What is recovery?

What is recovery? It’s so many things, that you could recovering from. Life is so full of things that force you to rethink things and to recover from something that has either held you back or down. Something that has broken your heart or your spirit.

Sometimes we seem to recover from one thing only to have to go back to the start again and recover all over again, from something else. It can sometimes be a never ending cycle that we can not seem to break free from.

For me i have and will always be in recovery from my alcoholism. I live in harmony with that part of my life, but i have had to do the 12 steps so many times now and not just for my addiction.

I realise now that everytime i am in recovery from something, i need to 12 step myself again and again. When i was first in early recovery i learnt about the 12 step program, but my youth and ego didnt allow me to really take to much notice. I understood it and thought i only had to do it once. How wrong i was!!!!

For the first 18 years of my recovery, i white knucked it, didn’t attend meetings. I became a marter and a narcissist at the same time. I would fall on my sword to avoid an argument, but i wanted to control everything and everyone around me. I would enter relationships wanting to only please, would manipulate the situation to keep a bad relationship going so that i wouldn’t be alone, it was a never ending cycle that lead me to have a complete mental breakdown.

In my recovery from my breakdown, i threw myself into my work, i did my service work helping the elderly and the disadvantaged, i thought that if i helped others then it would make everything OK! Once again i was wrong. It did help, it gave me perspective about life, but it didnt fill that hole that was large in my soul.

When i came back into the rooms, i layed my heart and soul on the table and started at

Step 1. I admitted that i had become powerless over my life, that i was a mess.

Step 2. I became to believe that my higher power had kicked my butt back into the rooms for a reason.

Step 3. I made peace with my higher power

Step 4. I wrote out an inventory two pages long.

Step 5. I confessed my wrongs to my higher power and my sponsor.

Step 6. Asked for my defects of character to be removed.

Step 7. Humbly asked my higher power to also remove my shortcomings

Step 8. Wrote out a list of all those i had harmed.

Step 9. I made amends with all those on my list and most importantly i made amends with myself.

Step 10. Continued taking inventory and admitting when i was wrong, but learned when it was appropriate to do so, and not when others thought i should.

Step 11. Continued to talk to and have faith in my higher power.

Step 12. Having realized that i needed to do my service work within the rooms picked up a tea towel and listened to speakers and the old timers. Held the hands of those who were in early recovery and continued to work on myself.

When i went through these steps again, i realised that these steps can be used for everything in my life. Heart break, loss, sugar addiction, and anything that i feel is holding me back.

This is what recovery is to me. The freedom to be able to live my life on lifes terms and how to be at peace. The gapping hole in my soul is nearly closed.

Goodbye 2018

Phew i am glad that 2018 is drawing to a close. It has been a year of great saddness, with small touches of happiness. It has been a year that has taught me great strength and shown me that i am stronger than i thought.

My sobriety has been tested to the max this year. If anything was going too make me fall off the wagon then 2018 would have been the year to do it.

Death and mayhem have dominated my life this year, which has shaken me to the core. My heart is so very sore from the tears i have shed, with each passing of a friend or family member. Six people to date have left my life or created a hole where they once where in my heart.

I believe that this year has shown me that, its time for a change. Its time to focus on me and what i need to achieve in my life time. I have had a pretty full life so far, but there is still more to do.

My childhood was spent moving around in Victoria with my family. I have witnessed my parents ugly divorce, followed by my grandmother’s passing. My first mini break down at the age of 14.

I experience the first suicide that still haunts me today. I witnessed my mother being raped and the justice system failing us. I was just only 15.

My alcoholic gene has kicked in by this stage. I was off and running. Down hill quickly. I become a teen mum and kick my drinking habit at the age of twenty.

I become a single mum, move to Queensland and raise my child there with the help and support of friends. I work my butt off to put her through private school.

Always just keeping my head above water. I have learned how to go out in society and to mix with others while they are drinking. I experiment with drugs, always conscious of my addictive personality. They do not help me.

I lived through bad relationships, always hoping to find my Mr right. One after another i am running myself into the ground.

I hit a really hard wall and my spirit is broken. I work on mending myself, it takes me nearly 5 years to find what really helped me to over come my depression.

It wasn’t my really good doctor, who helped me to get counseling, he was not upset when i didnt want to take his prescription drugs. Although his support and understanding was a great help and a turning point.

I traveled to Europe, hoping that one of my dreams that was finally coming true would help me find the peace in my life that craved so very badly. It wasn’t what i expected and it didnt turn out as i had hoped. I would go again, just not with the person i went with before.

I found my salvation inside the meeting rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous. There i learnt how to live life on lifes terms, how to love myself again and how to stand within a storm of life, without it affecting me to much.

It gave me the ability to learn to love fully and to be loved fully. Walking into those rooms and sitting down, taking my painted ears off and putting on my listening ears, gave me the chance to meet Mr right. Has given me the ability to own a house and live in a relationship that i thought was not possible.

These abilities have protected me this year. It has given me strength. It has also given me the strength to support my fiance during these hard times as well. It has taught me to keep my ego in check and to not take things too personally.

I am ready to take what i have learnt in 2018 and to make a difference in 2019. This years struggles are going to be next years triumphs.

Goodbye 2018, i can not thank you for the memories, but i will thank you for showing me what i need to achieve in 2019.