I keep coming back to the Anti-Nephi-Lehis when i think of recovery and working toward recovery.
In the Book of Mormon these anti-nephi-lehis used to be lamanites who were addicted to the shedding of blood. They didn't just like killing, they were ADDICTED to it.
When i think of being addicted to lust, i think about how i acted and everything i did to satisfy that hunger. And to think that these guys, like me, must have had their minds on it all day everyday, that's crazy.
But they found God and were born again. They became new creatures. Their very identities changed. But they were smart. They took the things that helped satisfy their lust for blood, and buried them.
I find it interesting. They were just swords. They could have used them for other things. Could even have melted then down. Beaten them to plow shares. A sword can be a very useful too. It can protect the innocent. So why bury them?
Because there was a chance, just a chance, that picking up that sword could trigger them. That is true recovery.
Everyone seems to have their own definitions of white knuckling, sobriety, recovery, slips, relapse, and what those words mean. Sometimes it gets confusing in a meeting because so many people use these words interchangeably.
I used to be one of these. I've been told, when i first started going to meetings, that i was IN recovery, just because i was going to the meetings and had good intentions. I now believe that is impossible because if that were the case, I've been in recovery ever since i started acting out because i would pray and read my scriptures and try to stop all the time. So that can't be right.
So I'm going to base my definitions based off of what I've learned from those actually IN recovery.
White knuckling: usually referred to in a way to try and give merit to the fact that someone went so many days, weeks, months, etc without acting out.
If someone only acts out once a year, but continued to do it once a year and can't stop, they are an addict. Thus there is NO merit in a time between acting out, it's the same thing as trying not to act out, and acting out. It is no more beneficial to the person than physically acting out, because white knuckling suggests that the person IS acting out all the time, but just in his mind. Thus making it hard to not act out physically. I spend, literally, almost every waking moment satisfying my lust in my head. But congratulating myself when I'd go so many days without physically acting out. It was the same thing. It didn't help me at all to stop the physical acting out. Because whether i did it physically or just in my head, it kept me connected and controlled by my addiction.
Sobriety: here's where the lines really get fuzzy, but as an addict you cannot live a moment longer in fuzziness.
Some say sobriety is the space inbetween acting out. Some use it interchangeably with Recovery. Which i guess in a sense, okay; if you are in recovery then you are sober. But you are not necessarily in recovery if you are sober.
Sobriety is the time between acting out and genuine recovery. It is the time when your behaviors are changing because you are in the process of being destroyed and reborn. It's where you only know one thing for sure, your an addict and you can't do it, and your brain is broken and you can't trust your own thoughts and judgements. Not only do you realize these things, but you act accordingly.
Slips: slips are when you act out and stop. Not like a complete relapse, though in a sense, to me, they are alot alike.
Relapse: falling back to your addiction and addict patterns. When you slip, and then just keep heading back to where you were in the beginning.
Recovery: when, after (most likely) YEARS of sobriety you reach that Zen state of recovery. To me this is like that whole quote about God walking a razor thin line of falling but he's always steady because he's Good and he won't make a mistake. Recovery to me is when I'm at that point of never acting out again, for sure, but knowing I'm an addict and taking precautions anyway. I don't believe in slips in recovery. I am, sad to say, one of the very very few (that i know of) who feel this way.
In the Book of Mormon these anti-nephi-lehis used to be lamanites who were addicted to the shedding of blood. They didn't just like killing, they were ADDICTED to it.
When i think of being addicted to lust, i think about how i acted and everything i did to satisfy that hunger. And to think that these guys, like me, must have had their minds on it all day everyday, that's crazy.
But they found God and were born again. They became new creatures. Their very identities changed. But they were smart. They took the things that helped satisfy their lust for blood, and buried them.
I find it interesting. They were just swords. They could have used them for other things. Could even have melted then down. Beaten them to plow shares. A sword can be a very useful too. It can protect the innocent. So why bury them?
Because there was a chance, just a chance, that picking up that sword could trigger them. That is true recovery.
Everyone seems to have their own definitions of white knuckling, sobriety, recovery, slips, relapse, and what those words mean. Sometimes it gets confusing in a meeting because so many people use these words interchangeably.
I used to be one of these. I've been told, when i first started going to meetings, that i was IN recovery, just because i was going to the meetings and had good intentions. I now believe that is impossible because if that were the case, I've been in recovery ever since i started acting out because i would pray and read my scriptures and try to stop all the time. So that can't be right.
So I'm going to base my definitions based off of what I've learned from those actually IN recovery.
White knuckling: usually referred to in a way to try and give merit to the fact that someone went so many days, weeks, months, etc without acting out.
If someone only acts out once a year, but continued to do it once a year and can't stop, they are an addict. Thus there is NO merit in a time between acting out, it's the same thing as trying not to act out, and acting out. It is no more beneficial to the person than physically acting out, because white knuckling suggests that the person IS acting out all the time, but just in his mind. Thus making it hard to not act out physically. I spend, literally, almost every waking moment satisfying my lust in my head. But congratulating myself when I'd go so many days without physically acting out. It was the same thing. It didn't help me at all to stop the physical acting out. Because whether i did it physically or just in my head, it kept me connected and controlled by my addiction.
Sobriety: here's where the lines really get fuzzy, but as an addict you cannot live a moment longer in fuzziness.
Some say sobriety is the space inbetween acting out. Some use it interchangeably with Recovery. Which i guess in a sense, okay; if you are in recovery then you are sober. But you are not necessarily in recovery if you are sober.
Sobriety is the time between acting out and genuine recovery. It is the time when your behaviors are changing because you are in the process of being destroyed and reborn. It's where you only know one thing for sure, your an addict and you can't do it, and your brain is broken and you can't trust your own thoughts and judgements. Not only do you realize these things, but you act accordingly.
Slips: slips are when you act out and stop. Not like a complete relapse, though in a sense, to me, they are alot alike.
Relapse: falling back to your addiction and addict patterns. When you slip, and then just keep heading back to where you were in the beginning.
Recovery: when, after (most likely) YEARS of sobriety you reach that Zen state of recovery. To me this is like that whole quote about God walking a razor thin line of falling but he's always steady because he's Good and he won't make a mistake. Recovery to me is when I'm at that point of never acting out again, for sure, but knowing I'm an addict and taking precautions anyway. I don't believe in slips in recovery. I am, sad to say, one of the very very few (that i know of) who feel this way.
I think there are slips in sobriety. And yeah, that makes the number of days go back down to zero. But so what? The number alone means nothing. The change in behavior and character mean everything.
Slips, although not good, can humble us enough to refocus.
But i think of the anti-nephi-lehis. What if they slipped? What if one of them accidentally went out and KILLED someone else to satisfy that old urge, and then stopped. Is that okay? Well it was only one murdered victim?
I believe recovery means a change of heart, being healed, becoming a NEW creature, being reborn. That implies, no occasionally going back to the old self or being not reborn for a minute and then reborn again.
An alcoholic is not in recovery if he takes a drink. He might have had sobriety and felt like he was in recovery to him. A drug addict isn't in recovery if he injects heroin every once in a great while. A sex addict isn't in recovery if he looks at porn and masturbates every other year or so. These actions prove there is no change of heart or that they are not really born again.
I'm not in recovery. I don't know when i will be. I'm not going to think about if i am or not until I've been sober for 5 years no slips. Then I'll come back to the question and think about it. But the people i do see that are in recovery don't claim they're in recovery. They don't say silly things like, "I'm a recovered addict". They don't waste up one day and say, "well I'm in recovery now. Yesterday was my last day of sobriety and now it's straight recovery." I imagine for most is a gradual process. For others, they spent 3 days in hell and horrowed up in their sins before they found God's salvation and were so coveted to it that their hearts changed instantly.
And these guys, the select few that i know in recovery, weren't focused on numbers or how long it would take them. They focused on one day at a time, because any further planning was ridiculous for the insane.
I'm not an expert by any means. I've got 8 months of sobriety and that's nothing. I still want to act out most of the time. So do i know what recovery is? No, I've never experienced it. But i do notice that 90% of the guys i know keep relapsing and relapsing after a week or 2 or maybe a month. And i talk to them and the way they think and talk are just like what i did for the first 2 years of "working" when i would relapse over and over again. But when i started thinking different i got to where I'm at now, and yeah, i could act out in 5 minutes, but 8 months is there longest I've gone and I've seen the most changes in myself. And so I'm going to continue this thought process because it works for me right now.
Slips, although not good, can humble us enough to refocus.
But i think of the anti-nephi-lehis. What if they slipped? What if one of them accidentally went out and KILLED someone else to satisfy that old urge, and then stopped. Is that okay? Well it was only one murdered victim?
I believe recovery means a change of heart, being healed, becoming a NEW creature, being reborn. That implies, no occasionally going back to the old self or being not reborn for a minute and then reborn again.
An alcoholic is not in recovery if he takes a drink. He might have had sobriety and felt like he was in recovery to him. A drug addict isn't in recovery if he injects heroin every once in a great while. A sex addict isn't in recovery if he looks at porn and masturbates every other year or so. These actions prove there is no change of heart or that they are not really born again.
I'm not in recovery. I don't know when i will be. I'm not going to think about if i am or not until I've been sober for 5 years no slips. Then I'll come back to the question and think about it. But the people i do see that are in recovery don't claim they're in recovery. They don't say silly things like, "I'm a recovered addict". They don't waste up one day and say, "well I'm in recovery now. Yesterday was my last day of sobriety and now it's straight recovery." I imagine for most is a gradual process. For others, they spent 3 days in hell and horrowed up in their sins before they found God's salvation and were so coveted to it that their hearts changed instantly.
And these guys, the select few that i know in recovery, weren't focused on numbers or how long it would take them. They focused on one day at a time, because any further planning was ridiculous for the insane.
I'm not an expert by any means. I've got 8 months of sobriety and that's nothing. I still want to act out most of the time. So do i know what recovery is? No, I've never experienced it. But i do notice that 90% of the guys i know keep relapsing and relapsing after a week or 2 or maybe a month. And i talk to them and the way they think and talk are just like what i did for the first 2 years of "working" when i would relapse over and over again. But when i started thinking different i got to where I'm at now, and yeah, i could act out in 5 minutes, but 8 months is there longest I've gone and I've seen the most changes in myself. And so I'm going to continue this thought process because it works for me right now.
my husband has really focused at that scripture story as well. about burying their weapons. he is trying so hard to bury his weapons. i like your description of sobriety--behaviors are changing. that makes way more sense than "5 months sober". thank you.
ReplyDeleteYeah i love that story. i see the burrying of weapons as very powerful. even when these weapons could have been used to save their families. their recovery was more important than ANYTHING else. even more important than using in defense of their families.
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