What Must Change - Everything

November 9. Tuesday's almost gone everybody & it was another good Sober day. I goofed off for a good part of the day & mom made a nice homemade dinner to start my night off. I went to the usual Tuesday night group & saw a bunch of good friends there, more than usual actually. I also paid for a book I got there last week, it's titled Daily Reflections & it gives a daily piece of food for thought & direction in recovery. It's a tool many people & groups use in their daily life & I thought it should be fit into mine as well. Among the friends I saw I also got to talk w/ my sponsor both in person & on the phone. After clearing up something I didn't understand I feel better about a suggestion that was made a while ago & I am ready to act on it. Amazing how communication & talking about how someone feels can change one's perspective on things. That is something we alcoholics are not good at initially, our disease dampens our ability to communicate & work through conflicts, problems, or uneasy feelings. Thankfully I have been more willing than ever to get out of my comfort zone & explore the wonderful world of recovery. The topic tonight was about Acceptance, something I have written about many times & I even love to go back & read from this blog's archives. It's healthy for my spiritual life to remember that acceptance goes much further than just accepting the fact that I can't have a drink or drug. I have a whole existance full of things that I must accept & take appropriate action to. It's learning from other's what the appropriate action is in each case that is the tricky part. I certainly hope that your tuesday was as eye opening as mine & another day is around the corner if we do what we need to remain sober & spiritual one more day.

Acceptance is one of the things we pray for daily, it's part of the Serenity prayer & it is a "key" some say to wellness & spiritual growth. But what about the things that we can change? Are we just supposed to say, "This is how it is" & settle for whatever we are or something presents? That argument is best left for us to evaluate in each of us, but I know that for me there are some things that CAN be changed & I actively work to change them for the better. It's finding the right "form" in life to model these things after. This is why we must change the people we hang with, the places we go, and the things that our life is constructed of. Because if all we see, know, and experience is negativity or 'non-change' then we will never discover the "form" we wish to take. Without an idea of what kind of better person we can be, or better life we can have, we cannot work constructively towards achieving or becoming that. The best suggestion I ever followed when it comes to this was changing the people, places, and things in my life. I only have one or two friends that existed in my old life still in my life today. The only place that remains the same is my home I grew up as a child, where my loving & positive family still reside. The only things I held onto were some video games & a car. The rest I had to start over, to build again with new found ideals. Those ideals passed onto me by others I met through groups & meetings that don the 12 Steps.

With all these changes, no more drugs or alcohol in my body as well, you would think that this could be enough to cure someone who had a problem with drugs or alcohol. Sadly it is far from enough. Even though a seemingly entire life undergoes change, one thing remains constant, US. If we don't change our inner workings, we are destined to fail. That is where the 12 Steps, with principles & teachings like acceptance, comes into play in recovery. These tools, lessons, guides, and people are what make the metamorphasis possible from living a cursed & ugly existance to opening like a cocoon to let out a beautiful butterfly. Spirituality follows & in some instances is the motivation for this inner change. If a clock is constantly behind one minute an hour, it will remain that way & grow farther behind if left untouched. But if you go inside that clock, change the gears & parts, and then give it power again.. it can keep time accurately & as it was meant to. That is what recovery is to me, changing the working parts within, doing the delicate & deliberate changes necessary to 'tick & tock' in unison with the universe. Without the changes that we make, must make, we are all but lost in that minute behind, hour after hour, minute after minute, until a lifetime has passed by. Lets remember when it comes time to do the work, to accept & grow spiritually, that we must infact CHANGE or nothing changes at all. The absence of a drink or drug in one's life does not create wellness, spirituality & change does. Good Night.. Good Morning.. <3 Jimmy