Sometimes life is two steps backwards. . .

I have been in the recovery rooms for more than three and a half decades and most of my movement has been “forward.”  I detailed much of that in my recent book: My Story to Yours: A Guided Memoir for Writing Your Recovery Journey, published by Hazelden, fall of 2011.  However, there are times when the going is rough.  Even after all these years, and writing a book detailing my progress, becoming stuck is possible.  I have been experiencing one of the stuck times of late.  What triggered it is any one’s guess.  What has maintained its hold on me is my own unwillingness to spring free of it.

I don’t want this to be “the rest of my story,” however; so it’s my commitment to change the message that’s running through my mind.  We do control that which we think.  And feel.  We control that which we say and do too.  In fact, the only thing we don’t control is every thing that is part of some one else’s drama.  Not letting the reality of some “back-stepping” define me in a long-term way or determine what kind of steps I am ready to take later today and from now on is the upside of choosing to live within the confines of this recovery blueprint.

Changing my mind about every aspect of how I live is the personal power I am guaranteed if I want it.  In fact, I wrote a book detailing exactly how to do that a few years ago.  Change Your Mind And Your Life Will Follow is the full title of the book.  I was empowered by writing it.  It might empower me again today to sit and reflect on those messages that I understood so well a short time ago.  I seem to have “misplaced” those ideas these last few weeks.  It’s rather freeing to be able to admit that to you, in fact.  A sponsor gave me a small shoulder bag when I first got sober that said on the side, “I May Not Be Perfect, but Parts Of Me Are Excellent.”  That’s as true today, 36 years later, as it was then.  Thank goodness perfection isn’t demanded on our blueprint.

Going backwards isn’t the only direction open to me today.  I am ready to move forward again.  I opened up about my dilemma in a meeting today and in a conversation this evening with my spouse.  The crack in the wall of resistance began to appear.  And I can feel the breeze of freedom wafting over me.  Thanks be to God.