From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


---- 44 ----
The business of being human among other humans is holy business
CATHERINE MADSEN

Newcomer
I keep hearing that this isn’t a religious program. So why is the word “God” everywhere? It’s in the Steps, and I hear people use it when they share in meetings. When they say “HP,” doesn’t it mean the same thing? And then there’s all this prayer and “spiritual awakening” stuff. How can you say it isn’t religious?

Sponsor
There is a big difference between the religious and the spiritual. This is a spiritual program. When I see in Step Twelve the words “having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,” I think, not of a voice from the mountaintop, but of the ways my spirit has come alive—how I’ve become capable of living in the here and now connected to my fellow human beings, conscious of so much I used to miss out on.

The program makes suggestions, not rules. There are no priests or rabbis, no prescribed beliefs, no blasphemies, no excommunication. “God as we understood Him” and “Higher Power” are terms meant to allow each of us his or her own understanding of the energy that sustains us. This program is not about what we believe, but about what actions we take—how we stay away from addictive substances, how we help others to stay on the path of recovery.

Today, I know that many things other than my own will are sustaining me.

I don’t have to be in charge of my own recovery.

From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


----45----
First, I came. Then I came to. Then I came to believe.
SAYING HEARD AT A MEETING

Newcomer
Step Two begins, “We came to believe…” I’m uncomfortable with the idea that sooner or later I’m going to have to have the same belief in God that everyone else here has.

Sponsor
I’d be uncomfortable with that, too. Step Two isn’t about sticking around until your beliefs are similar to other’s beliefs. I can assure you that not everyone her shares the same spiritual beliefs or practices. Far from it.

I didn’t come her seeking to embrace a particular, prescribed belief, but I did come here seeking something. Addiction was in charge of my life. It had been a long time since I’d felt that I could truly believe in myself, in my connection with others. I was exhausted, scared, unhappy. Some people call this “rock bottom.” Some call it a spiritual crisis.

When I could admit that I wanted to stop my addictive behavior and that I hadn’t been able to stay stopped on my own, something changed. After coming to some meetings, I felt less alone, and I felt hope. I could look within myself and acknowledge that something in me wanted to live. The life spirit at the center of my existence was waking up. I wanted to be whole again.

In Step Two, we begin to accept that healing is possible, and that, in fact, it has begun.

Today, I look inward and see light and health.

From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


----46----

No one should have to dance backward all their lives.
JILL RUCKELSAUS

Newcomer
When I was active in my addiction, I often felt smart and strong. Now that I’m in recovery, I feel little and weak and depressed. I’m afraid I’m never going to feel like a full human being again.

Sponsor
Many of us have similar fears at the beginning of recovery. Back in the early days of being active, we were convinced that we had the key to living. There we behaviors we engaged in that lint us feelings of power and control. We may look back wistfully at those days when we felt stronger, smarter, more important. We wish we could have those feelings again, without paying the penalty.

But we need to remember the deprivation or panic we felt when we had to do without whatever magic “pill” we depended on to put us together each day. We can’t forget the times when addiction only made bad situations worse. We don’t want to repeat the crash we experienced when the drug or addictive behavior stopped being effective and our self-doubts came back.

Strength, intelligence, and competence don’t, in fact, depend on addictive substances and behaviors. They are ours. They are returning to us over time in recovery, and in much more dependable ways.

Today, my gifts are emerging into the light.

From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


----47----
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Newcomer
What’s the point of pretending that I’m giving up my drug of choice one day at a time, when I know I have to quit for the rest of my life? Isn’t it hypocritical?

Sponsor
There’s nothing hypocritical about living in the present moment. It’s an old and honored spiritual path. To be fully awake and alive in this day, using our senses to experience what’s going on right now, not avoiding our feelings, not playing games with our minds, is a profound achievement. Living in the future isn’t living; it’s keeping our minds so busy that we can’t be here. The role our addictions is escape; its opposite is living in the here and now.

At some time, we’ve probably promised ourselves or others that we were never again going to act our addictions. We weren’t able to keep these promises; in the past, we didn’t know how not to use.

Limiting our focus in recovery to a twenty-four-hour period makes the challenges we face seem more manageable. We can get through twenty-four hours, no matter what. At the end of it, we can rest. It doesn’t mean that we’ll forget all about recovery tomorrow—only that we are willing to live in recovery now.

Today, I commit to living this one day of recovery fully.

From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


----48----
The road to Hades is easy to travel.
BION

Newcomer
I hear people say, “This is a progressive disease,” and I understand that from my own experience. I did get progressively worse—I had my ups and downs over the years and hit what I now recognize as a bottom. But how can people say that the disease keeps progressing even when we’re in recovery? What does that mean?

Sponsor
Many relapse follow a predictable course: At first, we hang on to the illusion that control is now possible—a little time in recovery has proved that we don’t have to act out our addiction. We think we can behave like “normal”” people and “have a little” now and then. It may take only a few hours or days for this illusion to collapse, or it may take weeks or months; most of the stories we hear suggest that the return of active addiction comes quickly. Perhaps our “clean” system succumb more readily, perhaps our need to anesthetize the guilt of relapsing leads to stepping-up use, or perhaps we’re in rebellion against what we learned in recover: the “I’ll show them” reaction. The reasons seem less important than the fact that most people who relapse after a period of recovery find that they’ve gotten worse, not better, at handling the addiction. Though there’s no guarantee that someone who has had a relapse will find his or her way back, some do not return to recovery and share with us what they’ve learned.

Today, I cherish this chance at recovery, letting go of any need to test it.

---- 52 ----
Living entirely turned in on oneself is like trying to play on a violin with slackened strings.
JACQUES LUSSEYRAN

Newcomer

I went to a meeting today feeling angry, rebellious, and bored. I hated sitting there, and I hardly listened. It was the round-robin kind of meeting where the discussion goes from person to person: you get to share without raising your hand. When it was my turn, I said how resentful and different I felt, how I hated everything about the program and didn’t think it could help me. People nodded, some laughed, and the speaker said, “We’ve all been there.” I felt relieved. Often, I don’t start feeling okay until almost the end of a meeting. I wish I didn’t have to keep going through this.

Sponsor

As an addicted person, I have a special talent for letting negative thoughts and feelings take over. It’s as if my mind were a balloon filled with heavy, dark stuff; left to my own devices, I keep blowing it bigger, filling it with more of the same. It takes another person, someone who lives outside of my mind, to prick the balloon and let my tired old thoughts escape. Suddenly, reality looks completely different. That’s one reason to get to some small meetings where we’re more likely to have a chance to share. And it’s always a good idea to stay through a whole meeting; in an hour, things can change! I’ve noticed that even when I share my most unacceptable feelings, people in recovery don’t reject me; when I tell the worst about myself, they listen and laugh. I love the laughter in meetings; it reminds me of how lucky we are to be alive again.

Today, it’s safe for me to risk getting close to other human beings by sharing honestly.

---- 53 ----
The total person sings, not just the vocal chords.
ESTHER BRONER

Newcomer

Last night, I dreamed I had a slip. There I was, sneaking my addictive substance, in such a small quantity that it didn’t seem to matter. When I realized that I’d have to face people at a meeting, I thought, “I just won’t tell them; they’ll never know.” I woke up with my heart pounding. It seemed so real that at first I wasn’t sure it had been a dream.

Sponsor

Most of us have had dreams or fantasies of using, especially in early recovery. They’re useful as a source of information, like a letter from one part of the mind to another. They remind us of who we are: underneath conscious awareness is someone who wouldn’t mind going back to using and being sneaky and dishonest, who wouldn’t care if we died in the process. The good new is that this was a dream, that you woke up in recovery, and that you chose to share your discomfort. Acknowledging our negative thoughts robs them of their power over us. Dreaming of a relapse, and talking about it, may help keep us from having one.

Today, I am not in denial. Awareness of my addictive self strengthens my recovery.

From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin


----54----
Earth’s the right place for love.
ROBERT FROST

Newcomer
I have to get up early in the morning, so I don’t like hanging around after evening meetings. I always thank the speaker, but then I leave pretty quickly, so that I won’t get caught in one of those long, drawn-out conversations, miss out on sleep, and feel tired the next day. I do feel a little funny leaving, though, almost as if I’m sneaking out.

Sponsor
I wonder if you’re leaving early because you don’t have a second to spare, or for some other reason. There’s happy medium, somewhere between a long, drawn-out conversation and sneaking out. Saying hello, sharing some hugs or handshakes, exchanging phone numbers with someone we’d like to talk to later, or briefly joining the crew that’s putting away chairs are some of the simple ways of feeling more like a part of things.

For me, making genuine contact with my peers in recovery is essential. When I was in early recovery, I called myself “shy” or “too busy” when in truth I was wary of people, even somewhat frightened. I chose to sit at the edge of things, then blamed others for my belief that I was an outsider. Becoming willing to set limits, to say no confidently when I needed to, freed me to enjoy getting to know others.

To be at ease in a group of people doesn’t always come naturally, but it’s one of the most important areas of recovery.

Today, I make good use of time by reaching out to people.