Anna

(Posted for FreeOwl) When Good Orderly Direction shows up with signs

I haven't been back to a meeting in some long while.... perhaps 2 years or more until earlier this year around January when a friend reached out for help with trying to stop drinking. I attended a meeting with him to get him rolling.... but I was also in the midst of a protracted experiment in "controlled drinking" since about a year ago.

That experiment plus my ongoing use of cannabis since the re-introduction of that coping mechanism back in 2019 has kept me from spending time in the rooms, largely out of avoidance of feeling unsettled and / or seeing the light of recovery clearly.

Last weekend, I attended a parents' workshop at a recovery program my daughter is in for significant mental health struggles and a recent suicide attempt.

At that workshop, a guy with 18 years in recovery caught my attention, my heart and my recovery Self with his story. It got into my head and into my spirit and the following Monday, In San Francisco, I came face to face with the recognition that I have been fooling myself and allowed me - through the mirror he held up - to see that in truth my 'controlled drinking experiment' has given me plenty of evidence to reaffirm where it will all lead if I give it sufficient space and time. I looked around me in San Fran at the countless examples of there but for the grace of God go I, and I awoke at 3am Tuesday to a dreamvoice, to my own inner knowing, to the voice of my Higher Power saying "you need to get back on track with recovery".

Since that morning I've been clean and sober, listening to recovery podcasts, back here at SR, reading recovery material and asking Creator for help.

This morning for the first time in a long time I went to a meeting myself, for myself.

It was one I'd never been to.

Turned out, it was just me and one other guy.... who turned out to be a 20-years older-than-me version of me.

It was a Big Book study meeting and we were working through the personal accounts section of the Big Book - in the 500's..... the readings turned out to be speaking stories EXACTLY like mine...

We talked some more in dialogue apart from the meeting format and it turned out this gentleman's life story was so parallel to my own that it was genuinely almost eerie.

I left that meeting with a smile, with deep gratitude and with affirmation that Good Orderly Direction was working directly in my life to guide me.

One of the things I've been lacking since not being in the rooms is that crucial piece of recovery: Direct relationship and community with versions of my possible future Self who I can look to for inspiration, who I truly want to emulate, who are smiling from across the table and affirming that I'm absolutely in the right place.

My higher power came to me today in the form of a kindly gentleman in his late 70's who has been sober a fair piece longer than me, but who has lived my very life and can report to me today that his life is filled with blessings, gratitude, gifts and remarkable acts of love from his higher power.

Happy Clean and Sober Tuesday, all.
__________________
~ Life!! It's WAY too good to drink to! ~

Steely

Struggling with my own daughter's mental health FreeOwl....

Thanks.

A beautiful post.

💜

FreeOwl

Thanks for the help, Anna!

Steely - I'll hold you and your daughter in my prayers.

Oglsby

Beautiful post, FreeOwl, and I think I started realizing just a few months ago that those of us who seek sobriety have A LOT in common with each other, regardless of our life paths. Similar ways of thinking about ourselves, similar hopes, similar dreams, similar regrets. I used to think AA was not for me because "I can't relate to all of that." Turns out, I can relate TO ALL OF THAT. I have not been to a meeting myself for a while, but I certainly would not mind attending one. Thanks for your fantastic post!

Steely

Thanks FreeOwl.

I'm so glad you made it.

Brandy123

This post is confusing to me. People who say they are sober are on so many meds. I occasionally smoke weed - I can take it or leave it. I don't believe in God - I do the best I can and try to help people.

This post is odd.

There is a frequent poster who said her entire day was going to make doctor's appointments. Why? Just take a walk around the block. Go to the beach. I have to pay for every doctor's appointment I make - I don't make that many. Go enjoy the outside and stop making doctors appointments. Enjoy yourself - it's later than you think.

Steely

I didn't find Anna's post odd Brandy. Seemed only someone finding peace within themselves after long struggle.

Dee74

Thanks FreeOwl - a great post

Hi Brandy

I’m not sure what the relevance is to this thread but I’m a little envious of those people can get by without medication.

I’m not one of those people. I’d much rather be able to fix my broken down body with a walk around the block or a swim in the ocean, but for me to maintain my quality of life I need some meds.

D

venuscat

That is such a beautiful post, dear Owl—I have shivers. ❤️

least

Brandy, I have been sober for over 13 yrs and am on quite a few meds for various medical conditions that require medication. Getting sober didn't cure my ailments.

I don't know who you're referring to about making lots of doctor appts, but it could be me as I am seeing several doctors for various illness/ailments. Taking a walk instead of making appts would not help me at all, tho I do try to get some exercise every day..

Different strokes for different folks...

Zencat

FreeOwl for sharing your ES&H

FreeOwl

I'm sorry to have confused you.

To clarify.... I have been diagnosed with ADHD and co-occurring depression. For many years of my life, I attempted to self-medicate those conditions. I have used many drugs over the years and abused alcohol quite heavily for many periods of my life.

In 2013 I fully embraced sobriety and after 4 years of zero substances whatsoever (apart from caffeine), I found myself struggling with significant anxiety, depression and attentional issues that were impacting my life negatively. It was then that I began to realize and accept that depression and ADHD and anxiety were 'real' for me. Despite being a distance runner, a cross-fit athlete, a hiker, a surfer, a biker, active in recovery daily and in therapy of multiple sorts.... it wasn't enough.

I went on anti-depressants and that helped, but I remained in denial about my childhood ADHD diagnosis because I felt shame and stigma with it. Frankly, part of the reason for that is the kind of comments you have just made.... it feels a little shaming. You may not mean it that way, but that's how I hear it.

Anyway, after 6 years of working on my depression with anti-depressants that also caused insomnia, my state legalized marijuana. Because one of my home groups of AA had several people in it who were following the "marijuana maintenance plan" of sobriety from alcohol and because it was now legalized, prolific and promoted as 'medicine' I found myself deciding to partake a bit socially and then later as a coping mechanism. My main concern had been alcohol and against my better judgement I allowed cannabis back in my life, which gradually, sneakily, deceptively crept up on me. Last year I decided to go about a life of "moderation" with respect to alcohol.

These were all decisions that were unwise, risky and self-deceptive..... and I'm grateful to have returned to a place that I see that and am able to make a decision to return to recovery before things spiral back into the darkness and hell of full-blown abuse and addiction with consequences.

In order to make that shift, I'm aware that I will need to also re-engage with medically-supervised pharmaceutical intervention to help me get to the goal I have of being free of even the need for those meds. I'm not there right now. I'm conscious of the tremendous stressors in my life that will remain complex challenges to my mental health and therefore sobriety. What I'd like to do is get to a place of freedom through continued deepening of my spiritual, mental and physical wellness.

I am also in therapy, doing DBT and EMDR and - as my post demonstrates - am returning to rely on my supports of AA, SR and recovery actions and practices.

When I met with my doctor today, I was clear in my goal of trying to focus on these meds for 6 months to a year, in conjunction with recovery, therapy and exercise, to see if I can get to a place of balance that might allow me to step down from the meds and be in a place that it won't threaten my sobriety.

From the sound of your comments, perhaps you don't struggle with the same dynamics I do. With over 10 years of combined time in sobriety over the years, I have learned a lot... and I still have a lot to learn.

The point of my post was really, ultimately, Gratitude. That I am here, that my higher power has given me signs of encouragement and inspiration and that I am on the right path. The other point was to share it as experience, strength and hope that it may help another who still suffers.

You may not be in that category, in which case my hat's off to you. I hope this helps clarify.
​​​​​​​

Oglsby

There are always going to be folks who argue that "absolutely no meds are necessary". They are typically ones who either don't need them or choose to suffer without them. Then there are those who, through experience and close medical supervision, have come to realize that we MUST have meds to function. No amount of sobriety changes that for us. There is a big difference, and I mean no disrespect, Brandy.

venuscat

Owl wrote such a beautiful post. ❤️

I have had experiences like that in the rooms, and I was right there, in the discussion with the older man. As a matter of fact, I had an incredible old timer mentor me, and there was a night we spent two hours on the phone as he took me through parts of the Big Book. I still have that book, and I still have the pages and pages of underlines to remind me of the wisdom shared with me on that night so long ago.

And "good orderly direction" is what I aim for, every day of my life—I mess up a lot, but trying to do the next right thing is a very good way to live, I think, and I am incredibly grateful that message was reinforced in the AA rooms. xx

Steely

Coming home from work one day met a man, a journalist who attended same AA group as me. He was totally psychotic, and believed the traffic lights were melting, and all of the clocks had stopped. He was dazed and confused. I took him home and rang an AA member who told him he hadn't done the 5th Step properly. 🙄

Decided to phone my psych lecturer who asked whether he'd come off his meds. He had.

He has bipolar and apparently he had been given advice in AA to come off all meds if he wanted to get truly sober.

This was not good advice in my view. Advice that had serious consequences.

venuscat

I have been an AA member for 30 years, and that is not the policy of AA at all, love—it is to adhere to recommended medical advice.
People in the rooms who give BAD (or ANY medical) advice like that man received are wrong, and they have no right to suggest that.

Steely

Yes, Venus, and it was many years ago.

I don't attend aa anymore, and am glad to see these attitudes have changed.

Used to be said that the ideas contained in aa were immutable, but clearly it has evolved. Is good.

Steely

I don't attend AA anymore Venus, and it was a long time time ago.

It used to be said that the ideas contained in aa were immutable, but clearly it has evolved. And that's a good thing. It was common back then to hear such advice. I'm glad it is no longer.

Trying only to point out dangerous advice given by people, not necessarily AA.

AA helps, and has helped many people. This I know.

Steely

Double post, but was so scintillating I let 2nd one stand.