My Diary of Shame

So I’m awake & I’m buzzing...

My sponsor is very confident that I can, if not sponsor other people, @ least lead them through the steps but I’m not so sure! So he’s just taken me through his perception of them...An hour long phone call that like a good meeting felt like 5 minutes!

I worked 1 & 2 with a temporary sponsor & 3 solo & although I feel I have a good handle on them, because I haven’t actually been taught them, unusually I have no confidence in being able to do them the justice they deserve! Although I know I am not responsible for anyone else’s recovery, I want others to have the amazing opportunities I have been gifted by people who really understand the program.

My life is very simple, when I try to complicate it, I get hurt equally, my brain likes things in black & white & a program of suggestion sometimes feels anything but that! I don’t know where it originated & I’ve heard it outside the rooms so I’m not breaching any trusts...Putting on a parachute when a plane goes down is a suggestion. My abstaining wasn’t exactly going well until I started getting some recovery under my belt & by that, I mean actually working the steps...Meetings alone, for me, is just coffee & bs. Accepting I am powerless over everything but my words & my actions was a revelation. I accepted a Higher Power but wasted time trying to make sense of it...First it was a person, then it was the rooms, then it was some instinctive weird entity that I couldn’t put my finger on. Today, it just is, it doesn’t matter what “it” is, or even whether it’s tangible, what matters is that I trust it enough to accept that resistance is futile...What happens, largely, is what is going to happen, & me, me, me is mostly irrelevant so instead of expecting everyone to sing to my theme tune, I need to fit myself to the goings on around me!

Last time I was on my knees (over 10 years ago), I asked God to take my sister...She passed away a short time later & the most incredible peace washed over me. I’m reluctant to get down again as is the Step 3 way because I don’t want to wear it out. Like saying “I love you” out of habit instead of just when it matters, I like to save things for best! But, doing stuff my way doesn’t have the best track record & instead of silently using the neatly shortened version (“I can’t, You can, so please do...Amen”), tonight, I’m taking page 63 of the Big Book to bed with me & I’m going to get down on my knees & just get on with it.

Enough bs, enough making excuse, I want what I have now & if that means taking on some suggestions that make me nervous or uncomfortable, so be it! Thy will not mine be done - ODAAT

I would consider someone VERY lucky to have you as a sponsor. 🙂

Cathyx

I second that.

Big " Shaaaaat out " and big love coming right back atcha Kel's :)). xx

Thanks ladies, as ever, extremely grateful for your unwavering support (hands in prayer)!

Couple of things to clarify & I quote day@atime:

“Without being pedantic the 12 Steps aren't a suggestion #justsaying (smiley face)”

I concur! I have a very good friend who is struggling to decide whether abstaining is enough & wanting stats to prove that recovery without working the 12 Steps is possible...I would love to be able to provide those but just as no-one can provide the true stats for the GA because addicts lie, I can’t. No point pointing him here because the thread about people being clean for over 2 years without support got zero responses & is buried somewhere under the mire of threads about website issues & how wonderful GamStop & Allan Carr’s book is! I can’t knock either of them if they work for people which well they might but self exclusion & “Just Say No” (which is MY interpretation of the book) weren’t enough for me & to the best of my experience have never in isolation provided that serenity (or the Ready Brek glow as it was explained to me today - thanks Nick) that I am searching for. It doesn’t matter that personally, I don’t believe there is such a thing, I believe the 12 Steps is a must, I’m having enough problems changing myself so it’s not my job to try & convince him that he needs to work them because he needs to decide that for himself.

I did meet up with my friend who I am going to try & lead through the Steps & although we both had a good time, I still felt like a fraud, way out of my depth & kept thinking “so & so would be much better suited to this than I am”. Jury’s out on how useful I am going to be in this regard but it has affirmed, I’m not ready to sponsor anyone yet! I’ve done my Step work higgledy piggledy, started on here with Step 12 when I think about it...Completely misguided & probably doing more harm than good telling everyone I was doing it MYYYYYYY way! Only saving grace is, addicts on the whole don’t listen so anything I wrote back then is yesterday’s chip paper, even if I do need to find a way to drag it all back out for my inventory!

So, the Step 3 prayer didn’t go so well! I did get down on my knees & I read it but I couldn’t make sense of it because it wasn’t in a language that I understand & then I had a really S****y nights sleep 🙁 Coincidence? Maybe but it’s put me off! Maybe I’m happy with this “pain” I’m in @ the moment where I’m worried about booking a class for 1130 in the morning & not because an hour of Combat is going to hurt (bad) but because I really don’t want to have to get up “early”!?! I’m on the train @ 0530 on Friday...In what world is 1030 early but that’s my day off mindset, must sleep! Even when I’ve spent the best part of my 5 previous days off, in my pit! Is this depression? I’m not obsessing about money for a change but I’m procrastinating & I don’t even have the energy to be annoyed with myself for being lazy. Maybe it is, or maybe I’m just a lazy cow with a terrible sleeping addiction!

Thanks for being here Mrs D, I think it’s time to give that prayer another shot...Nothing’s changed because I haven’t changed it!

P.s: I’m going to stop trying to be my Higher Power & actually hand it over!

Morning Kelly.
I have really enjoyed your last couple of posts because for me they do exactly what they should say on the tin, gift food for thought.
I haven't written about twelve stepping since the last time I did I got lambasted for, missing steps, not following the order of them and not interpretating as the elders did.
I believe in the twelve steps, I equally believe that every single recovering addict interprets them in slightly different ways.
I don't believe this is detrimental, I have seen the outcome of this the same.
Change is the outcome and as a result the steps are revisited although in my mind sometimes unconsciously.
Abstinence alone for me didn't provide change in fact I believe it led me to procrastinate more and in doing so give addiction the upper hand.
Because addiction will happily wait patiently in the wings to pick the moment when it can regain the mind.
I believe twelve stepping leaves me with a greater perception of life, I am able to live with it on better terms.
The ability to speak and listen in equal measure, the ability to not judge everything with a selfish attitude, and to have a desire to live.
I love the words 'it is what it is'
Because they are true.
They have replaced 'I don't care'
The selfish words I used to utter to anything that didn't provide me.
As for sleeping, not physically punishing yourself, don't be too hard on yourself, learn to like you.
Sorry to ramble on your thread.
But hey better than a gamble!!
Hopefully see you soon.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.

I was in an odd mood this morning: woke up fine having abandoned the marital bed @ about 3 for the spare room in dire need of sleep without an elbow, or an arm or a stomach (affectionately nicknamed “Boinnngggg”, by me) edging me off of the mattress but by the time I got to work, I was miserable! Even the thought of only 14 more shifts in this place could not shake me & although I felt I styled it out with a little mini-meltdown to entertain the troops early on, by the time someone came to discuss shift patterns with me (for, I have no idea how many times exactly but it’s a lot & I already emailed him the blinking rota), & I had the same Groundhog Day discussion with him about “we ALL work nights” & “no I’m not joking”, I was ready to go home. Sadly i was only a couple of hours into my shift & it was to deteriorate somewhat more before hometime :-0

We’ve been “upgraded...I use the inverted commas because it’s to Windows 8.1 for anyone reading under the age of 26, you know my pain & for anyone over & not in IT, it’s a bad word that Admin won’t let me use!

Thankfully the engineers weren’t put off by the dust, crumbs, mouse droppings, beard hairs or the tangle of cables & managed to replace all 4 computers, albeit 2 of them now don’t work...Sadly, someone in my department (oh, that’s me then) needed to phone IT support, because I couldn’t even figure out how to report the fault online. I’ve had less painful conversations with 2 year olds who don’t want to go to bed...The person on the other end clearly wasn’t going to log the fault for me & eventually managed to remote on instead. After tiring of asking me what I needed to put in the boxes that I had called her about because I didn’t know, she went off for advice & came back on the line to reassure me that I needed to do this through our procurement site. Never having used said site (I buy my own stuff coz it’s too difficult) I wasn’t entirely convinced that a BT engineer was something one could purchase...I’ve certainly never seen them on Amazon. As she huffed & puffed trying to get me off of the phone, I repeated myself ever more slowly until the engineer offered to speak to her, said exactly the same thing, got no-where, then told her who he was...I could almost hear the bustle of activity down the line! Turns out he is marginally more important in our IT world than the real life version of ODAAT & BT are coming on Monday! Lo, I didn’t need to fill in the online report, nor go through another site & neither was I put through to the post service questionnaire at the end (hmmm)!

After they left, I pressed many buttons, got very little work done, phoned the NM 3 times (he’s been using it for a while), managed not to cry twice & had to be shown how to log out but all in all, I consider today a success because despite my frustration @ having stuff to do that I couldn’t physically do, I recognised that I was powerless & I asked for help!

Wow great story and sentiment at the end ;o)

It just reminded me when I used to have a job that was so overwhelming that I used to spend long periods locked in the cubicle freaking out. In my heyday that's where you wouldve found me after a day like you've had.

Wasn't it Gandhi that said "let go, let go, let go"... I love the fact that you were able to accept the powerlessness and not only that... You were even able to embrace it and it served to be marker by which you rated your day :o)

Its got me thinking about control and the innate need for a gambler to control a set of circumstances that are to one extent or another uncontrollable (it doesn't really matter what your game of choice is)

Like we said the other day - there is no such thing as a system! Ha ha... Maybe I need to apply this thinking in my daily life... It seems to have served you well today! Nice one!

Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Worrying: Amazon.co.uk: Allen Carr: 9780572028787: Books
https://www.amazon.co.uk › Allen-Carrs-...

Mwahahaha...Can’t buy a BT engineer but I can buy a cure for World Peace, he does do an Easy Way to Stop War right? Didn’t Roger Hargreaves write the Childrens equivalents back in the 70’s...And Zammo from Grange Hill the teenage ones in the 80’s?!?

Can’t believe it didn’t cure you Duncs...You sure you read it right 😉

Was just wondering what's the difference between the " Easy way to stop smoking " and " The Easy way for women to stop smoking " ? I also noticed he has a book now titled " The only way to stop smoking permanently " so were the other two just leading up to stopping or didn't they work ? .

Kerrrrchiiing ! :)).

Hot off the press , " The only way to get rid of Donald trump permenently , forever , I promise " . (sound's hopefull ) x

Pops, you missed:

• Allen Carr's How to be a Happy Non-smoker

which I supposed @ least acknowledges the fact that giving up isn’t exactly what one might call fun!

SOZ !! :((

Allen Carr’s easy way to become a millionaire start writing books !!

All we need now is The Easy Way To See 'em Coming. Oh, wait 😉