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Control is not a dirty word. The problem is when we keep trying to control what we have no business controlling.

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This quest is not just about Serenity, it's also about Courage and, most importantly, Wisdom.

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It is not just about learning to let go and learning courage. It is about knowing when to fight for change, and when to learn to live with what is.

In other words, blind acceptance of everything is not a virtue any more than indiscriminate fighting is. There is a time and place for each.

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Wisdom is not something that is magically, suddenly imparted on us. It is a process.

We acquire wisdom by making decisions. Some of them work out well; some don't. We learn through trial and error.

Part of the process is granting ourselves the permission to make the mistakes through which we may learn.

"the only promise the program offers is freedom from active addiction", but the rewards of staying clean and living by the spiritual principles of the program, are endless.
i was a hopeless dopefiend living on the streets of chicago.  i had surrendered completely to the  disease of addiction.  i gave up my job, my home and my family.  today i do not surrender to my disease but to my higher power, and to the program.  i have regained most everything i had once lost and then some.  but most of all i have me.  i have my dignity and self respect back.
hopeless dopefiend?  i don't think so.  dopeless hopefiend?  definitely.  
all praise and glory to Jesus for getting me here.

A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Dont talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

-paul simon


i remember when i was young and in religion class, i dont remember what grade, but i had a teacher who liked to bring his guitar to class.  kinda strange, but i guess he kept it interesting that way.  i remember him playing the simon and garfunkel song "i am a rock", boy am i old, huh?  lol.  i don't remember what he said about the song in his lesson, but i remember what i thought about, and what i still think about today when i hear it.

i was a little young when i first heard it, but even at that time i thought it was kind of a sad song, because it was about someone who was incapable of, or chose not to feel feelings. as a child i thought this was sad because it meant this person could not be happy. i didn't have any idea at that time just how realistically that song would reflect how i felt in my life, before, especially during, and even sometimes after my active addiction.  it would become sort of an anthem to me.

i was not always incapable of feeling, i know i did experience all sorts of feelings growing up, but by the time i came into adulthood, i had become very adept at deciding just what i would allow myself to feel. until somewhere along the line the pain became so great i just shut down,and stopped feeling anything. that may sound crazy to whoever reads this, but i believe i had developed the ability to just not feel. i was a rock, and i didn't cry. or laugh.  especially as my addiction progressed. 

one of the most wonderful gifts recovery has given me is the ability to feel.  when i first came into recovery i was totally shut down and isolated.  i felt nothing, not even shame or remorse.  no sadness or joy, just numb.  slowly that began to change as i developed the tools necessary to cope with my feelings.   at one point i believe i started to feel the full range of emotions, just as God intended.  i learned to love and be loved.  but  in all lives, a little rain must fall.  i experienced the end of a relationship, had some other losses and before i realize it, im alone and numb again.  it is my defense mechanism i guess.  i find my walls coming back up today.  the familiar numbness creeping back in.  i'm finding it hard to love or accept love again.

 the difference between then and now is that now i can recognize what i'm doing and change the pattern of behavior.  i have the ability to change today.  the question is, will i change or will i continue to wallow in it?  what i have learned is, when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change, i will change.  i'm learning to lower my walls, but i am not yet as adept at taking them down as i am at building them.  i am a work in progress.

many of my childhood memories are sketchy, at best.  especially those involving my father.  some of the memory has been lost to the years, some to the fears, and some to the ravages of addiction.  but it's the memories of my father that have been weighing on me recently.  remembering my father does not often make me feel warm and fuzzy, instead it usually makes me sad.  our relationship was a very painful one most of the time.  when i think of him the thing i remember most was wanting him to love me, and to be proud of me.  i wanted that validation from him, and it wasn't there.  i always felt as if i were a disappointment to him, and i believe that for the most part, as a child i was.  i finally got a taste of that validation in the days before he died.  i was 17, and i remember he told me that i was a lovely young woman and that he was proud of me.  i felt warm and fuzzy.  a day or two later he told me he wanted to die.  i remember the devestation of knowing he would choose to leave me.  i loved him very much, but i needed something from him he did not know how to give.  i worked frantically trying to change his mind, i made it my responsibilty to save him from himself.  i failed.  in the letter he left behind he told me he loved me.  in the years that followed i tortured myself with guilt.  he finally loved me and was proud of me, but just that fast he had left me.  not by a devestating physical illness, but by choice.  i don't blame him for the path i chose to walk in my life, but i do believe that that event triggered all of the thought processes that followed for the next 20 or so years.  my lack of self worth and self respect.  i had no love for myself anymore. a few years ago i heard a song by luther vandross called "dance with my father", and at first it made me smile because a pleasant memory krept in.  i suddenly remembered being very young and standing on the tops of his feet as he "danced" around the room with me.  but as the song progressed i got very sad, because i realized how few precious memories i actually had of him, and also that i could never get that back.  as i moved into my life i spent many years trying to die, or wishing i could die and sometime in my 30's i headed down a path of total self destruction.  i heard the song again the other day and when it first started i got that warm fuzzy feeling again and i smiled, but as before, by the time it ended i was sad.  this time i realized how precious a gift life is, and how much time i wasted not enjoying it.  trying to end it.  what had i denied my own children of that i could never go back and give them?  i can't remember if i ever "danced" with my daughters or not.  today i am 46 years old and my life has taken a different course.  i have grandchildren now.  i pray the good Lord allows me the gift of life for as long as it takes to get to "dance" with them.  and when i do i will remember it.  i miss my father today still  and the pain stays as fresh as if it all happened yesterday.  maybe thats because there hasnt been a day gone by in almost 30 years that i haven't relived the whole awful event in my mind.  i still deal with feelings of failure and inadaquacy.  i dont think it will ever go away.  but thats okay, if not for the pain, i may never have learned to recognize joy.  i am grateful for the few happy times i do remember.  i'd rather have had those few than none at all.  some of the not so happy childhood memories have faded slightly over the years.  i'm glad i had the "dance".