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Stops and starts are common ground in recovery. For many, recovery includes so much debris strewn through every nook and cranny of life. If it only meant stop using! But it is entangled with so much disaster! There is financial indebtedness from being totally irresponsible, with the possibility of losing your job, or you already did.
There’s the possibility of repossession of the car, no food in the house, and everybody hates you! At least it feels that way! You’ve destroyed all your relationships, including partner, family and friends. For some, it gets even way worse than all of this.
What do you do and where do you start from wherever you are?
It all begins with surrendering to the reality that you are out of control. Your best efforts have left you way short of where you wanted to be.
Here is a syllabus that lists what you need to do to get started when your life is a mess:
1. Go to a meeting. I know you don’t want to hear this. But, look around you at all the carnage—which do you like worse? When you get there, ask for help and do whatever they tell you.
2. Confront every irresponsible act one at a time and make amends wherever you can. Be accountable and live in consultation with those you met in the meeting. It may be tough to reach out to someone in a group to walk beside you that you don’t even know. But, look around you at the disaster you created. It will help you see that you have no choice if you are desperate to change.
3. Every day you wake up, do a Step from the Big Book. Even when it doesn’t make sense to you, do it anyway and share that you did it and what it was like to someone (anyone) who will listen. Yes, do it every day!
4. Tell one person one feeling that you don’t want anyone to know you have, no matter what it is, every stinking day of your life with no exceptions! The only way to find who you are is to get connected to what you feel. It will take a while, but you will become authentic by embracing what you feel.
5. Give up outcomes and just do the next right thing no matter how tempted you are to try to save the past. Trying to resurrect the past for tomorrow will only ensure that you will dig a hole today! Let it all go! If something comes back to you, give it consideration at that point! You won’t change yesterday. It is done! Life is complicated. Destroyed relationships, business opportunities that you screwed up sometimes reappear. The only way they will work for you is if you totally let go and stop the grasp. You must only focus on doing the next right thing that is in front of you.
6. Pay attention to what you tell yourself in your head! Recognize junkie worm bullshit jonesing you about how you can escape just one more time. Also, learn to ignore the critical voice screaming at you that you are a piece of shit. Both voices are liars!
7. Figure out mindfulness and practice it! You’ll need it to condition yourself with perseverance and patience. You are not going to crawl out of your hole in one day, one week, or one month. It takes time. Mindfulness will help you stop saying “what’s wrong with me?” and replace it with “I have a lot of things going for me, I’m amazing!” Tell yourself that you are doing it right. No one ever beats themselves up to a better place. When you see a child learning to read, is it OK to criticize them along the way? Or do they need encouragement and support and somebody who says positive things like ‘outstanding! You’re doing great, keep it up!” There is no perfect recovery. Nobody ever does recovery totally right! You will screw up! Capture the positive moments. Feel proud of yourself for the work you’re doing. Tell yourself you’re loved for who you are. Mindfulness will help to clear your mind for this existence in reality.
8. Give yourself away every day of your life. Don’t let a day go by that you don’t give something that you have to another. The day you stop doing this is the day you will stop recovering. Pretty radical, but it’s true. No one knows what you have to give to another. That’s between you and the universe which has an endless supply of resources for the world. It just needs you in your recovery mess to say “Here am I. Use me!” Look around you at the people who are in recovery. If they are not givers, they are imposters. Give and you will grow and become your destiny.
