Good Morning, and thanks to all of you for your gracious welcome.
I mentioned that I am only drinking on weekends, and that is currently true. I have had problems with addictions of all sorts for my entire life. Now, in my fifties, it is time to come to terms with all of it. Humility does not come easily to me. I am weary, though, of trying to run the Universe by myself. I finally understand that I can’t do squat about much of anything other than to accept that I can’t do squat about much of anything.
I know that I am not alone in my madness. All I have to do is look around me wherever I am. At work people are posturing and pretending to be something they are not, all because they are afraid, and think that a job is their key to security. On the highway, people are frustrated with their lives and believe that every other driver is put in their way to frustrate them even more, so they take their rage out on one another. In homes, people who are “supposed” to be nurturing and kind family members are fighting and lying and sucking the life out of each other because they are scared. And our political systems and government-- I think we all know what a travesty that is. Everyone is scared, but few will admit it, and even fewer will do the hard work of trying to change themselves. It can be very lonely when one decides to make an attempt to rise above the insanity.
I have tried just about everything to escape my madness—drugs, alcohol, food, sex, spending, if it felt good, I went over the top with it. None of it has worked. After bouts of eating disorders, anxiety attacks from drugs, credit card debt out the whazoo, regular blackouts from drinking, and two divorces, I am ready to give it up. I could pick any of the twelve-step groups and it would apply. I don’t have a problem with just any one behavior or substance; I have a problem with trying to escape from myself.
And—I Know that the answer is spiritual. I have read a bazillion books on spirituality and recovery. Though, helpful, I won’t recover by reading words. I have to live what I know is Truth. That means that I can no longer treat my mind, body and spirit as disposable garbage. That is what I have done all my life. I cannot imagine treating any living being as horribly as I have treated myself. People are put in prison for treating others as badly as I have treated myself.
I have been in a prison—a self-created prison, entrapped by my obsession to try to solve a problem with the same mind that created it. How futile that is. I now am ready to do whatever it takes to get out of jail, and I know that the key is to be found in something much greater than anything on this earth.
I am grateful to you for being here.
Cekiya