March 31

Quote of the Week

"The people who are the angriest are the people who are the most afraid."

It took me a long time to make the connection between my anger and my fear. For years I drowned my fear in alcohol and drugs, and lived pretty detached from my feelings. Those times when I couldn't use, or any extended periods of abstinence, usually left me feeling agitated, edgy, longing for and needing a drink or a drug. I lived for the instant calm and sense of ease my addiction provided me with.

When I entered the program, I was unprepared for the shock of emotions that would grab me and try to pull me apart. Chief among these were my feelings of dread and fear, which manifested themselves as first anger, and then rage. It wasn't until I completed my fear inventory that I began to understand that the reason I was so angry was because I was so full of fear!

One of the gifts of my recovery today is that I am now quick to trace any discomfort, agitation or anger back to fear. If I'm complaining about a line being too long, or someone driving too slow, or if I'm angry at my boss or spouse, I stop and ask myself what I'm afraid of. When the answer comes, as it always does, I use the tools I've developed in the program to deal with it.

Today I have empathy for people who are angry because I know they are really just people who are afraid.

April 7

Quote of the Week

"You're not who you think you are."

I was in a meeting the other day when a woman shared that early in recovery she told her sponsor she was going to commit suicide. "If you did that you wouldn't be committing suicide, you'd be committing homicide," he said. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You have no idea who you are yet, so you'd be killing someone else. That's why it'd be homicide." Boy did I relate.

I remember early in recovery struggling to find the real me. At first I thought I was the result of my past actions, and my self-loathing was so intense that I was sure no one would accept or like me. As I worked through that and began feeling better about myself, my ego took over and my mantra became, "Don't you know who I am?" and "Where's mine?!"

It took me a long time to realize I wasn't as good or as bad as I thought I was. With over a decade in recovery and with a multitude of personality shifts, I've come to realize that identifying with my thoughts is a waste of time. I now know that at my core I am simply a channel of God, and the more I focus on being of service the more I come to know my real self and true purpose.

Today I understand what they mean when they say - You're not who you think you are.

April 14

Quote of the Week

"When I wake up in the morning, 80% of the things in my head are none of my business."

I don't know about you, but some mornings when I wake up I'm so overwhelmed with what I'm thinking that I can barely get out of bed. "What if I don't make enough money this week?" "What's going to happen if the economy tanks again and in six months I have to sell my home?" "What if my sore throat turns out to be cancer?" On and on I go until I'm frozen with fear and defeated before I even begin the day.

When I heard today's quote it was explained to me that what's going to happen a week or even two days from now is none of my business. My job is to suit up and show up today, do the very best I can, and then turn the results over to God. I learned that I have absolutely no control over the future, but I do have control over the actions I take today, and this is where my energy and focus needs to be.

While I sometimes find this hard to practice, I always find that when I do my day and my life goes much better. First of all, action is the answer to all my fears. Just doing something - anything - instantly makes me feel better. Second, God does exist, He's working in my life, and He's never let me down. Just spending 5 minutes in the morning in meditation remembering this changes my entire day.

And once I clear out 80% of the thoughts that are none of my business, it's easy to focus on the 20% that make up my life on any given day.

A big amen to the Quote of the Week.

W.O.W.101

April 21

Quote of the Week

"If you still have some plans left, they suck, and you'll use them."

I hear some people share regularly at my Tuesday night meeting, and they always wish the newcomers one thing - desperation. At first this seemed harsh to me but I realized that if I hadn't hit complete bottom, I, too, would have used any plans I had left.

When I was new my sponsor asked me what my back pocket plans were and I told him: "If this doesn't work for me in 90 days, I'm selling my house, cashing in my Keogh, and moving to England to buy, operate and live above a pub." I was dead serious. He looked at me, smiled, and said, "Keep coming back." And I did.

Today I'm thankful that was the only plan I had left. I know it would probably have killed me, but I had reached such a bottom it didn't matter. If you're new I hope you're out of plans, desperate, and ready to give the program everything you've got. I guarantee you, it's the best plan you'll ever have.

April 28

Quote of the Week

"If you don't go within, you go without."

Legend has it the deepest wisdom was once freely available to man, but he continued to ignore it. The Gods, growing tired of this, decided to hide this wisdom so only those determined to use it would search and find it. They considered hiding it on the tallest mountain, then underneath the sea, and even buried in the earth, but decided that man would eventually stumble upon it. Finally they decided on the perfect place, inside man himself, a place he would never think to look.

This certainly describes me before recovery. I was constantly searching outside of myself for the answers to my life. I was convinced the right job, or the right relationship, or more money would fill the hole I had inside me. Eventually I turned to drugs and alcohol thinking the temporary relief I got would work, but it never did.

I remember the first time I heard this quote, "If you don't go within, you go without". It meant that not only were all the answers inside of me, but that if I didn't go inside for them, then I would keep searching outside of myself and would continue to go without the solutions. It's taken years for me to consistently search within - the Gods did find the perfect hiding place! - but each time I do, the wisdom is there waiting for me.

It's just like my sponsor keeps telling me, "It's an inside job".

May 5

Quote of the Week

"Those who piss us off the most are our greatest teachers."

In the old days (before recovery), a lot of people, places and things really pissed me off. To start with, I resented my family for always trying to tell me what to do (thinly veiled as, "We're just trying to help you."). Schools, jobs, or any other institution that tried to dictate my behavior also pissed me off. I guess you could say I was pretty angry before I got sober.

When I entered the rooms there were a whole new set of rules to follow (thinly veiled as suggestions), and I transferred my rebellion and resentment to them. After 90 days I was still pretty angry when my sponsor told me something I didn't get at first, but which is a principle I now live by. He told me that whenever someone or something made me upset, it was always because there was something spiritually unbalanced in me.

What I've come to understand today is that whenever I get pissed off, resentful or upset in anyway, I can almost always trace it back to self-centered fear. I'm either afraid I'm going to lose something I have or not get something I think I deserve. When I'm spiritually centered, however, and close to my Higher Power, I realize I already have everything I need and that essential completeness can never be taken away.

Today when someone pisses me off I realize they are just teachers, and I begin looking within for the lesson.

May 12

Quote of the Week

"Drinking gave me the feeling of a job well done without having done a thing."

I remember a restaurant/bar in the rich neighborhood of Brentwood , CA I used to go to after work. I'd saddle up to the long, swank bar and order cocktails while I watched the successful people with money come in to have $200 dinners. I was struggling financially at the time and in the beginning I felt out of place, but after a few drinks I had goal planned my first million and was soon feeling as if I belonged.

Years later in recovery while working on my eighth step - made a list of all the people we had harmed and become willing to make amends - I was surprised when my sponsor told me to put my name on it. When I asked why, he told me to list all the things I had wanted to do and what I had wanted to make out of my life and then write about how alcohol and drugs had taken them away. I thought about that bar in Westwood and hundreds of more like it and of all the plans and goals I had drank and used away.

When they say that alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful, they mean it in so many insidious ways. When I think of the potential, the future, the life I drank away, I'm sorry to my core. It's hard to forgive myself sometimes. But when I think of all I have accomplished since I got sober and of the lifetime of dreams still ahead I'm filled with hope and gratitude.

Today I live in and appreciate the miracle of my recovery.

May 19

Quote of the Week

"I have to change what I want to get what I want."

When I was new in the program, my sponsor suggested that I make a list of all the things I wanted and hoped I'd get from being sober. That was easy because I had a long list. I went ahead and made my list - items that would feed my pride or give me property and prestige topped the list - and then attempted to share it with him. "Just put it somewhere safe, and we'll look at it after we work the steps," he said.

As I worked my way through the program, my outside world did improve; I was able to begin accumulating some the things on my list but a funny thing happened - they didn't fix me. In fact, the more I got what I wanted, the more I realized that I didn't really want it. I had changed.

My sponsor told me that I had changed because the program worked from the inside out and that in order for me to get what I wanted I had to change what I wanted. And now I understand. Happiness, serenity, friends, security, don't come from having certain things, they come from being a certain way. The way I am as a result of the program.

May 26

Quote of the Week

"Go to 90 meetings in 90 days. If you're not satisfied, we'll gladly refund your misery."

I'll never forget how crazy I was when I was new. My poor sponsor had to listen to my endless rants, my objections to his suggestions, and all my 'better ideas'. Worst of all, he put up with my constant doubts about whether the program would actually work for me. And that's when he told me to give it 90 days and if it didn't work, he would gladly refund my misery.

I thought he was just being a smart aleck when he said that, and I became determined to prove him wrong. So I did what he told me to do - I got a home group, took commitments, worked the first three steps, and I went to a meeting every day for 90 days. At the end of all that I was amazed that I not only felt better, but my life was improving as well.

When I next asked him how long I'd have to go before I could drink and use again, he smiled and said, "Why don't you try the program for 12 months and if you don't like it, we'll gladly refund your misery". While I balked at the thought of staying sober for a whole year, I secretly imagined toasting my anniversary with a glass of champagne. Nine months later when I took my one year cake, I looked at my sponsor and told him I didn't want my misery back.

And that's when he told me I never had to go back to that way of life again, as long as I kept working my program, one day at a time...

June 2

Quote of the Week

"I'd rather go through life sober believing I'm an alcoholic, than go through life drunk, trying to prove I'm not."

I love it when newcomers share at meetings that they don't think they are alcoholics. Sure they like to party, they admit, and perhaps they had a DUI or two, or lost a job or made a bad scene, but they can control their drinking when they have to. Eventually someone points out that people who don't have a drinking problem are rarely at meetings trying to defend or explain their drinking!

For a long time I also resisted the idea that I might be an alcoholic. The longer I stayed sober and learned about the disease, and the more I compared my behavior with the alcoholics around me, the more I had to admit that I probably was one, too. Rather than be a sentence, though, this turned out to be the key that set me free.

Today, I've stopped debating whether I'm an alcoholic or not, and I choose to live a sober life. It's kind of like that saying about whether to believe in God or not: "I'd rather live my life believing that there is a God and find out in the end there isn't, than live my life believing there isn't a God and end up finding out there is."

In the end, it's about living a good life, and that's what sobriety allows me to do.

June 9

Quote of the Week

"I don't have to like the situation, but it's important that I like myself in it."

When I first got sober, I took a job in Beverly Hills as an investment broker selling municipal bonds. I hated getting up at 4:45 in the morning to drive to work, hated making cold calls all day, and hated making just enough to get by. What I hated most, though, was myself. Selling bonds wasn't who I was, but it was all I knew to do at the time, and because my identity was tied to what I did, if I hated that, I hated myself. Because of this I spent many dark days in the abyss of self-pity and self-loathing.

When I look back on it, I'm surprised I didn't just go back out. Thankfully, the bottom I hit was worse than my day job, and so each night I dragged myself to a meeting to try to find a better way. My sponsor listened patiently as I wallowed in my misery and finally said, "Michael your job isn't about you or who you are. It's simply a vehicle for you to be of service and to help others. And until you see all of life like that you will never be happy no matter what you are doing."

It took me years of working the steps and working with others before I saw the wisdom in what he said. Today I understand the importance of being of service and I find that I like myself a lot more when I'm trying to give rather than get. Because of this I'm able to separate myself from what I have and what I'm doing, and in this way I've learned to live comfortably in my own skin.

Today I may not like all the situations in my life, but I've learned to like myself in them.

June 16

Quote of the Week

"The good part of recovery is that you get your feelings back; the bad part is that you get your feelings back."

Ah, the paradox of recovery (one of many). When I was 'out there' I had an easy way of dealing with my feelings - I'd numb them. Unable to feel or even acknowledge them, I'd drift through the complexities of relationships and situations, neither growing nor evolving. In fact I've heard it said that we come into the program emotionally defined by the age we started drinking and using.

So here I was a 37-year-old man with the emotional maturity of a young 16 year old. And here came a bewildering onslaught of FEELINGS. Shame, fear, rage, regret, resentments-the range, depth and color of my feelings were overwhelming. How could I survive?

Over time I learned that my feelings were not going to kill me. I learned that although sometimes painful and unwanted, my feelings were valid and each had something valuable to teach me. Through working the program I developed tools to process them and soon learned to give them the space and respect they deserved. Today my feelings are teachers, and all teachers are welcome.

June 23

Quote of the Week

"Recovery is the only place where you can walk into a room full of strangers and reminisce."

When I began going to meetings, I remember how uncomfortable it was being around so many people that I didn't know. As soon as they found out I was new, many of them came up to me and gave me their phone numbers, asked me how I was doing, and wanted to know all kinds of things that I didn't want to tell them. It was all pretty overwhelming.

As I sat and listened to people's shares, I was pretty sure I didn't belong because I hadn't done half the stuff I was hearing. That's when my sponsor told me I hadn't done them 'yet'. He asked me if I identified with the other half, and I admitted I did. He suggested I should look for the ways I was the same, rather than the ways I was different.

It's amazing how that little piece of advice has changed my life. Now, no matter what part of the world I'm in, I can always find a part of myself in the strangers I meet in the rooms of recovery. Even if I don't know you personally, I know I can identify with many of your experiences and with the way you feel and think.

This is what allows strangers like us to start reminiscing the first time we ever meet.

June 30

Quote of the Week

"Just because you're having a bad day doesn't mean you're having a bad life."

It's amazing the way my mind used to work. When things were good, it told me they wouldn't last. When things were bad, it told me they were going to get worse. When I was having a bad day, it told me every other day was going to be just as bad and that no matter how hard I tried, my life would end in failure.

When I entered recovery, the first thing I learned was that alcoholism was a disease of perception. I was told that what was happening in my head didn't always reflect what was happening in my life, and I was given tools to help me tell the difference. Gratitude lists helped me see the good as well as the bad; running my thinking by others helped me see past my insanity, and working with others always helped me feel better no matter what was going on.

It took a long time to develop a new perspective on my thinking, but by being willing to change and by working hard at it, I now know that most of what my mind tells me is a lie. To counter this today, when I wake up I turn my thoughts over to my Higher Power, and I let Him direct my thinking. If I'm having a bad day, I know I can start it over at anytime, and I do that by saying to myself, "Thy will, not mine be done." This always works.

Today I know that if I'm having a bad day, it doesn't mean I'm having a bad life. It just means it's time to turn it over.