Living With Myself

[MajestyJo]

Substance over Form

I'm learning that for a variety of reasons, I've spent much of my life focusing on form rather than substance. My focus has been on having my hair done perfectly, wearing the right clothes, having my makeup applied perfectly, living in the right place, furnishing it with the right furniture, working at the right job, and having the right man. Form, rather than substance, has controlled my behavior in many areas of my life. Now, I'm finally getting to the truth. It's substance that counts.
—Anonymous

There is nothing wrong in wanting to look our best. Whether we are striving to create a self, a relationship, or a life, we need to have some solid ideas about what we want that to look like.

Form gives us a place to begin. But for many of us, form has been a substitute for substance. We may have focused on form to compensate for feeling afraid or feeling inferior. We may have focused on form because we didn't know how to focus on substance.

Form is the outline; substance is what fills it in. We fill in the outline of ourselves by being authentic; we fill in the outline of our life by showing up for life and participating to the best of our ability.

Now, in recovery, we're learning to pay attention to how things work and feel, not just to what they look like.

Today, I will focus on substance in my life. I will fill in the lines of myself with a real person - me. I will concentrate on the substance of my relationships, rather than what they look like. I will focus on the real working of my life, instead of the trappings.[

The Language of Letting Go - Melody Beattie
This was today's reading and touches on a topic I was sharing with a friend and where I have been personally, in my mediation and in my own life.

I for one, don't have trappings and a lot of 'stuff' in my life and yet it seems like my life can have a lot of clutter. I have come to realize that my brain can also get into that same 'cluttered' state.

As it says here, I was always worry about what I looked like, and it was important to carry a message of recovery and my sponsor told me to look recovered. There have been time lately that I have been finding myself not caring and thinking it doesn't matter. I find the excuses in my head, "Well I am not out to attract any one." That is the selfish, self-centered me making excuses for complacency, depression, and a lot of other over-whelming emotions that I hide under a cloak of darkness, which I use to cover up a multitude of sins. It really helps to cover them up when I cover up mine and look at others, forgetting that this is a program of reflection.

Not sure what brought this on, other than the fact that I went down into the mall wearing the bottoms of a long-overdue for the garbage jersey suit, with a mismatched top, flip flops on my feet, no make up, which I don't generally wear any way, but not sure I even combed my hair. My hair at the moment is generally in curly disarray anyway so it doesn't look much difference if I do or don't, but I know. Normally, I wouldn't be caught outside my door taking things to the garbage chute dressed the way I was let alone down to the mall and to the pharmacy. I felt ashamed of myself for going out like that, yet I felt worse for having felt the way I did, it was like I had an emotional hangover, and the feelings are coming out as I type this and I am now being made aware as I type.

Thanks for letting me share.

[MajestyJo]

Myself

I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know.

I want to be able as days go by,
always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don't want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things I have done.

I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself

and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking no one else will ever know

the kind of person I really am,
I don't want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men's respect;

but here in the struggle for fame and wealth
I want to be able to like myself.

I don't want to look at myself and know that
I am bluster and bluff and empty show.

I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;

I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,

whatever happens I want to be
self respecting and conscience free.

- - Edgar A. Guest

In early recovery, I heard a woman ask a long-timer, how come you still come to meetings, your husband has passed away, and he passed away sober? She replied, "I still have to live with myself."

This is a family disease. Even if I wasn't an alcoholic myself and needing my own recovery from my disease, I need to recover from my dis-ease of growing up in an alcoholic home. I need to recover from the dis-ease from within me that I had long before I picked up my first drink.

I need the program for myself, not just for the alcoholic/addict in my life. Recovery is for me. It gave me back my self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth, self-acceptance, etc.

Love yourself, the 12 Steps are a blueprint to happiness and freedom.

[MajestyJo]

When I think of these words, I am reminded of a few long-time women in Al-Anon. Even though their spouses are gone, sober, or still using, they say, "I still have to live with myself."

Recovery isn't about them, it is about me. It isn't about the alcoholic and/or addict in my life, it is about me living with me in peace and with sobriety (soundness of mind).

Let it begin with me, it doesn't matter what others say and do, I need to look at my reactions and thoughts as to how not to react, to accept, and/or forgive.

[MajestyJo]

Welcome to my world, as the saying goes, "If you haven't walked in my shoes, please don't judge."

I had the thought that I have a lot more pairs of shoes than I had when I came into recovery. So often we keep the old and the comfortable, because we don't want to break into the new. Yet when we get the new, we wonder what took us so long to make the change.

We would rather hang onto something that is old and run down, and not looking at the picture it portrays about ourselves. A new pair of shoes may mean a few blisters, but when you look at the picture, the results was worth the pain. As they, "No pain, no gain."

My son informed me that he was talking to his aunt, my sister on Thanksgiving. He said they agreed that my thinking was off, and found all kinds of things to cause them to point their finger at me. I am glad I didn't go there for the day and gave them the opportunity to talk. My sister doesn't realize she is just as much an addict as my son who admits to his addictions (pot, beer, crack, cocaine).

She is a great candidate for Al-Anon. The caretaker who doesn't do for herself because everyone else comes first. Continuing babysitting at the age of 67, to fill up her house, even on weekends they have kids over night, generally for free, because she and her husband have a problem with the emptiness of their home when no one else is there.

She puts off her own issues and pain, ignoring everything until she has to finally give in and ask her husband for permission to go. She lives in the country, she doesn't drive, and thankfully, her church is about three blocks away. Even though she is Sunday School Superintendent, sings in the choir, holds missionary meetings, and goes to prayer meetings, her actions often belie a closeness to God, and what I find to be an isolation of the spirit, because it is done in rote and what she feels she has to do. Don't get me wrong, if it makes her happy, that is good. I just don't see the happiness, in her face or her actions.

She lives her life through her kids and her husband. I did the same thing, though it was my son, and he was my everything and gave to him and didn't do for myself, yet he doesn't see that. As my disease grew, I was guilty of leaving him alone in his early teens. I detach from him and myself. I isolated in my dis-ease, hoping that if I didn't acknowledge it, it wasn't there. It was everyone else's fault and if they had only done what I thought they should do, everything would be just fine. F.I.N.E. Frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

You can't always judge, if you are going to judge, by it's cover, pain and wounds go much deeper. You have to get to the root of things, i.e. My sister has a lot of hatred for our mother. She remembers every little thing and can not forgive or forget. I don't recognize the things she remembers, so maybe I was locked up in my own little world, unable to see what was around.

I know that I blamed myself every time my parents had an argument, I believed it was my fault. The same thing when my sister had to get married, it was my fault according to family, that she got pregnant because she was living with me, and she would go out to meet the boyfriend I didn't know she had and would sneak into my place before 7 when my alarm went off. She told me when I was in recovery that she was often fully dressed under the covers when I woke her up when I was leaving for work so she could go to hairdressing school.

Again my dis-ease, was looking outside of myself to find something that made me feel better. I was addicted to service, filling my life up with others, then I realized that I needed a life.

Religion can be an addiction as well, especially if it takes you from looking within, and you look out and judge others by the lack of what they have, or they don't walk in your path, or they don't do what you think they should do. For me, that is why recovery material says, "God as we understand God." My understanding changed and grew, and yet my Christian beliefs are still there, only made richer by the fellowships in the rooms of recovery.

For me it is about applying the spiritual principles to my life. Don't talk about others and put them down to make yourself feel better. Don't think because you have a house to live in that you are better than those who don't have, or are homeless. People are not always homeless because of addictions. Rich people can be addicted just as much, in fact easier than someone poor. Don't raise yourself up, so you can look down on others. We are all God's Children and He loves us all, no matter what shape or size or colour we come in. We are all under the cover of His Grace and the spirit of life and freedom is open to all. All I wanted when I came into recovery was the freedom to be myself, no matter who or where I was in the moment, always knowing everything was subject to change, as long as I stuck with the program. Without you, there is no me. You are my reflection, my hope, and my strength.

[MajestyJo]

Like the line "have to live with me." It has been a long-time favorite of mine since I heard two long-time members in Al-Anon say, "Why do you still go to meetings when your alcoholic is dead/no longer living with you? Their response was, "Because I still have to live with me." My father died from his disease, my divorce ended 30 years ago, I have been sober 25 years. I always say, I have one reason to go to AA/NA but have 3-33 reasons to go to Al-Anon.

This is a 24 hour a day program not a 2 - 4 hours a day to give to my program.

It was with some hesitation and fear that I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting. I said, “I am not sure I belong here, I am an Alcoholic. I have just been sober for four months. Thankfully one of the ladies said, “You are welcome, you are doubly blessed.”

I am the daughter of an alcoholic, who died as a result of his disease, (my mother died at the age of forty-one as a result of using food to deal with my father’s alcoholism). I was married to an alcoholic. I became an alcoholic, became my father’s drinking buddy at the age of 26. It was the first time I sat down and had a one on one conversation with him. I use to think I had my disease because he was an alcoholic, but in today I know that isn’t true. I have abandonment and rejection issues because he was never there, so how could he be responsible for my drinking when I only saw him drunk twice before the age of 21. If anything, I got my isms from my mother who didn’t have the tools to deal with living with an alcoholic. I married an alcoholic. It was an abusive relationship, and the abused became an abuser. I stayed in a bad relationship for seven years. My son is a self-admitted alcoholic, depending on which day you ask him.

At that first meeting, a dear lady told me, “You are responsible for your own happiness.” This was new for me. My attitude toward my husband was, “Perform, I am not happy, you are not doing your job.” This dear, dear woman had the nerve to tell me that it wasn’t his job and that I could no longer continue blaming him that I had to take responsibility for myself.

Thank God for the direction I was given to attend that first meeting. It has allowed me to heal a lot of old tapes and look at all the resentments, anger, and old tapes that happened long before I picked up my first drink. I told a friend, “Al-Anon is why I drank in the first place.” She said with laughter, “I have been in Al-Anon for twenty-five years and have never heard anyone make that statement.” I said, “It is true, it is all those mixed message and abuse that make me look for something outside of myself to make me feel better. The pain was there long before I picked up on a regular basis. I stole my first drink (a glass of communion wine) because I wanted to know what I was missing out on. The thinking was there long before there was a drinking problem. The guilt and shame was there for many years, and it wasn’t until I came into recovery that I was able to recognize it and find recovery though the Twelve Steps.

I saw my brother killed when I was three and he was two. I was calling to him to get out of the way of the truck that killed him, and I thought it was my fault he was killed because he was coming to me. It wasn’t until I was in recovery for ten years that my aunt told me that from the day he was born, (he was nine days short of a year younger than I was) I nominated myself as his caretaker. It was then I realized that I had been guilty of his death because he was in my care and I had allowed him to be killed. This disease is indeed cunning, baffling and powerful. Today, I realize that my son may choose to carry the message, “To use is to die.” Even though he has seen me in recovery for fifteen years, he says he will never go to NA or AA.

I am powerless over people, places and things. In today, the God of my understanding utilizes people, places and things to show me a better way of living, one day at a time.

My favourite slogan is, “Let it begin with me.” It isn’t about my son, but how I live my life and deal with it clean and sober. I can’t help my son, but I try to give back by going into the local jail and talk to Young Offenders and Adult prisoners. There were many years I wasn’t able to be there for him, but in today, thanks to this program I have been able to change. In the past, I feared change, but today I embrace it, because it allows me to grow and heal.

Thanks for letting me share,

[MajestyJo]

Let it begin with me is still my favourite slogan and for me it is doing a Step Ten every night. It isn't about what the other person did or didn't do, it is about looking at my side of the street. If my side of the street is clean, if I haven't hurt someone with my tongue, if I didn't put someone down to make me feel better, if I have been as honest as I was capable of being in the moment, if I can rethink some of my actions and look to see if I could have done it better, if I heard a message and ignored it and didn't connect with my Higher Power, I make an amend to that person, my God and to me according to my inventory.

My sponsor use to say, if your side of the street is clean, if you have made things right with your God, then you can walk tall and be proud of who you are. I didn't know what peace was. The program gave me the tools to be at peace with myself and with who I am.

Had trouble understanding the concept of powerlessness until I substituted the word control. Control was an illusion. Power was an illusion. It was my denial along with old tapes which told me I was at fault and I was responsible.

It was great to go to Al-Anon to know that I can't control it, didn't cause it and can't cure it. It sure saved a lot of energy.

In Step One, when I get honest, surrender and accept my disease and that of those around me, then I am empowered to do what I need for myself to stay clean and sober and to detach and set boundaries with the alcoholics/addicts in my life.

I came, I came to, and I came to believe that the program would work for me. I was no longer the power and as I worked the Steps, I found my Higher Power and was able to turn my life over and came to realize that other people had their HP and I wasn't it!

Trying to control so that I could feel safe, was what kept me blind and sick.



Posted on another site in 2010, with some in today thoughts added.

[MajestyJo]

When I was new to recovery, I had trouble getting honest because I used people, places and things for so many years to stuff my feelings and to hide my true self because I feared you would not love, like, accept, and be my friend. I feared rejection, abandonment, disapproval and I looked to you for validation because I could not find it within myself.

I didn't know what I was feeling, I couldn't put labels on thing and people would say, "How do you feel?" I didn't know. It was only by going to meeting, hearing others share that I could identify my feelings and behaviours, positive and negative so that I could get honest about them and deal with them. As long as I compared, I stayed sick. I wasn't that bad. I didn't do that. Well I didn't drink or drug, so I am better than they are. Not knowing that my codependency and care taking lead to the same soul sickness and that I was often more sick than the alcoholics that were in my life.

I used cigarettes and food, work and service to stuff and to hide form my feelings and even in recovery, I stayed sick until I could find true honesty. I had cash register honesty. I could be kind and carrying and yet there were times I would tell white lies so I wouldn't hurt you but then my motive and intent was generally because I didn't want you to not like me if I was truly honest with you. I learned that it wasn't so much what you said, but how you said it that mattered.

The truth had to come out. I had to find the true me. In order to find my truth I had to get honest, have a close relationship with my Higher Power and allow His unconditional Love transform me into a loving person who was able to let go of bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving heart, anger, guilt, shame, etc.

It was a process. It didn't happen over night. I didn't get sick over night, so I didn't find self-honesty all wrapped up in a package that I could just grap and hold onto.

As the blinders came off, the heart and mind opened, the ear became willing to listen, and I took down the barriers and eliminated the blocks that I had put up in self-defence, I was finally able to allow myself to become vulnerable and open for healing. I had to let go of the darkness and bring it to the Light so it could be healed. I had to shape-shift the old reality and create a new based on my truth and my self-honesty.

I also found that my truth may not be someone else's and even though some one may not agree with me, I had a right to stand up for what I believed in if it came from my God. What I had to do was get honest and decide whether it was my self-will or my conscious self that was making the decision and whether I was being empowered or whether I thought I was the power.

Like so many other things in this program, it took practice, practice, practice. God is as He reveals Himself to me in today.

Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns!

~Allison Gappa Bottke

If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree.

~Jim Rohn