Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Recovery Meme.

My own Scout Potato tagged me in a recovery meme, and I thought playing might make my mood a little less funky. So here goes!

Here's the rules:
  • Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
  • Post these rules on your blog.
  • List seven things you're grateful to have learned in recovery.
  • Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
  • Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.
1. I'm grateful to have a relationship with a higher power now. God stuff is all new for me...or this kind of personal relationship with a higher power is new for me. Like most folks, I'd though a lot about the nature of the universe, the purpose of living, the origin of things and all that...but I'd never, at least not since I was a child, had a relationship with a higher power. Now I do. I talk every day to something, somebody, some warm presence that's been looking out for me always, but that I've really felt in the last year when I've been going through the hardest time in my life. I am grateful to have that connection and that wonderful source of comfort.

2. I am grateful for the concept of powerlessness. It drives me crazy sometimes just how powerless I am...it is hard to accept that there is nothing in my life I've wanted more than I've wanted for my husband to be the kind of man that I can grow old with, and that he either will or won't be and that there's not a damned thing I can do about it. But, it's something I'd never even considered before my first Nar-Anon meeting. I'd never even imagined that him getting better or not could be something that wasn't my business. Reading the text of the first step on that first night was like having a yoke lifted off of me. I don't have to fix it. It pisses me off that I can't fix it, but it is a relief that I don't have to.

3. I'm grateful for the people I've met in my meetings and the relationships that have developed. I've got some real friends that have come from my group, and they are people who understand and accept me through and through.

4. I'm glad to have the concept of putting myself first. I'm not always so good at doing it, but I'm glad to have been granted permission to have self-care as a goal.

5. I'm grateful to have become more willing to reach out to people. When I'm hurting or when I'm happy or when I just feel like it, I've gotten much better at sharing that with other folks. I'd learned through a long series of messy relationships that it wasn't fair to put yourself or your problems on someone else...and that misperception of what you accomplish through sharing has been cleared up through recovery. Asking for help, sharing your joy, talking things through--these are normal, healthy, human urges, and I'm glad to have them in my arsenal of survival skills.

6. I'm glad that I'm learning, slowly and surely, but mostly slowly, to take my life as it comes, one day at a time. I'm in the place I'm in for a reason, and I have a higher power that has a plan for me. When I am able to remember these things, when I'm able to enjoy a good day just for itself and to suffer through a bad day as one increment of my life that had a beginning and will have an end, I am more successful at living. It's the hardest part of recovery for me, but when it works, it really works.

7. I'm grateful for becoming more self-aware. Countless times throughout any given day, I use my tools. My whole approach to living is saner, safer. I now know better what my strengths and weaknesses are, and I know how to navigate through life better because I know these things.

So now I'm tagging folks. I only got 5. Whatever.

1. Alcoholic Diary
2. Discovering Recovering
3. Woman Anonymous
4. Stay At Home Motherdom
5. A Room Of Mama's Own

4 comments:

bottlecappie said...

My mind has been closed to the whole idea of 12 step programs for a long time, but your posts about how your program has helped you are putting a chink in my armor.

Thank you for sharing your lessons learned. This post was exactly what I needed to read, at just the right moment.

Anonymous said...

i love you, J.

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

At least you love me, even if Scout doesn't. ;) This is fun. Thanks for tagging me.

woman.anonymous7 said...

This is my first meme!