Reflection
I remember August 9, 1987 (12,784 days ago) like yesterday.
I came home from work, walked into my living room, and there sat an intervention from my wife, brother, boss, and a recovering alcoholic and addict named Rusty.
That moment was a significant turning point in my life and forever changed my future course.
In this, my 35th year of sobriety, I will share 35 recovery thoughts with you.
Sayings and Truths for Living Sober and In Peace:
- My sobriety (peacefulness) is contingent upon my spiritual condition. My spiritual condition is contingent upon my belief and trust in a power greater than myself (for me, that power is Jesus).
- If I’m not the problem, there is no solution when I’m not at peace with something going on in my life.
- Hope for sobriety and peace is proportionate to how much hope surrounds me.
- My mind is like a bad neighborhood; I shouldn’t go there alone…especially when it’s angry.
- Courage is fear that’s been prayed for.
- You can’t keep what you have (sobriety and peace) unless you give it away.
- They say misery loves company; so does peace.
- At the center of my restlessness and discontent is me. When God is at my center, the world around me has a better chance of being at peace.
- On anger and resentment: Few people have been more victimized by resentment than have we alcoholics. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us horribly ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely. These ‘dry benders’ often led straight to the bottle.” (A.A. Twelve and Twelve, 90)
- Being a SNIOP indicates how self-centered and insecure I am. SNIOP = Sensitive to the Negative Input of Other People.
- It’s OK to look back, but don’t stare.
- Serenity is not the absence of conflict but the ability to cope with it.
- Our minds are like parachutes; they only function effectively when they are open.
- We are only as sick as our secrets.
- This, too, shall pass.
- How important is it really?
- You can’t live one way and pray another.
- You can’t believe in God and play God simultaneously.
- We’re all here because we are not all there. (Talking about why we go to 12 Step meetings)
- Beware of HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired).
- Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
- You eat an elephant one bite at a time.
- Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forwards. (Kierkegaard)
- This is a One Day at a Time program. You are tied for first place in AA if you are clean and sober today.
- If drinking or drugging interferes with your work, you’re probably a heavy addict or drinker. Conversely, if work interferes with your drinking or drugging, you’re probably an alcoholic and addict.
- If God were small enough to be understood, He wouldn’t be big enough to be God.
- I would rather go through life sober, believing I am an alcoholic, than go through life drunk, trying to convince myself that I am not an alcoholic.
- Resentments are like stray cats: if you don’t feed them, they’ll go away.
- Step One: There’s a problem
Step Two: There’s a solution
Step Three: I get to choose which I want…problem? Or solution?
~Father Martin~ - If God seems far away, who moved?
- The road to sobriety is a simple journey for confused people with a complicated disease.
- Don’t ever be ashamed of your story. It may save someone’s life someday.
- Recovery is the greatest gift I ever gave myself.
- Recovery is the greatest gift I ever gave to my family.
- Recovery is a gift that keeps on giving.
Thanks to all of my friends and family, especially my wife Lori, for getting me to this day…Nothing great in life happens by doing it alone.
John 8:32, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
