A meeting topic this week focused on guilt. It seems to be something that rises up for various reasons and can drag us down if we let it. Guilt is defined as having remorse for having done something wrong. What is important is to decide to forgive ourselves by letting go of what others have done to us. Forgiveness is where healing occurs.

I know that it’s easy to slip into the feelings of guilt. But guilt is like almost all feelings, best just felt and let go. The danger for me comes when guilt turns into shame, the feeling that…

Step 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings

I’ve been going through the process of working the 12 Steps around my own personal craziness, and last week, I reached the point where I was supposed to humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings. Whew! That has so many problematic words in it. I mean even if we forget about “shortcomings” (because, let’s face it, don’t most of us want to keep on keeping on with the ignoring in that department?), we have words like “God” and “ask” and “remove” and (trickiest of all) “humbly.”

I don’t know about you, but I…

One of the things that relatives of alcoholics do is put forth a happy face to the world that masks a mess underneath. I’ve always liked the saying that “Happiness is an inside job”. But one of the challenges in recovery is to understand how to go about fixing my inside so that I am able to feel the happiness that I know is buried within.

I’ve read something in one of the on line forums that it’s best to “live life, and allow happiness to find me”, as opposed to trying to pursue happiness. This is a lesson that is…

(photo from americanhistory.si.edu/collections/toolbox/machin.html)

My sponsor first told me about the God Box. I had never heard of this and at first it seemed like an idea that I would ignore. I have quite a few boxes around–antique ones mainly. I’ve always liked boxes and my recent purchase was a machinist’s chest from the late 1800’s. Anyway, someone had given me a small wicker box that was just sitting on the window seat in the master bedroom.

So when I was having a really bad day about six months ago, I wrote down a prayer for a friend and placed it in this…

One of the fundamental tools I learned early on in recovery was HONESTY. It is key to any healing, growth and recovery. As an active addict—I lied. I told white lies that I thought were harmless and I told major lies that I knew were destructive. I lied about little things and I lied about big things. I strung together a laundry line of lies that got so tangled by the end of it that I couldn’t tell fact from my created fiction. The lies were a part of keeping my addiction alive and kicking. The lies were built from…

I was watching the dogs playing yesterday and thought how they are really living in the moment. They are good examples of the Keep It Simple philosophy. They enjoy the simple things such as a good stick or a puddle of water. They hardly ever are irritable and if they are, they deliver a swift message that doesn’t have any double meanings. They are happy for their biscuits and kibble One Day at a Time. The dogs aren’t worried about whether they are going to be fed tomorrow or whether they are going to be brushed tomorrow. They just enjoy…

My friend hooked me up with some friends of hers who do this thing they call The Abundance. Every Friday, they get the culled items from one of the local organic-produce delivery companies, and they set all these awesome veggies out in boxes on the side of their house, send out a text message and it’s free for the taking.

I went for the first time a few weeks ago. There were boxes of little potatoes, big green leeks, leafy Swiss chard, peppers, onions, grapes and my favorite apples - Jona Golds. It was like an awesome, free farmers market, and…

Thanks to Barbara O’Brien:

“Hungry ghosts are pitiable creatures. They have huge, empty stomachs, but their mouths are too small and their necks too thin to take in food. Sometimes they breath fire; sometimes what food they do eat turns to ash in their mouths. They are doomed to live with incessant craving.

The Hungry Ghost Realm is one of the Six Realms of Samsara, into which beings are reborn. Understood as a psychological rather than a physical state, hungry ghosts might be thought of as people with addictions, compulsions and obsessions. Greed and jealousy lead to a life as a hungry…

When people see some things as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good,

other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master

acts without doing anything

and teaches without saying anything.

Things arise and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn’t possess,

acts but doesn’t expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever.

Since I’m spending the evening in bed nursing a sinus infection, and the pressure in my…

I’ll be sharing these great little gifts I get every morning. Hope they inspire.

Your Humble Road Warrior

www.gratefulness.org
WORD FOR THE DAY
Tuesday, Oct. 28

Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.

A life practice from Br. David Steindl-Rast

The new, slow pace of my life has changed my focus and deepened my appreciation for all the clear, simple moments which I arrive at each day. The carpet of new-fallen leaves covering the path in the park, a hug from my daughter at the bus stop, her face in the window as the bus pulls away around the corner, the flurry of finches wings in the Japanese maple tree in our back yard.

Tonight I saved my energy to cook for my family. I’ve been getting better at the kind of cooking where you wing it - fixing a tasty…

There are lots and lots of ways to learn to live a sober life, and addicts and alcoholics aren’t the only people who are looking for meaning in life.  And wether we find meaning in a church or a meeting or in the mindful experience of everyday living, it is always accompanied by some kind of faith. Finding meaning means believing in something that is possible to doubt, like the trustworthiness of an idea or a transcendent reality or a Supreme Being.

AA’s founder, Bill Wilson wrote that the foundation of his sobriety was faith, “faith that, despite all worldly appearances…

When I was working on the sex relations part of the fourth step, I remember thinking that this was probably one of the most difficult parts of Step Four. It’s all part of being honest with myself, but I really didn’t want to look back at my sexual history.  I’ve had my share of passionate moments and when putting it all down on paper, it made me realize that in lots of cases, I had very selfish motives.

I cared for several of the women that I was involved with but in some cases it was just to fulfill something in…

I was thinking about sharing at meetings. I’ve heard people share in lots of different ways. Some people have to vent their frustration. Some have a great deal of sadness that pours out. Others are profound. Regardless, sharing doesn’t have to be deep or philosophical. It can just be an expression of gratitude. For newcomers, sharing can be especially hard. It’s probably intimidating to talk in front of a group and bare your soul. I was ready to share at my first meeting because I needed to get so much of my story out there. I have shared at every…

In the bleary, early-morning light of the kitchen I measure the fragrant, brown beans into the hopper and hit the “on” button on the grinder. The harsh noise focuses my attention as I watch the coffee grinds appear. When the crunching of beans gives way to the whine of empty, spinning blades I switch the machine off. The water is heating in the coffee press, tiny bubbles forming on the bottom of the clear glass pot. Within minutes the whole pot is roiling and churning as it comes to a full boil. I count the tablespoons of grinds as I…

Allen Berger, Ph.D.

Psychologist and Author of

“12 Stupid Things that Mess Up Recovery”

In my previous article I discussed the cultural forces that predispose us for addiction. At the risk of sounding paranoid I believe there is a cultural conspiracy against the development of our true-self. Our culture is not wise. On the contrary it emphasizes materialism as manifested by our obsession with “having” over a more spiritual focus on “being.” We are out of balance and the current crises poignantly reflect this reality.

Understanding our culture’s role is one part of the story, but this rest of the story is…

I was at one of those meetings tonight where things just seem to fall into place.  There was hardly anyone there because of a memorial service for Jere, about whom I wrote a few weeks ago.  (I chose not to go; said goodbye already).  The two speakers failed to show as well, so the chair — a woman with about a year and a half — and another guy with about 4 years shared instead.  Naturally, since neither of them had a chance to think about it, their sharing was spontaneous and completely from the heart.  Really nice.

Both spoke of…

I have been thinking about how most of my life I’ve loved in unhealthy ways. I have made a mess of love through my codependent behavior. I went into my marriage hoping to change the person that I loved from being a depressed unhappy drinker. I had tried on and off for several years before my marriage to figure out why I was willing to put up with the outrageous behavior of my SO. I guess as Tab states, it was the rose colored glasses that I chose to wear. If I had felt better about myself, I doubt that…