Great Pain Brought Great Gain

November 19. Hey everybody, Friday is a half hour away from being over. The weekend is settling in & my workload is still ahead of me. That is a good thing though because every day things are getting closer to being done with opening the new store. I had an okay day, very sore from heavy lifting yesterday. I definitely exceeded my limit on lifting & am sure at some points pure determination & adrenaline were the only way I got some of the stuff moved around. I got a shipment I was waiting for today, add that to staying sober & I had a great day. Dinner with mom & dad was nice too, we eneded up getting me to my homegroup a little late. Better late than never, I go there to help my sobriety so there is no need to be sorry when I am late. That is something my sponsor has taught me because I used to appologize for being late. I got to spend a few minutes with my sponsor tonight too, he gave me a ride home & we caught up on things. When I got home I did some computer stuff for the business end of things & finally got online here to write a little bit. I'm still sober, still sore, and everything is going to be fine. Tomorrow I will be back up at the shop working and hopefully working some of these kinks out of my back & legs. Tonight a great topic came up at the meeting, which reminded me of something else I wanted to write about.

"Great Pain Brought Great Gain", that is something I attribute my success in sobriety today. I had better explain it a little more clearly. My first attempts at getting sober were not successful, thus being attempts. There are probably millions of factors that can be put out there about a person not succeeding in sobriety, one of the most frequently stated is that they just simply wanted to drink or get high & so they did. To me that is not enough. So many times I found myself getting high or drunk, I in fact did not want to do it. I knew nothing else, I wasn't yet afraid, I wasn't yet worn out. My first attempt at sobriety was through the courts, a forced hand if you will. I did the minimum required to comply without going to jail & I was no where near tired of the life I used to live, I actually missed it. I missed getting high, living reckless & on the edge. I missed the numb feeling & did not want to embrace the new set of real emotions that were beggining to develop inside me. So I found ways to play the time frames & loops associated with that court program. I found ways to get high & drunk and I went back out. I wasn't feeling the hurt yet or the pains of my disease enough to stay in the sober environment & I willingly walked away from it all. My second attempt to get sober was through the form of Rehab. When I got there I genuinely wanted this to be my last time being high, I was hurt from the constant state of physical sickness & my life falling apart around me. A few weeks after being there, I had allowed my disease & cravings to let me forget about all those pains & I went back to the drugs all over again upon leaving the center.

The next morning after that return to madness it finally hit me. The physical sickness was settling in, the cravings began & the panic. I had no where to turn for relief, Great Pain was becoming my existance all over again. The pain of detoxification was even something I feared to go through again if it was necessary & after using again it had become necessary. Having seen those short few weeks of hope in my life at Rehab, I got a glimpse of what potential life could be like without dependancy on drugs or a drink each day. I found a little bit of myself that had not yet turned, this part of me was so deep within me that I'm sure no one else could see it. That part of me took the advice I had heard before & I reached out to my Higher Power. The Great Pain of my active addiction & alcoholism had finally broken me apart, I was willing to do anything to stop hurting. To stop hurting my family, myself, everything. I needed to find out who I really was, the mirror told me nothing anymore. There was not a bone in my body that didn't ache, a thought in my mind that wasn't tortured, but my heart still had hope thankfully. It was all of the pain in my life that motivated me to do the series of actions, events, and necessary things to finally get sober. Only THAT PAIN was enough to do it, when we ask why someone continues to hurt themselves & others in their active addiction this may be the answer. Because like me, they did not yet hurt enough to stop or seek help. It is the hope of all who love an addict that one day they will feel this great pain & take the help that is out there, and that they do it before their disease brings their death. I thank my Higher Power everyday for the 12 Step program that has taught me how to STAY SOBER, and for the pain that once ruled my life growing to be great enough to seek out the help in stopping. In the end, It was "Great Pain" in my life that brought on the "Great Gain" of sobriety & spirituality. Spiritual living today is my only way to live without the pain of my former existance, an existance that could return to me if I do not do whats necessary to fight my disease. "Great Pain Brought Great Gain". So pray that it hurts enough for everybody, that they may make the change & get the help they need. Good Night. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy