The Twelfth Step

Day 7 in Grand Cayman was definitely far better than Day 6, that’s for sure and I’m absolutely grateful to my Higher Power for that. The weather today was pristine with total clear skies, 85 degrees, and a light breeze. It was perfect swimming weather.

I spent a lot less time today snorkeling and instead just floated near the shoreline. Laying there in the ocean all by myself staring up at the sky felt so peaceful. In fact, I talked to God during part of it and then did my daily affirmations for the rest of the time out there. I also took a small walk down the beach today as well, far away from everyone else and spent some time talking to God during it. I generally find that I feel considerably better when I take regular time out of my day to talk to my Higher Power.

Later in the afternoon we met a nice woman at the pool that I felt should be mentioned. She was from New York and spends three or so months out of the year at this resort. She owns several timeshares and units at two different resorts and said she might be able to let us stay at one of them for our vacation next year at fraction of the cost from what we paid this year. Regardless of whether that happens or not, it was just nice to have an extended friendly chat with someone for a good portion of the day.

The overall highlight today though came much later when my partner and I decided to hit an AA meeting on the other side of the island. Normally when I go away on vacation I still like to hit a bunch of recovery meetings because I find myself feeling much healthier in my mind and body when I do. Unfortunately, the closest meetings from where we are staying on Grand Cayman are at least 30 minutes away or more. But tonight I really felt the need for some of my spiritual medicine so we took the drive and headed to this gem of a meeting called Happy Destiny where a woman from Australia did a lead because she was celebrating five years of continuous sobriety. I was so thankful I went because the energy was extremely uplifting and positive.

There was one odd thing that happened today that I think is also worth mentioning. Somewhere around 11:30pm or so, the power went out on the majority of the island. It’s now about two hours later and as I finish typing this, it’s still out. Ironically there are no storms going on here, so I can can’t fathom for the life of me what is even causing this. But I’ve always been a fan of power outages because they force us to make due with far less conveniences in life and sometimes I think we all need a strong wake up call to realize just how good we really have it in life.

So as I call it a night and the end to Day 7, I’m thankful today for new acquaintances, my recovery-based life, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a much healthier-feeling day.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It’s towards the end of Day 6 here in Grand Cayman and as I sit here and write this, I’m struggling to find the words to write. My pains continue to plague me incessantly and I’ve been feeling overly depressed because of it. Man, my faith in my Higher Power seems to be wavering a lot and all I know to do is to keep trying to trust that everything will be ok.

It truly has been extremely difficult to enjoy myself today given how I’ve been feeling. It’s one thing to feel this way at home where right now it’s cold and possibly snowing. But when it’s been 84 degrees and crystal clear skies all day and night, I silently ask God why I haven’t gotten better yet. Regardless, I did my best to be grateful today.

Most of that came where I spent most of my time this afternoon, which was out in the ocean. There I found a little serenity, as I saw so many different specifies of fish including angel and bioluminescent-based ones. The reef I went to today also had the most vibrant colors of coral and I wished somehow during one of my moments gliding through it that I could feel as peaceful as it looked.  But probably the biggest highlight I had today was taking a boat ride out to a sandbar where stingrays were in abundance. There I actually got hold them, pet them, feed them, and swim with them. It was definitely a weird sensation to feel them suck the food out of my hand, as it was very much like pressing a strong vacuum tube on my hand. Oh, and I did allow myself to actually place a kiss on the forehead of one that was at least 5 feet long and 3 feet wide!

Later in the day, after getting our car exchanged with another due to a vast number of mechanical issues with it, we went and bought a few more groceries and made hot dogs and baked beans for dinner.

Overall, I must say that today was the without a doubt the hardest one I’ve had here so far here in Grand Cayman, which sounds rather ironic given that one shouldn’t be having any hard days at all when on a tropical vacation right? Somewhere within my head right now as I saw this, I’m hearing a number of teachers from my past tell me that I need to remove the “should” out of my sentences.

Nevertheless, my entry for today is brief given how overwhelmed I feel. But as I do with all of my blog entries, I wish to end it with some gratitude. Gratitude that I haven’t turned to addictions to comfort myself, gratitude that I still have faith somewhere deep inside me in my Higher Power, and gratitude that I at least for a few moments today felt a part of God’s wonder when I held that huge stingray in my arms and planted a kiss on its head…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

 

 

Day 5 on Grand Cayman was definitely an interesting one. Beyond the fact that I awoke this morning with a mind-boggling amount of physical pain throughout my body, I did experience some pretty wonderful snorkeling a little later, once I left my room for the day.

To be perfectly honest though, I really wish that somehow this island air, the ocean and all its surroundings was going to be the catalyst I needed to get over this hump in my healing process. But so far it unfortunately hasn’t, yet I remain hopeful that being here is still helping me somehow.

I know many of you have either asked me directly or wondered silently, what exactly it is I’ve been trying to heal from. As best as I can put it, I’ve been doing everything I can to heal these past bunch of years from all of the negative things I put my mind, body, and soul through. Many don’t understand that living in addictions, doing toxic behaviors, and holding onto anger and resentment truly do poison oneself right on down to the cellular level and correcting that is not a simple process. It involves changing everything from who you spend time around, to what you eat, to what spiritual routines you do, to what holistic healing processes you choose to undergo, and so on and so forth. Who I am today is by far completely different from who I was when I began this journey in April of 2010. Alas, I was hoping to get a break from this healing process while here in Grand Cayman, but sadly it doesn’t work that way and what I continue to endure has been equal to what I’ve gone through at home, if not greater.

With that being said, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the ocean since arriving here on the island because I do find it soothing to me on every level, as I mentioned in yesterday’s posting. That’s why I’m generally out in the ocean as soon as I’m done with my morning spiritual routines each day, trying to connect to something greater than myself. Today, I swam through the most beautiful schools of fish who seemed totally unbothered by my presence. I touched their bodies and fins and almost felt as if I was a part of their cheerful groups. Some of the schools I even swam through had fish that were over three feet long!

I also enjoyed today looking at all the different types of coral and plant life that grow in the ocean. The colors of all of it on a bright sunny day are truly spectacular. I especially like the purple-colored plants. I want to mention I did have a quick underwater chuckle today when I was silently observing one particular area of the ocean floor. There I saw a set of eyes peaking out from a tiny cave and as I peered closer, a huge orange fish with the most amazingly red dorsal fin suddenly emerged and greeted me. Seeing things like this when snorkeling involves a lot of patience because quite often the coolest things appear only when you stop moving around and just observe for awhile. Sometimes that’s hard to do though if the waves are thrashing at you like they were at one point for me today. In fact, I had a little scare when I abruptly got caught in a riptide and began being pulled farther out into the ocean. Thankfully, I’ve been swimming my entire life to know what to do in circumstances like this and quickly caught a wave crashing nearby to ride it back in.

Aside from snorkeling today, I did also listen to a presentation for a potential time share ownership here. While I know I told myself last year I wouldn’t do one of these again, I opted to try it again this time because the people here were so overly friendly. Ironically, it actually ended up being rather fun and neither my partner nor I experienced any sales-pressure tactics. The reason why we actually did this was we’ve been considering looking to invest in a specific resort destination to go back to year after year that will save us money when doing so. Timeshares in the long run can do that. While we did end up buying after the presentation was over, we did receive a nice thank you from them, which was two free sting-ray adventure tickets, which we are going to do tomorrow.

There was also one more noteworthy thing that happened today and that was the free dinner my partner and I were treated to at the resort restaurant. Given the lock-out from our room we experienced yesterday, management felt we deserved a free meal on them due to the inconvenience. It was very enjoyable sitting out on the restaurant balcony tonight under the full moon overlooking the ocean while dining on some pot stickers, a strawberry salad, chicken curry vindaloo, and coconut crème pie. I should mention though that we ended our evening just after eating our huge meal watching the finale of The Biggest Loser! LOL.

So while I may continue to endure extremely intensive pain, even here in beautiful Grand Cayman, I remain thankful to my Higher Power for all of the things I got to enjoy today both under the sea and above.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson