Category: Recovery From Addictions

Lately I’ve seen a few advertisements in print and on television about people claiming cures for alcoholism and other addictions. While I can’t speak for those claims because I don’t know what is being offered, I can speak to the amount of “cures” I have tried before I found only one that worked.

My alcoholism and drug use began in February of 1990 and ended in June of 1995. During those years I never thought I had a problem. When my life began to get out of control and was becoming more and more unmanageable everyday, I began to suspect maybe I did. Although a tremendous amount of pain and a spiritual experience brought me into sobriety from alcohol and drugs, the desire remained for years to stay “drunk” or “high” on something else.

Throughout the years that followed, I discovered one addiction after another that were substitutes or replacements for the alcohol and drugs that I was no longer consuming. I regularly became stimulated just like I did when I was drinking or using by going on countless sexual escapades, gambling binges, shopping sprees, or geographical migrations. Today I look back at these substitutes as the progression of my addictive based personality. Even though I hadn’t touched a drink or a drug since that June of 1995, I was still that same alcoholic and drug addict who sought to maintain a life of highs and avoidances of lows.

One moment I would be extremely happy when I acquired that buzz from something I was doing, and the next moment I was becoming severely depressed because that feeling was wearing off. For awhile, I even tried other things such as chasing religion and going to church. I became a Deacon and studied the Bible.  I discovered meditation and delved deep into it by going on silent retreats and spending countless hours at home engaging in it. But in all of those attempts to do something healthier, I continued to act out on the side with other addictions.

A year ago, after 17 years of being sober and clean from all alcohol and drugs, I found a solution that I can say today, is a cure for all addictions. This cure was always there and I had even sampled it at times. But what I had never realized was that this cure wasn’t as simple as taking a one time shot at the doctor’s office and then becoming completely free of a disease. This cure was a shot I had to take daily for the rest of my life.

Through this cure, I found a greater purpose to live my life. One that moved way beyond my daily struggles and one that floated higher than I ever had. I had tasted this cure through my religious church going days. I had sampled it when I meditated for long hours. And I had even lived it when I practiced the 12 Steps. During all of them, I had spiritual experiences and spiritual awakenings with a Higher Power who today I choose to call God. The more I placed myself in one of those paths, the closer I got to God. And the closer I got to God, the more I wanted to give back and help others in the world that were still suffering. And the more I gave back and helped others who were still suffering, the less I lived in any addiction. Unfortunately, in each of those cases, I always fell apart because I began pursuing the path I was on with only half-measures. In other words, I always stopped dedicating myself 100% to that path and the result was a domino effect back into some type of an addiction.

So is there really a cure then???!!!

Yes, there is a cure! It takes work though. It can come through going to church for some. It can come through meditation and prayer for others. And it can come for those who follow the 12 Steps too. These are just three ways that I have found that cure. I’m sure there are many more. But the key to this cure is in practicing one or a combination of them daily. Today I do that. Because of this, I am not chasing those highs and lows anymore. I am not desiring to engage in any addictions throughout even the slightest bit of one of my days. And I am free of that poison for now because I am giving 100% of myself to God to keep that cure within me. I know if I stop any percentage of what I’m currently doing, I will eventually self destruct again by falling back into any number of my former addictions. And if I fall back into even one of those addictions, those shots I have been administering myself regularly to keep this cure, will cease to work.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

The following italicized excerpt comes from the How It Works chapter of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book and contains the words I have found to be the most challenging to face within myself throughout most of my life.

“The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with some­thing or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrange­ments our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits. What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to think life doesn’t treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when try­ing to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a pro­ducer of confusion rather than harmony? Our actor is self-centered—ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired businessman who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; poli­ticians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. What­ever our protestations are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity? Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Some­times they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position to be hurt.”

Bill Wilson wrote these words in the Big Book for those suffering from alcohol and drugs, but I believe that they can have great application to everyone’s lives in this world. All of what he wrote here can be summed up in one word…control. Many people love to be in control because deep down inside they know they’re insecure and their lives tend to get out of control because of how they’re living it. Through those controlling behaviors they also love to point the fingers and constantly say what’s wrong with everyone and everything else in the world. All of this essentially just highlights the fact that they are often completely self-absorbed, selfish, or self-centered. And most of my life, this has been me.

Letting go of control and not trying to direct the world around me has been an arduous undertaking. I grew up in a family that taught me to be this way and trying to break that pattern has proven to be quite difficult. With both of my parents having been alcoholics and never truly finding recovery, I watched how they constantly played the director in life trying to put off a good show. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t but nonetheless, everyone was often miserable in my family because of all of this behavior. When I left home and went out on my own, I essentially turned into my parents. In every friendship, relationship, job, or social interaction I was known as a control freak. And when I wasn’t in control, I was sitting back and saying how “this” or “that” was wrong and how things would be better if people would just do “this” or “that”. Most everyone eventually always got mad at me and in return I generally became self-piteous so that people would feel sorry for me instead. In many ways I was that little kid who had never grown up.

Finding recovery and the 12 Steps has changed everything. It has helped me find a Higher Power who loves me unconditionally. That Higher Power over time has also led me to finally beginning to grow up. And as I continue to grow up more each day, I have seen just how selfish I’ve been in every area of my life for most of it. The biggest realization though that has come in my recovery is the the fact that I had rarely ever let go of control with anything in my life.

I don’t want to be controlling or a director anymore in my life. Today I am working very hard to allow God to be in control and the only director. When I try to still do either, just like always, my show comes out terrible and most often will get seriously bad reviews and boos. The more that I have let God be in control and the director instead, the more my show has gotten great praise and standing ovations. And I think I’d rather have those instead…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I love the serenity prayer. It says so much in so few words. The more I draw closer to God in my recovery and in my life in general, the more I seem to be gaining that wisdom to know when I am able to change something and when I can’t. In my relationship with my sister and her husband, there are plenty of things I continue to have to accept that I cannot change.

It’s no secret that my sister’s husband is actively carrying a bunch of resentments towards me. He has made it openly known so and also indicated he’s not ready to let them go. Just the other day, a situation arose between my sister and I that was due to her desire to avoid conflict with him over my upcoming trip with my partner to their new home. She had just realized that my trip was going to land on Father’s Day weekend and wanted to see if my partner and I would be willing to take one of their cars on Father’s Day and go do some sightseeing for a few hours while they did their own thing. Ironically, I can’t say that I was surprised that she made this request given her fear of the many arguments that have occurred between them over me.

I don’t exactly know why he still doesn’t like me. For years I did live pretty selfishly and I know I affected them at times because of it. But through my recovery and closer relationship with God, I have made amends with them and been doing what I can for quite awhile now to show I’m a much healthier person. Unfortunately, that hasn’t equated to him forgiving me and letting go of his own resentments. The only thing that continues to be apparent is that he really doesn’t like me being around and has limited the time my sister and my nephews are allowed to see me. Even worse, during much of those times I am allowed to come around, he often bullies me or points out things he still feels I’m doing wrong in his mind. Quite often, I feel like I am walking on egg shells around him and have to prove myself. I have made many attempts to try to reconcile further with him because of this but he has turned down each of those requests. So in the meantime, I have come to accept what little time I get with my only remaining family and do my best to avoid conflict with him while I’m around them.

My sister has grown very weary of her perception that she’s caught in the middle. The downside for her is that she is deathly afraid of all the arguing, fighting, and control that seems to come from him when it deals with me. More than not, she has caved in to him and I have often believed that’s because she has to live with him and not me. The result of this is generally less and less time I’m able to be around her or the kids. And in the case of this upcoming trip, it was once again starting to look that way as I carried on the conversation with her.

Initially I was taken aback at what she was suggesting but somehow I should have known it was coming. By the time that weekend arrives for my visit there, it will have been about four months that I haven’t seen her or the kids since they moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee. Prior to their move, I had been allowed to visit them on the average a few hours at least once a month and if I was lucky, maybe twice a month. Since the move, my contact with her and the kids has been through Skype and limited by her to no more than an hour a week. I have made the best of it and looked forward with great anticipation to each one of those minutes I get to see them all online. When the invitation was extended by them for my partner and I to come that weekend with the plan of celebrating everyone’s birthdays together, I was ecstatic. I told her the only condition I had for us to come there was to spend all of that weekend with them. Neither my partner nor I have ever had any desire to visit Tennessee to sightsee and the only purpose of our trip there would be to spend it with them. She understood and we promptly bought the plane tickets. Unbeknownst to all of us though, Father’s Day was on the third day of that upcoming trip. Given my sister’s husband’s great distaste for me and the resentments he continues to carry towards me, I can only imagine how he might feel having to spend any part of it with me on that day. I’m sure my sister was thinking the same thing when she discovered the oversight hence how the situation arose in the first place between us.

I have compassion for her in this situation. I really do. But I also have the other side of this serenity prayer to follow. I have the courage now to change the things I can. A long time ago, I gave in to everyone and everything. I allowed myself to get less than what I deserved all the time. Essentially, I was often like a dog taking the scraps from someone’s dinner that fell to the floor. Over the past year, that has changed tremendously for me. I essentially have three full days to see my sister and my nephews and get my fill of what little family I have left. When that trip ends, it will most likely be another four months or more before I am allowed to come see them again. So the fact that my sister was suggesting taking a few of those precious hours away for her husband to have time without my partner and I, frankly hurt quite a bit since they have every other day of the year to be together and we don’t.

Sometimes I wish my sister could see some of this insanity that comes in certain parts of her relationship with her husband. In a healthy relationship, a husband would love to have his wife’s family come celebrate Father’s Day with him or possibly even have it honored on a day where there were no out of town guests coming in. In a healthy relationship, a wife wouldn’t have to keep alienating her brother because of her fears of her husband’s dislike of that brother. In a healthy relationship, a husband would accept his wife’s brother’s amends and want to create peace and harmony in his home by letting it all go and forgiving any past transgressions. But sadly, it’s not a healthy relationship for them when it comes to certain things like me and until it becomes so, I have to accept that I can’t change either of them on any level. The only thing I can change is me and in this case, that meant setting boundaries and keeping to them.

When the conversation between my sister and I ended, I set one of those boundaries by telling her she could keep to her agreement of us having the full three days with her family or she could refund my partner the money he paid for the airline tickets and we wouldn’t come. I pray to God that I made the best decision in this situation for my spiritual growth. I love my sister and I love my nephews, and truthfully, I even love her husband even though he doesn’t seem to love me. I hope someday he might. Until then, I accept he has more work to do when it comes to me of which I have no control over. I also accept that my sister has more work to do when it comes to developing her own inner voice of which I have no control over either.

Thankfully, I have the wisdom now to know what I can and cannot change more than I ever used to, and while I can’t change them, I can change the fact that I never used to stand up for myself to them or anyone else for that matter. It’s not easy for me to do that having been bullied on every level for most of my life. But through a closer relationship with God today, I’m actually doing that quite successfully a lot more of now and have gained serenity because of it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson