Weasel1966

My addictions put me on a path. They changed my world from innocence and naïveté to a gritty version of hope.

I changed my world again this week. Yet the same remains true. My addictions are where I am and no where else.

I am learning to live again. My entire world from last December on has been about the measure of change needed to save myself.

A lesson I have learned from SR is clear to me. There is no measure to big when it comes to our addictions. No change to small to thwart.

Funny thing to me is how easy I can change jobs and move to a new place.

Change is easy. I can change nearly everything if I want to... Except that which I most want changed.

That seems unfair... so contradictory.

So I stopped trying to fight changing my addictions. I made these next steps with the idea that I must embrace. That I must accept. Take a step to the right and move past it.

I am settling in to my new place. I love the people and pace here. I have meetings planned. Activities. All to perpetuate my continued recovery... And this change is good.

Guess I am just melloncholy tonight.

Looking forward to the weekenders thread.

Ken

LadyBlue0527

On the outside change can appear to be easy but it's still stress. Sounds like you're positive and in a reflective but good place!

Welcome to Maine!

Melina

Excellent food for thought, Weasel.

Thank you.

Congrats on your move, too! Looks like you are doing a lot of positive things for your recovery.

I appreciate your honesty about the melancholy.

Wouldn't it be nice when you pack up to move somewhere to conveniently forget to load the box labelled addiction?

But in all honesty, looks like you're making great strides in putting it in the box by your actions. And maybe through those actions that box will get smaller and smaller til you just remember it as something you used to have. It'll be in a dusty corner somewheres.

Hope this helps, buddy.

flujays

Hey Weasel, funny you should talk about change today, I have been thinking so much about it over the last couple of days. I went to my first AA meetings this week, 3 of them in 3 days. In my second meeting one of the older members said something to me that really struck a chord. "nothing changes if nothing changes" he said. And i can tell you that since then, several things happened and at those moments I made very conscious decisions to handle them differently than I would have before. Yesterday, the voice in my head told me I didn't need to go my planned meeting because I was not an alcoholic and that to prove to myself I wasn't I should get a bottle of wine and drink half of it. Normally I would have done what the voice told me to do, but of course I know I would have drunk the whole thing and then probably a few beers to wash it down. So I thought about what was said 'nothing changes if nothing changes' and I went to the meeting. I'm so glad I did, because listening to members speak reminded me that I was exactly where I needed to be. And when I got up to tell my story, IT reminded me that I was where I needed to be. My point is that I changed what I did and I stayed sober. It also showed me that I am capable of change, I can do this. Today I had cereal for breakfast for the first time in about 5 years. I always have toast. But this morning I said to myself "I'm going to change something today and have cereal" because I am capable of change and having cereal reminded me of that and fortified my resolve to to change things about myself. Change is good, I can do it, you can do it, we all can do it, we just have to want to change and then make it happen bit by bit. I love AA meetings, I feel like I've come home.

Melina

That's my girl, flujays!

Weasel1966

Thanks ladyblue ! Happy to be back in Maine. Left for 5 years. Never again.

Melina.... Yes... You made me smile and that does help.

Flu... Good for you! That's a true saying. Just some feel a little change will get them sober. Not me. I had to change an awful lot.

flujays

Yes, I understand where you're coming from. We are such creatures of habit though and it takes a conscious effort to make changes, even small ones. But even making small conscious changes reminds me that I can in fact change and strengthens my resolve to make the bigger ones too. xx

Hevyn

Wonderful to hear from you Ken. Glad you're settled in Down East and loving it. It seems like it was meant to be.

Jeni26

Change, even when welcomed, can be unsettling. There is a certain security in what we know even when it isn't what we want.

Give it time...make your new routines, new associations, new securities.

You are an inspiration to many on here Ken, and I'm sending you a huge hug xxx