all I managed to get out was my name, that I was an alcoholic and an addict, and that I was going to kill myself if I didn’t get help that night. Then I finished with nothing more than tears.

That was the beginning of my recovery and soon after, I started going out on those commitments with my friend’s group as I joined it that night. At first it was hard because I had nothing really positive to share, but over the years that followed since then, the more that I have worked on my recovery, the better my shares have become and the more people have listened. The less that I have worked on my recovery, the worse my shares have become and the less people have listened to me when I’m speaking. Over the past year, I have given 100% dedication to God and my recovery and in turn, have seen the benefits from that when I’ve gone on a commitment and shared.

Last night I actually got to go on one of these with my group when we had a standing commitment at a detox center in Weymouth. Before it came time for me to share, I prayed to have God’s words flow through me. I have found this really helps to focus on God’s will and not my will when I speak anywhere these days, especially on a commitment. So when my turn finally came at that detox center to convey my story, I believe that prayer helped me to get fired up with passion about my recovery. I spoke quite a bit about my closer relationship with God and how much work I’ve had to do to get to where I’m at in my sobriety. I mentioned how my addictions went way beyond just alcohol and drugs. And I offered hope to everyone by showing how far I’ve come since that first night in recovery when I convinced my friend and that group to allow me to speak on their commitment.

It seems as if everyone pays full attention to me today when I share in any type of meeting such as what I saw happen last night. I attribute that to the 100% I’m giving to God and my recovery now each and every day. An even better sign of my growth in recovery came last night when most people came up and shook my hand and a man named Will even asked for my phone number. In the past, I can remember many of these commitments where none of that ever happened.

I really live for this type of volunteer work now and look forward to each time I go on one of these speaking engagements. It’s my hope when I share now at any of them, that at least one person will be inspired enough to take more action in their recovery like Will did last night. I’m glad I’ve grown so much healthier from that ego-centric person who just needed to speak on someone else’s commitment all those years ago. There is a night and day difference between who I was then and who I am now when I go out with my group on any of them. I can only give that credit to the hard work I’ve placed in my recovery, and of course to God, who has solely guided me there.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson