Early Recovery

Recovery, What a concept. You know what generally is the hardest part of early recovery? It’s shutting your mouth and listening. Yes that’s it, accepting that you basically know squat about recovery, you may be educated and know about, economics, sports, the stock market and a whole range about all sorts of topics, however basically nothing about recovery. Or you would not be in early recovery. You have to “take the cotton baton out of your ears and put it in your mouth” as the oldtimers would put it, you have to take all your thinking and preconceived notions and stifle them. For early recovery is for learning about recovery from those who have achieved some measure of recovery, proven by years and years of being continuously clean and sober and creating a life out of the ashes of addiction. Early recovery basically put is like being back in preschool, kindergarten at best to advance you need to finish your first set of steps and celebrate a full year of being clean and sober, then you can move on.
Broken down the first step is about seeing admitting to your inner most self that you have a problem, steps 2 and 3 are finding a higher power or God of your understanding, steps 4, 5, and 6 is about learning who you really are. Steps 7, 8, and 9 are taking responsibility for you. The remaining steps are for continuing to monitor self, a deeper relationship with your God, and 12 helping others, these last three are also about emotional sobriety. The oldtimers used to phrase it as “trust god, clean house, and help others.”
After breaking it all down is recovery does not come overnight, it takes work, perseverance and time. We come in here ego maniacs with inferiority complexes, thinking we know it all and the truth is usually we are all alone trapped in a prison of our own making, however if we just get out of the way of ourselves, listen take suggestions there is a life better than anything we would have ever imagined, just waiting for us to go and grab it.
Remember God does not create garbage

What Is Forgiveness

Real Forgiveness is a complex and in some cases a difficult process. It is not about granting someone pardon for wrong doing or perceived wrong doing, it is not even really understanding why a person would do or act in such a manner, however understanding does seem to make it easier. Forgiveness is really just about letting the incident go. To stop reliving the incident, to stop holding the grudge and/or resentment, to let the past be the past and the dead bury the dead. It’s about moving on.


Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, and/or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.[1] The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt'. The concept and benefits of forgiveness have been explored in religious thought, the social sciences and medicine. Forgiveness may be considered simply in terms of the person who forgives including forgiving themselves, in terms of the person forgiven and/or in terms of the relationship between the forgiver and the person forgiven. In some contexts, forgiveness may be granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is incommunicado or dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of acknowledgment, apology, and/or restitution, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe himself able to forgive.[1]
Most world religions include teachings on the nature of forgiveness, and many of these teachings provide an underlying basis for many varying modern day traditions and practices of forgiveness. Some religious doctrines or philosophies place greater emphasis on the need for humans to find some sort of divine forgiveness for their own shortcomings, others place greater emphasis on the need for humans to practice forgiveness of one another, yet others make little or no distinction between human and/or divine forgiveness. (From WIKIPEDIA)


Forgiveness
Nearly everyone has been hurt by the actions or words of another. Perhaps your mother criticized your parenting skills or your partner had an affair. These wounds can leave you with lasting feelings of anger, bitterness and even vengeance — but if you don't practice forgiveness, you may be the one who pays most dearly. By embracing forgiveness, you embrace peace, hope, gratitude and joy.

Generally, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you may always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. Forgiveness brings a kind of peace that helps you go on with life. (MAYO CLINIC DEFINTION)

What are the benefits of forgiving someone?
Letting go of grudges and bitterness makes way for compassion, kindness and peace. Forgiveness can lead to:
 Healthier relationships
 Greater spiritual and psychological well-being
 Less stress and hostility
 Lower blood pressure
 Fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety and chronic pain
 Lower risk of alcohol and substance abuse

Why is it so easy to hold a grudge?
When you're hurt by someone you love and trust, you may become angry, sad or confused. If you dwell on hurtful events or situations, grudges filled with resentment, vengeance and hostility may take root. If you allow negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you may find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice.

What are the effects of holding a grudge?
If you're unforgiving, you may pay the price repeatedly by bringing anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experience. Your life may become so wrapped up in the wrong that you can't enjoy the present. You may become depressed or anxious. You may feel that your life lacks meaning or purpose, or that you're at odds with your spiritual beliefs. You may lose valuable and enriching connectedness with others.

How do I reach a state of forgiveness?
Forgiveness is a commitment to a process of change. A way to begin is by recognizing the value of forgiveness and its importance in your life at a given time. Then reflect on the facts of the situation, how you've reacted, and how this combination has affected your life, health and well-being. When you're ready, actively choose to forgive the person who's offended you. Move away from your role as victim and release the control and power the offending person and situation have had in your life. As you let go of grudges, you'll no longer define your life by how you've been hurt. You may even find compassion and understanding.

What if the person I'm forgiving doesn't change?
Getting another person to change his or her actions, behavior or words isn't the point of forgiveness. Think of forgiveness more about how it can change your life — by bringing you more peace, happiness, and emotional and spiritual healing. Forgiveness takes away the power the other person continues to wield in your life.


"Love the creatures for the sake of God and not for themselves. You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look toward God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy. Therefore, do not look at the shortcomings of anybody; see with the sight of forgiveness."
— `Abdu'l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 92

Remember God does not create garbage

A First nation Perspective on Humility

"Each of us must know in our minds and believe in our hearts that even though we are different, you are like me and I am like you."
--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

One of the definitions of humility is having an awareness of one's own character defects. To recognize and acknowledge that one has imperfections is being humble. We should never pray for ourselves unless by doing so it would help another person. To have self-importance puts self first and this is not humble. We each have strengths and we each have weaknesses. Both the strengths and weaknesses are sacred. Life is sacred. We learn sacred things from weaknesses also. Therefore, all lives are developed through trial and error, strength and weakness, ups and downs, gains and losses - all of these are part of life and life is sacred.

Great Mystery, let me see and know about the sacredness of life

Remember God does not create garbage

The Enormous Value Of Service Work

I hope that you have taken advantage of the great opportunities there are in the 12 step fellowships to be of service. Service is the backbone and essence of this wonderful Program. It is truly the essence of spirituality, which is giving and what is more giving than being of service. There is nothing more valuable than time, it can never be refunded or stopped or harvested. So to give of one’s time is invaluable. Not only does being of service bring you to a new level of spiritual awareness, whether you are conscious of it or not. Not only are you being of service, you are staying clean and sober, I would be hard pressed to think of any who have relapsed while opening the doors and setting up for the meetings, or making coffee for the same or attending a G.S.R. meeting and/or convention, or attending a round-up, convention and/or gratitude day committee meeting. Not only are you staying clean and sober, but through service you are learning of and about the 12 traditions, especially if you are attending committee meetings as a G.S.R or similar position. Once you get through the craziness and excitement that some of those meetings can create, you are learning how to “agree to disagree” and “principles before personalities. However even greater than that you are ensuring that the doors are open and that there is a meeting for those who need one, especially those who have not found us yet.

So to all those who have done or are doing service right now, THANK YOU and God bless you. As well learn the traditions well for those are what keep us from destroying this great program from all are good intentions. The traditions are truly the greatest recovery tool of all, for they ensure that this wonderful program endures for those who need a meeting and those who have not found us yet. They ensure that when they are ready the meetings will still be here, even if they are not yet born.
Remember God does not create garbage

Revisiting Step Seven

Step Seven “Humbly asked God to Remove our Shortcomings”

This step as with step six is often glossed over, and brushed past. However again as in step six, and as with all the steps, it is an integral part of the 12 step program. All the 12 steps are equally important and vital for quality, lasting recovery, which brings you to a place of Happy, Joyous and Free. That is why it a “12 Step Program.” Let me put it this way, say you go to a party or a restaurant and you have the amazing dessert, that is just fantastic, you love it. So you get the recipe, now to create this exquisite dessert that you loved so much you follow the recipe, you don’t start changing the measurements and leaving out ingredients, because if you do your result will not be anything like the dessert you fell in love with. The 12 step program is the same it is the “precise “recipe for a recovery that brings you to a place of happy joyous and free, without ever having to use ever again. That being said let us proceed with step seven. Now all the steps prepare us for the next step, as the previous steps, if taken as written have guided you to this place. A place where you have become entirely ready, and have gained some measure of humility. Now the word is humility, not humiliation, these words are a thousand miles apart in definition. Humility is basically becoming right sized, no longer are an ego maniac, and no longer thinking you the worst person on earth. It is seeing ourselves for who we have truly become without the justifications, the lies, the good and bad, the fears and failures, the triumphant and the successes. You have seen that which needs to be discarded to become all you can. It is in this attitude you ask to be relieved of the troubling aspects of your character. And if the God of your understanding is akin to the God of my understanding, there will come situations in the future where certain conditions or situations will arise where you will get uncomfortable or catch yourself going down a path that is uncomfortable. The reason for this will be although the God of your understanding has removed the shortcoming, your God has also given you the power of choice. The uncomfortable feeling is showing you that he has done as requested, now is the time for you to follow that decision with action. This is where step seven is quite close to step three, they both require faith and trust in the God of your understanding, and they also require some action on your part.



How It Works
When ready, we say something like this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen." We have then completed Step Seven.
-A.A. Big Book p.76



The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God. The whole emphasis of Step Seven is on humility. It is really saying to us that we ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our shortcomings just as we did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. If that degree of humility could enable us to find the grace by which such a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same result respecting any other problem we could possibly have.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 76


Taking Step Seven was for many of us the greatest act of authentic humility we have ever been asked to commit: to transfer control of our recovery to God...
...according to the Twelve and Twelve, humility is a clear recognition of who we are followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. That is, humility is seeing ourselves as we actually are, good and bad, strong and weak, and acting authentically on those truths. This is not a naieve attitude suggesting we have in some way already "arrived." It is a sincere attempt to state the positive truth that when we face the truth of our shortcomings and the fact that we are powerless to change and begin to let God take our defects away, we have entered the pathway of humility. For the reality is, only God can take away our Sin, our deeply entrenched addictions, and our lifelong character defects. It is on this pathway, where we humbly ask God to remove all these defects of character, that the tools of recovery bring the healing, happiness, adn security we have dreamed of. But once more it is only powerlessness and pain that can force us to take the seventh Step into humility.
- A Hunger for Healing, p. 116-117


Humility is as much a part of staying clean as food and water are to staying alive. As our addiction progressed, we devoted our energy toward satisfying our material desires. All other needs were beyond our reach. We always wanted gratification of our basic desires.
...The word humble applies because we approach this Power greater than ourselves to ask for the freedom to live without the limitations of our past ways. Many of us are willing to do it without reservations, on pure blind faith, because we are sick of what we have been doing and how we are feeling. Whatever works, we go all the way.
- Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, Chapter 4/Step 7


We need humility for three reasons:
1. So that we can recognize the severity of our character defects. One aspect of our addictions is that we tend to deny and minimize the pain they inflict. Therefore as we try to assess our character defects, we may, unless we take a very humble approach, underestimate their severity.

2. So that we can acknowledge the limits of human power in addressing these character defects. We cannot do it on our own. We cannot do it by sheer willpower. We cannot do it by our own intellect and reasoning.

3. So that we can appreciate the enormity of God's power to transform lives.

... Although Step 7 is the shortest step in terms of wording and is perhaps the least discussed in recovery groups, it is probably the most potent of the twelve. It embodies the miracle of transformation as we turn over to God our broken, defective personalities in order that He might mold them into healthy, effective instruments of His will.

- Serenity, A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery, p. 54-55

Remember God does not create garbage

Living In The Present

It is said that” Today is a gift from God, that is why it is called the present.” And to honour the God of your understanding, you must cherish and live in the present. This is not to say that there are not times to look at the future, nor is it for you to deny the lessons of the past and taking responsibility and accountability for your past. It is also said that there for everything there is a time.
So we must determine what exactly this means, and find proper perspective of past, present and future. So basically, as stated above there is a time and place to look in the rear-view mirror of our lives. We must look back upon our lives on occasion, to learn the lessons that are in our past that we might have missed, to see mistakes, to take accountability and make amends when needed. That is pretty much the extent of our rear-view mirrors for unlike automobiles there is no reverse in life. Morbid reflection on something that cannot be changed is a waste of God given time, energy and spirit. The past is dead let the dead bury the dead. Learn the lessons make amends if needed and move on.

As for the future, except for the odd times that either we are in the right place at the right time and fortune smiles on us. We have dreams and goals we would wish to accomplish and make real. Well any dream and/or goal tales planning and usually many steps. So in doing so we look to future in our plans, however in doing so it is very wise to make these plans very flexible. For goals, change the means to reaching a goal changes, circumstances change, certain criteria required for a goal may change, bottom line is life is full of changes and if your plans are not flexible and adaptable, they will in all probability become useless and unworkable. Once again we can only spend so much time planning or time simply passes us by. The future is never for sure in our eyes it is merely a dream or more precisely a fantasy. The only reality is the present. The only thing you can truly do anything about is in the present. Your life exists in only one place the present. The here and now is the only reality there is, all else is either dead and gone, or a dream and/or fantasy of the mind.

Remember God does not create garbage

Happy Sunday

Ah yes Sunday, It is stated in the bible that this is the day of rest; however it is disputed if Sunday is truly the seventh day. Yet we are not here to debate or question anyone’s beliefs. As purely a society of Monday to Friday business system, it has become basically to most that Sunday has become a day of rest no matter their individual beliefs.

I hope you are taking the day for rest and rejuvenation, and if not able to take today, you do take a day a week for such a practice. It is definitely a must. As this is a self first program. This meaning that yes we make a point of giving, and that of giving of ourselves and giving to others, as well as putting others first. However you are of no good to anyone, if you cannot take care of self. Firstly how can you convince someone of your suggestions, advice, help if you’re in worse shape than they, secondly what shape can you be in to help if your do not take care of yourself. As a self first program you must first be able to take care of yourself, physically, mentally and spiritually. If you do not do this for yourself what do you really have to give to another? If you are no good to yourself, and let yourself become less than, how well are you to be able to take care of your family or anyone else.

Remember God does not create garbage