pearlady

A lot has happened the past 17 days. I’ve had moments of success and pride as well as moments of shame and failure. I have a Self Help App on my phone sponsored by NA and today the devotional was about accepting life. The message talked about accepting things that we don’t like and are hard to accept. It talked about how in the course of working the steps; “we begin to ask ourselves hard questions about the roles we ourselves have played in creating the unacceptable lives we’ve lived. In most case, we’ve found that what needed changing was our own-attitude and our own actions, not the people, places, and things around us”.

People, places, and things around us must change if we are to change, right? Is changing our attitude and actions sustainable if we are still hanging around our using buddies, or going to the bar, or taking part in ‘things’ that are associated with our addiction- like say listening to music that we always listened to when using or keeping our shot glasses or other paraphernalia around?

Is this a which came first, the chicken or the egg type thing?

My first thought is if we change our attitude and our actions, we will stop engaging in the people, places, and things that were part of our addiction. That makes sense to me but that is not what the quote says.

Can anyone shed light on this? Perhaps I do not understand fully what the statement means.

JD

To me it means that we are in control of ourselves and it's how we react to people, places, and things not the actual people, places and things. That doesn't mean that it may be in our best interest to changes those. But again, we have the choice on how we react.

Berrybean

No. We are separate from other people, places and things. We change from inside. We change us.

Serenity to accept the things I can't change (the past, the future, other people, etc.), courage to change the things I can (ourselves, our thinking and our actions), and the wisdom to know the diffrence.

That wisdom bit was a nightmare for me at first. Til I got to halfway through my step work I needed to check so much with my sponsor, as I didn't trust my own thinking.

Acceptance is what keeps us sane and sober. It saves us from many a resentment, and helps us not to waste too much energy on wishful thinking, and crying for the moon.

The people and places you refer to won't change. They'll still be there. Perhaps you won't be, because you decided to avoid them. But you avoiding them is you changing YOU (your actions), not changing them. See what I mean?

I think, when it's saying about people feeling the need to change people and places, it means more us blaming our crummy job, our lazy husband, or farty dog, our boss, the team losing, the leak in our roof etc for making us drink or use. All those things that we say, I could be sober, if only. .. when we learn to accept them, we find that life becomes easier. Your dealer and user friends etc and bars etc presumably aren't part of the new life anyway. What we focus on in recovery is dealing with and accepting the stuff that is there and part of our existence. Accepting life on life's terms, rather than trying to force everything and everyone to comply to our terms. Which of course, is never going to happen.

entropy1964

Well I think that as an alcoholic in early recovery I should not hang out with active alcoholics or in places where drinking is the sole focus. However, recovery is about learning and accepting that I alone am responsible for my behavior, choices and actions. I own my stuff, no one else is responsible for making me happy or unhappy. As an adult I have choices.

Accountability is what comes to mind. It has been my experience that addicts tend to blame everything and everyone for their problems. Unless I have a gun to my head or am a small child, I have choices.

oldsoul112249

Along with the serenity prayer I use A-C-E that I learned years ago the first time around in AA. It stands for Accept Change or Eliminate. Sometimes I must remove myself and stop associating with a person place or situation if unacceptable.