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Post by Lin on Nov 25, 2014 16:27:14 GMT -5
The first word that comes to my mind is detachment. It's a tool I use very well now but it tool lots of practice. I have learned ways to love others. Not turn my back on them. But stay our of their business and avoid the chaos. I am much happier today due to DETACHMENT.
LIN
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Post by majestyjo on Nov 27, 2014 1:35:24 GMT -5
Detachment, a very important tool my friend. Not one that I handle well. I was told that if I handle it with love, it leaves strings attached and that I need tough love in order to pick it up. It needs to be complete detachment, that puts an end to enabling.
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Post by majestyjo on Nov 28, 2014 19:11:16 GMT -5
They say non-alcoholic beer, but in truth there is .05% alcohol My husband may have got drunk, but it isn't up to me to say he is an alcoholic. He got drunk, he got violent, he had black outs which I never had. I remembered everything, often I wished I didn't.
I stayed in my denial about my own disease because I always compared myself to him and my dad and I didn't want to wear a label I had put on them. In today, it doesn't matter whether he is an alcoholic, or my father was an alcoholic who died as a result of his disease (he had angina and his nitro glycerine were all over the dresser and the floor when they found his body) in it, just enough to start a craving.
I have known several people who have relapsed because of it.
Personally, I hated beer. Never drank more than one from the time I was ten and tasted my first drink (communion wine I stole) and my last drink a glass of white wine with my dinner on August 20, 1991.
It helped nurture my denial, I can't be an alcoholic, I don't like beer! Yet when my husband was too drunk to finish his last beer, I would empty the bottle rather than leave it on the table. Today I know he was a drunk, I am the alcoholic with the stinking thinking.
This maybe post in part on a post here on the site, yet it is still true in today. I have the thinking problem, I haven't drank for many years, but I know that my disease still lives within me, and all it would take is that first one. All it would take is for me to go back into that denial and talk myself into picking up that first one, and I won't know where it will take me. The scary thing is, that first one just might con me into thinking it is okay, I am just F.I.N.E. and yet, if I am really honest with myself, my thinking is gone long before I pick up that first drink or drug. I have already had a lapse in thinking to get me to a stage where I relapsed and picked up a drug of choice in the moment, no matter what the substance is.
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Post by majestyjo on Dec 13, 2014 7:23:26 GMT -5
Desire. You have to have a desire to quit using. You have to have a desire to change. You have to have a desire for a new way of life. You have to be willing to be willing. If you don't have the desire and the willingness, pray for it. I was told that my God supplies my needs, my wants, and my desires.
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Post by Lin on Dec 13, 2014 16:13:11 GMT -5
another D is disease. Addiction is a disease. I believe that. Nobody asked to be an alcoholic or addict. A friend who could not get the concept at first got it by thinking of it as dis-ease. That means not at ease.
LIN
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Post by majestyjo on Dec 21, 2014 13:28:57 GMT -5
When I came into recovery, I didn't dare to dream. I was an empty vessel, totally fragmented and had to be put back together and made whole. It was a long process and it was the Twelve Promises of AA that gave me Hope and I saw the program working in others that gave me hope that it would work for me too. I went back to school and took a computer course that allows me to do what I do today.
At two years sober, I wanted to stand on the top of a newly built Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building and say, "Hey People, I have found a new way of living, let me tell you all about it." A short time later, he put a young later he put a sponsee in my life, who knew a young man who couldn't read or write, but he could build computers. He made me a computer for $100. It had a one gig hard drive and I got on line on went on Matchmaker Recover and still share with a friend in Texas from that site in today. A few years later, my God put a man in my life who bought me a reconditioned computer, and the rest was history.
Sometimes we just don't dream big enough.
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Post by majestyjo on Feb 15, 2015 14:07:16 GMT -5
Saw this cartoon. How often we lie to ourselves and camouflage it as truth. We think we are fooling others, but the person we fool is ourselves. We try to hide our disease, our short comings, and dishonesty, when in fact everyone one knows and we are the last to admit our own deceit. The sad thing is that the world is made up of it, and it is a way of life. My boss would stand beside me and tell me to tell the party on the other end of the phone line to say, "He had to go to London." It really bothered me because I was brought up to not lie. I felt as though the person could see through the telephone and tell by my voice that I was lying to him. I would tell someone that I had issued them a cheque, which I had done. At first, I said it with truth and conviction until the day I saw those same cheques in my bosses' briefcase unmailed. I lived a life of lies while I worked for that man and it really bothered me, and I ended up using tranquilizers, to deal with the stress of the job, I tried to do the work of 3 people, the more I did, the more was expected of me. I didn't know how to say "No!" and set boundaries. I had a son to raise. I had a job I liked. I also liked being Ms. Indispensable and Ms. Perfection but as my addiction progressed, my work efficiency decreased. My boss use to say, "I hate it when you are right." It got so I wanted to prove him wrong. He had two stores when I started working for him and had five when I left. Major ego strokes, and when he went bankrupt, it was a time of I told you so until I came into recovery and looked at myself and looked at my part and my actions and saw my own disease.
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Post by majestyjo on Mar 13, 2015 8:41:42 GMT -5
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Post by majestyjo on Mar 30, 2015 23:33:27 GMT -5
Didn't know where to post this. I thought of daredevil, defying God and man, denial, and down right scary.
www.liveleak.com/e/07b_1284580365
Received in an e-mail from a friend in Texas.
I was wondering if he does it clean and sober. The higher he climbs the more I held my breath and was going to shut it down, had trouble watching it.
I see this more as Step Two than Step Three, what do you think?Attachments:
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Post by majestyjo on Aug 1, 2015 1:35:01 GMT -5
If I was at your house, I'd ask to use the bathroom and I'd go through the medicine cabinet and take whatever there. I don't need to know what it is. Sometimes I'd be up for days, saying the same thing over and over, chewing my tongue. Other times I'd be falling down, bouncing off the walls. Sometimes I'd get real 'regular'. And I probably took enough pills out of those wheels that there's no chance I'm going to get pregnant this century. - Bob D. (Alkie speaks) Because I was raised to be a good little Christian girl, stealing didn't come easy for me, even when I was using. I would often try to justify it or talk you out of it but generally did it to your face. I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I didn't have black outs, I could walk a straight line and had people tell me they never saw me drunk. All things that affirmed that I didn't have a problem. When I got sober, I didn't realize how stoned I really was, especially when I drank and took the pills too. I would say, "Well I only had 5 drinks, that is nothing, I can't be drunk forgetting that I had a belly full of pills prior to drinking. Even in my 'drinking' days, before I tried ti quit my way (substituting pills), I took two 222s before going to bed to prevent a hang over or so I said, not sure if I believed it. I had black outs with the pills. Things I didn't remember doing or saying. I was taking medication that had a street name so it couldn't have been good. I heard people tell there drinking stories and I would think I didn't do that. Then when I got honest, I realized I had those same symptoms when taking the pills. As my drinking decreased, my pill intake increased. I had never heard about AA. When I got there, I found the solution. Don't drink and don't drug! Substitution doesn't work.
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Post by majestyjo on Aug 9, 2015 23:44:26 GMT -5
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Post by majestyjo on Aug 9, 2015 23:45:10 GMT -5
I Drank'
I drank for happiness and became unhappy.
I drank for joy and became miserable.
I drank for sociability and became argumentative.
I drank for sophistication and became obnoxious.
I drank for friendship and made enemies.
I drank for sleep and woke up tired.
I drank for strength and felt weak.
I drank for relaxation and got the shakes.
I drank for courage and became afraid.
I drank for confidence and became doubtful.
I drank to make conversation easier and slurred my speech.
I drank to feel heavenly and ended up feeling like hell.
-Author Unknown-
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Post by Lin on Aug 11, 2015 18:30:36 GMT -5
D is for DRY DRUNKS...My understanding is this is a person who is not drinking but also not working on ways to change themselves such as the 12 steps. They still have all of the isms of the active alcoholic...just minus the alcohol.
LIN
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Post by majestyjo on Dec 25, 2017 23:33:54 GMT -5
D is for Disease. I suffer from the disease of addiction. I was at dis-ease within myself, and I looked for things outside of myself to make me feel better. The only problem is that the disease is progressive, and when I wanted to stop, I could not. I always had to have more. Thanks to the 12 Step Programs I was not only able to quit, but stay quit, one day at a time. Just for today, I choose not to use drugs in any form. Alcohol is a drug. Food is a drug. Work can be a drug. I can be addicted to busy, so I don't have to look at myself.
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Post by majestyjo on Dec 27, 2017 19:34:48 GMT -5
D is for Easy does it...but do it. We need not rush and get all hyper, we can take a deep breathe and just do what needs to be done, in a way that doesn't stress us. I can't, we can, be it our Higher Power or our best friend, our sponsor, or a complete stranger, who helps us do what needs to be done in the time it needs to get done. Easy does it doesn't mean to quit it and do it another day.
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Post by majestyjo on Dec 30, 2017 12:14:55 GMT -5
D is for Dry Drunk. A dry drunk is someone who doesn't work the Steps and apply them to their life. They become automatic and a way of life, and we have found a new way of life. A dry drunk is someone who has put the plug in the jug, but doesn't have a program. He/She doesn't change the old behaviors, patterns, and habits and continues to act out in his/her life. I am just a good old boy/girl, there is nothing wrong with me, I don't drink any more. I was at that place and received a very rude awakening. There is more to this recovery thing besides not drinking and drugging. They are but a symptom of my disease. My problem is me.
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Post by majestyjo on Jan 4, 2018 10:51:22 GMT -5
Show our delight for the gifts of recovery, remember to say thank you.
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Post by majestyjo on Jan 5, 2018 5:44:13 GMT -5
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Post by caressa222 on Feb 23, 2018 22:38:49 GMT -5
In Step 3, we are asked to make a decision. Do I want sobriety or do I not want sobriety. If you want sobriety, and trust the program will work for you if you do the things that are suggested, work Step 4-9 and apply them to your life. They say you will be amazed before you are half way through Step 9. To maintain and empower yourself to do the service of Step 12, you need to learn to work and live Steps 10 and 11 to the best of your ability, one DAY at a time. Each day is a new beginning.
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Post by caressa222 on Mar 4, 2018 22:58:48 GMT -5
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