This was a post from one of our members from 2007 but it hits home, as what this man says was true for me also. My subsitute from my addictions was learning computers and designing and maintaining recovery sites for the last 7 years and plan on continuing as long as I can.
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Substitutes: ...............
When I first came into sobriety, I had to think of substitutes.
No. Not substitutes like…beer for wine….or wine for vodka….
More like:
1) substitutes for the time in the day and night when I picked up.
2) substitutes for the time I was unconscious after picking up.
3) substitutes for the Persons, Places and Things with which I picked up.
4) substitutes for the way in which I thought about picking up.
5) substitutes for the way in which I felt emotionally about picking up.
6) and substitutes for the way in which I had liquefied my spiritual life.
Some of my substitutes were playing in AA softball games, writing poems and short stories, and riding shotgun when taking a wet to a detox.
I sort of gave up on acquaintances with whom I associated when I drank. I didn't see them for a long time.
I had to think of consequences and not passing out to stop the pain.
I had to feel the pain inflicted by the big trauma, or my excuse for drinking. I had to remember not to pick at the scab of that sacred wound which had functioned as my invitation to alcohol. Picking at the would is called "rumination"...Chewing emotional hurts over and over and over again. Think of it as picking the scab off...again and again and again. And I wondered why I didn't feel better when I drank. It took fourteen years of therapy...but...things are not perfect, but a darn site more comfortable.
I had to solidify my spiritual life, first through church attendance and then through classes at a seminary. Then came the division of the religious and the spiritual and the broader acceptance of spiritual though the reading of other Religions, Philosophies and Theologies.
The biggest substitute were writing the little check marks in the columns of the fourth step, sharing it, and getting direction on how to do restitution for the garbage.
For some garbage, no restitution will be done. This is some of the institutional garbage. Given the circumstances I could not be responsible for the outcome or the psychotic episode which I was shoved into having.
Yes. I am dually diagnosed which means that I have at least two write ups in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association.
A good guesstimate of Dullies in Alcoholics Anonymous is about 35% while the guesstimate for Narcotics Anonymous raises to 50%.
So if you were told everything would get better once you were clean and sober, and now you are clean and sober and you feel like a tilted windmill, maybe you should think about seeing an Addictionologist who is also a Psychiatrist or Doctor of Psychology.
This is the Reader' Digest version of my traipsing around in A. A.
If you have substitutes, could you share them?
------------------
Substitutes: ...............
When I first came into sobriety, I had to think of substitutes.
No. Not substitutes like…beer for wine….or wine for vodka….
More like:
1) substitutes for the time in the day and night when I picked up.
2) substitutes for the time I was unconscious after picking up.
3) substitutes for the Persons, Places and Things with which I picked up.
4) substitutes for the way in which I thought about picking up.
5) substitutes for the way in which I felt emotionally about picking up.
6) and substitutes for the way in which I had liquefied my spiritual life.
Some of my substitutes were playing in AA softball games, writing poems and short stories, and riding shotgun when taking a wet to a detox.
I sort of gave up on acquaintances with whom I associated when I drank. I didn't see them for a long time.
I had to think of consequences and not passing out to stop the pain.
I had to feel the pain inflicted by the big trauma, or my excuse for drinking. I had to remember not to pick at the scab of that sacred wound which had functioned as my invitation to alcohol. Picking at the would is called "rumination"...Chewing emotional hurts over and over and over again. Think of it as picking the scab off...again and again and again. And I wondered why I didn't feel better when I drank. It took fourteen years of therapy...but...things are not perfect, but a darn site more comfortable.
I had to solidify my spiritual life, first through church attendance and then through classes at a seminary. Then came the division of the religious and the spiritual and the broader acceptance of spiritual though the reading of other Religions, Philosophies and Theologies.
The biggest substitute were writing the little check marks in the columns of the fourth step, sharing it, and getting direction on how to do restitution for the garbage.
For some garbage, no restitution will be done. This is some of the institutional garbage. Given the circumstances I could not be responsible for the outcome or the psychotic episode which I was shoved into having.
Yes. I am dually diagnosed which means that I have at least two write ups in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association.
A good guesstimate of Dullies in Alcoholics Anonymous is about 35% while the guesstimate for Narcotics Anonymous raises to 50%.
So if you were told everything would get better once you were clean and sober, and now you are clean and sober and you feel like a tilted windmill, maybe you should think about seeing an Addictionologist who is also a Psychiatrist or Doctor of Psychology.
This is the Reader' Digest version of my traipsing around in A. A.
If you have substitutes, could you share them?
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