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Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Sobriety and Recovery, what's the difference?

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.

Does life suck or do we suck at life?

When i get messages like this (attached below) from friends in the program, i know they aren't getting it.
   I could be wrong, maybe I'm the one not getting it. And i mean no disrespect to them. They are awesome guys and i love them.
   But these messages, though at first sound really awesome, don't really apply. At least not to an addict. Maybe they do to "normal" people that have problems, but not addictions.
   When life starts to suck, it doesn't always mean there are "good" things in store. By definition, an addict's life sucks. At least it does in the beginning of working toward recovery, and after who knows how long, it doesn't suck all the time but never does it never ever suck. At least that's what I'm told.
   My life has pretty much sucked more often than not while i was IN my addiction. That's guaranteed. And it didn't mean that i was bound for great and amazing things. It meant i was going to DIE MISERABLY.
   Granted, unexpected things happen and we have to decide how to handle them. But at least for me, most of the times life doesn't make things hard for me, i make things hard for me.