Sun, Waves & Sandcastles - Addiction Analogies
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 430
Sun, Waves & Sandcastles - Addiction Analogies
I finally figured out how to get an avatar to show up in the forums (yay!)...and it got me thinking about this analogy I shared briefly in another thread, but wanted to think about more now too.
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Until now, I have always lived near the beach.
I have seen the ocean in many different states...
Calm and serene like on Florida's Gulf Coast...
Wild and raging during Florida hurricanes on the East Coast...
Surging and surprising in Southern California...
Strong, powerful, and with huge undertows as well.
Addiction can be like this too.
With my husband his using ebbs and flows, comes and goes.
Sometimes the ocean of his addiction is calm on the surface.
No big waves to speak of, nothing that I need to guard against...
But underneath the surface, the ocean continues to move.
The current of addiction can not be stopped.
Sometimes the addiction gets stirred up.
Waves show up...big ones...then bigger ones...then crushing ones that come crashing onto the shore where I am trying to build my little life.
There I was, happily trying to build a sand castle...the sand castle of my life, where I can rest and work and enjoy myself and have friends and feel good about myself.
But I have chosen to build my sand castle, my life, too close to the powerful, and often unpredictable nature of the waves.
So many times the waves have come crashing in and sucked my sand castle out with them.
So many times I have gone right back to the same spot to rebuild my sand castle after drying my tears on a sun warmed towel...
Only to have the waves of addiction come crashing back down on me and my little sand castle until I am crying again.
STOP DOING THAT I scream to the waves.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME I cry out in desperation.
But they do not listen.
They are operated by a force that is impervious to my pleading, my crying, my begging.
They operate under God's divine will...not mine.
In a moment of grace, a piece of paper blows my way as I'm sitting in the sand next to my eroding sand castle...
It says:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change...
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I start to realize, I can not control the waves.
But I can control where I choose to build my sand castle.
I don't have to build it right at the water's edge.
The ocean of addiction is too powerful...
If I stay, the waves will continue to crash against the shore and each time they do, they take some of the sand that was there back with it into the ocean.
It erodes the shore little by little...
Grain by grain...
Until sometimes gigantic cliffs will fall down because there is no support for them anymore.
I can not let this happen to me.
To take care of myself, I need to build my sand castle farther back from the ocean's edge.
I need to distance myself from the waves, even though I love the ocean so much and want to be close to it, when the current of addiction is active and coursing beneath the surface, it is not safe for me to be so close.
So I back up.
I put distance between myself and the ocean's edge.
I respect the waves for what they are...an incredible powerful force of nature that I can not control, I can not cause to behave as they do, and I can not cure or stop them from doing what they do.
As I back up, I start to meet others who are also further away from the water's edge.
They are sane and enjoying their lives.
They have lots of stories to tell me about when they lived close to the water's edge too and how they learned to stay back here and have more manageable lives where they weren't always having to rebuild their sand castles every 2 minutes.
I like it back here. I feel the space to breathe. I can relax. I can lay down in the sand like a star fish and feel the grace from the Sun shower down on me.
I don't have to be on guard on this part of the beach.
The waves can not reach me.
I am recovering.
I am regaining my strength.
I am rebuilding the sand castle of my life little by little.
The beautiful shining Sun, my Higher Power, which was always there with me even when I was at the water's edge, is now something that I can appreciate and actually FEEL because I am able to look upward instead of constantly tending to my eroding sand castle.
I feel the loving warmth radiating down on me from the Sun. It is taking care of me. Nurturing me. And I can appreciate it and thank it for giving me unconditional love throughout all of it.
Sometimes as I get comfortable back here with the others, I see the waves and I feel drawn to them.
I want to run down to the water's edge where the waves are breaking and start to play.
The elders tell me to stay back...that the waves are still too unpredictable. That it will be safer back here where I can focus on myself and continue to get stronger.
Sometimes I listen to them and I can relax on the dry sand...
Sometimes I am compelled to run full speed back down to the shore where the waves of addiction grab me and pull me under and toss me around to the point where I'm gasping for air and trying to keep my head above water.
Sometimes I have to be rescued and pulled out of the water because I can not even manage to get out on my own.
Then I crawl back to where I was before -- up on the beach with the elders and the dry sand so my HP, the sun can shower His rays of grace on me and heal me and dry my soaked, shivering body and I can start to recover once again.
I am learning.
Progress not perfection.
With time I know I can become more settled in my new home on Serenity Beach...
This special place where I can bask in my HP's loving sunshine and truly discover a love for myself that allows me to still have the pleasure of living by the ocean, but now with a greater understanding of how to keep myself safe and sane.
xo
-----
Until now, I have always lived near the beach.
I have seen the ocean in many different states...
Calm and serene like on Florida's Gulf Coast...
Wild and raging during Florida hurricanes on the East Coast...
Surging and surprising in Southern California...
Strong, powerful, and with huge undertows as well.
Addiction can be like this too.
With my husband his using ebbs and flows, comes and goes.
Sometimes the ocean of his addiction is calm on the surface.
No big waves to speak of, nothing that I need to guard against...
But underneath the surface, the ocean continues to move.
The current of addiction can not be stopped.
Sometimes the addiction gets stirred up.
Waves show up...big ones...then bigger ones...then crushing ones that come crashing onto the shore where I am trying to build my little life.
There I was, happily trying to build a sand castle...the sand castle of my life, where I can rest and work and enjoy myself and have friends and feel good about myself.
But I have chosen to build my sand castle, my life, too close to the powerful, and often unpredictable nature of the waves.
So many times the waves have come crashing in and sucked my sand castle out with them.
So many times I have gone right back to the same spot to rebuild my sand castle after drying my tears on a sun warmed towel...
Only to have the waves of addiction come crashing back down on me and my little sand castle until I am crying again.
STOP DOING THAT I scream to the waves.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME I cry out in desperation.
But they do not listen.
They are operated by a force that is impervious to my pleading, my crying, my begging.
They operate under God's divine will...not mine.
In a moment of grace, a piece of paper blows my way as I'm sitting in the sand next to my eroding sand castle...
It says:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change...
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I start to realize, I can not control the waves.
But I can control where I choose to build my sand castle.
I don't have to build it right at the water's edge.
The ocean of addiction is too powerful...
If I stay, the waves will continue to crash against the shore and each time they do, they take some of the sand that was there back with it into the ocean.
It erodes the shore little by little...
Grain by grain...
Until sometimes gigantic cliffs will fall down because there is no support for them anymore.
I can not let this happen to me.
To take care of myself, I need to build my sand castle farther back from the ocean's edge.
I need to distance myself from the waves, even though I love the ocean so much and want to be close to it, when the current of addiction is active and coursing beneath the surface, it is not safe for me to be so close.
So I back up.
I put distance between myself and the ocean's edge.
I respect the waves for what they are...an incredible powerful force of nature that I can not control, I can not cause to behave as they do, and I can not cure or stop them from doing what they do.
As I back up, I start to meet others who are also further away from the water's edge.
They are sane and enjoying their lives.
They have lots of stories to tell me about when they lived close to the water's edge too and how they learned to stay back here and have more manageable lives where they weren't always having to rebuild their sand castles every 2 minutes.
I like it back here. I feel the space to breathe. I can relax. I can lay down in the sand like a star fish and feel the grace from the Sun shower down on me.
I don't have to be on guard on this part of the beach.
The waves can not reach me.
I am recovering.
I am regaining my strength.
I am rebuilding the sand castle of my life little by little.
The beautiful shining Sun, my Higher Power, which was always there with me even when I was at the water's edge, is now something that I can appreciate and actually FEEL because I am able to look upward instead of constantly tending to my eroding sand castle.
I feel the loving warmth radiating down on me from the Sun. It is taking care of me. Nurturing me. And I can appreciate it and thank it for giving me unconditional love throughout all of it.
Sometimes as I get comfortable back here with the others, I see the waves and I feel drawn to them.
I want to run down to the water's edge where the waves are breaking and start to play.
The elders tell me to stay back...that the waves are still too unpredictable. That it will be safer back here where I can focus on myself and continue to get stronger.
Sometimes I listen to them and I can relax on the dry sand...
Sometimes I am compelled to run full speed back down to the shore where the waves of addiction grab me and pull me under and toss me around to the point where I'm gasping for air and trying to keep my head above water.
Sometimes I have to be rescued and pulled out of the water because I can not even manage to get out on my own.
Then I crawl back to where I was before -- up on the beach with the elders and the dry sand so my HP, the sun can shower His rays of grace on me and heal me and dry my soaked, shivering body and I can start to recover once again.
I am learning.
Progress not perfection.
With time I know I can become more settled in my new home on Serenity Beach...
This special place where I can bask in my HP's loving sunshine and truly discover a love for myself that allows me to still have the pleasure of living by the ocean, but now with a greater understanding of how to keep myself safe and sane.
xo
Engineer Things; LOVE People
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,707
'nother wow. Just wow.
Have beat myself up more than a few times for not "building our house on the rock."
Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
nice to see that the sand is just the sand, and the waves are just the waves.
Stay warm in dry in the Sunshine, shinebright7.
Thank you for the post.
Have beat myself up more than a few times for not "building our house on the rock."
Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
nice to see that the sand is just the sand, and the waves are just the waves.
Stay warm in dry in the Sunshine, shinebright7.
Thank you for the post.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 430
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. ((hugs))
I thought about this analogy a lot yesterday after writing it -- and every time I did I would start to feel more relaxed like I was in some kind of waking meditative state.
I have such a positive association with the ocean from all my years living on the coast, that somehow, linking up the awful situation of addiction with the ocean makes the addiction stuff softer and more manageable for me to think about. I needed that.
Anaya -- did you ALWAYS have that picture of a starfish with the word Serenity written above it? It's like the perfect logo for Serenity Beach. LOL
I thought about this analogy a lot yesterday after writing it -- and every time I did I would start to feel more relaxed like I was in some kind of waking meditative state.
I have such a positive association with the ocean from all my years living on the coast, that somehow, linking up the awful situation of addiction with the ocean makes the addiction stuff softer and more manageable for me to think about. I needed that.
Anaya -- did you ALWAYS have that picture of a starfish with the word Serenity written above it? It's like the perfect logo for Serenity Beach. LOL
Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 864
Very beautiful and well written.
“words as windows to the soul”
The power and unpredictability of the ocean…
The power and unpredictability of addiction…
The impossibility of controlling either. And the risks associated with not accepting the danger and the sheer fact that we don’t know until we know and by then it is usually to late.
The beach/ocean is one of my favorite places. My time there as a child was the only semblance of normal I have. There was something magically, well in a child’s head anyway, where the monster could be softened enough to appear human, caring, loving...
I have my own sandcastle sanctuaries, my own analogies, but the comparison is so much the same and the learning within your own is evident.
“words as windows to the soul”
The power and unpredictability of the ocean…
The power and unpredictability of addiction…
The impossibility of controlling either. And the risks associated with not accepting the danger and the sheer fact that we don’t know until we know and by then it is usually to late.
The beach/ocean is one of my favorite places. My time there as a child was the only semblance of normal I have. There was something magically, well in a child’s head anyway, where the monster could be softened enough to appear human, caring, loving...
I have my own sandcastle sanctuaries, my own analogies, but the comparison is so much the same and the learning within your own is evident.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 2,684
Originally Posted by shinebright7 
I thought about this analogy a lot yesterday after writing it -- and every time I did I would start to feel more relaxed like I was in some kind of waking meditative state.
I have such a positive association with the ocean from all my years living on the coast, that somehow, linking up the awful situation of addiction with the ocean makes the addiction stuff softer and more manageable for me to think about. I needed that.
Anaya -- did you ALWAYS have that picture of a starfish with the word Serenity written above it? It's like the perfect logo for Serenity Beach. LOL
I have such a positive association with the ocean from all my years living on the coast, that somehow, linking up the awful situation of addiction with the ocean makes the addiction stuff softer and more manageable for me to think about. I needed that.
Anaya -- did you ALWAYS have that picture of a starfish with the word Serenity written above it? It's like the perfect logo for Serenity Beach. LOL
There is just something so peaceful and grand about lying on the beach in the sunshine, listening to the waves and watching the carefree peeps milling about. So relaxing.I picked up the avatar here not so long ago...I noticed the coincidence with your thread, too.
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