Your Inner Voice

[Ann]

You are reading from the book Touchstones

Just be what you are and speak from your guts and heart - it's all a man has.
--Hubert Humphrey

Some of us have doubted our inner voice so completely that we abandoned it totally. Many of us have discovered in recovery that by our denial we had violated our inner voice with lies, even to ourselves. Now we question whether we can trust our instincts, and we may not know what we feel.

Masculine spiritual recovery is a return to our guts and our heart. Standing up and speaking from our hearts may be difficult at times, but our self-respect rises as we do. That is where we go for our final decision-making. We develop better reception for the inner voice as we live this program. We accept that we are never absolutely right. We continue with humility, knowing we may be wrong and listening to others and our Higher Power. Yet we must live with our choices.

I will seek the courage to be faithful to my own instincts.

From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©1986, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

[Nuudawn]

Love this..thank you!

[Tazman53]

Ah yes that small inner voice, to me that is my HP speaking, before I started drinking he used to head up the committee in my head, when I listened to him things went well, when I didn't they usually did not go right.

In my youth right after I started drinking I started to not listen to him, the more I drank and the longer I drank the lower his voice became, until finally he was a very minor member of the committee in my head with very little if anything to say.

When I neared the end of my drinking days I was sitting in my garage drinking and suddenly he shouted "Martin your whole life revolves around alcohol", well I heard him and knew he was right, I had been trying to stop drinking or to moderate my drinking for 10 years and failed miserably. What did I do? I surrendered to alcohol!

Not to long after that my wife told me her dad was helping her and our kids get their own place to where they did not need to put up with my drinking any more. Well back out to the garage I went. Once again I am drinking and thinking about how with them gone I could drink all I wanted to. Well my little voice hollered again and said "Martin if you continue to drink you are going to die"!

Well I started to listen to that little voice more because I was scared, I knew he was right and I had to do some thing but had no idea what, the little voice told me to call the doctor and listen to him. I did and he told me to go into detox which I did.

Well in detox I started to be able to hear that little voice a lot better and when the folks in detox told me if I wanted long term sobriety to go to at least 90 AA meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor the little voice clear as a bell said "Do it"

Well I did and today is my 7th month sober and now that little voice my HP is sitting at the head of my committee again and the rest of the committee says very little. The third step put my HP where I needed him to be, I listen to him evry time he speaks and most of the time I listen, when I don't..... well I usually pay.

[Ann]

Tazman, your story touched my heart and congratulations on 7 months recovery. With clear thinking and a good attitude like you have, my guess is that this is just the beginning of a healthy happier life.

Hugs