September is National Recovery Month.
My blogs will focus throughout September on addiction and its life-destroying tendencies. The writings derive from my experiences of battling addiction and living a life of recovery.
These specific writings are focused on the ACTÂ acronym.
ACTÂ leads to sobriety…
A – Acknowledge you have a problem, are powerless over it, and need help.
CÂ – Connect with a power greater than you and people with solutions to help you conquer your problem.
T – Take positive, recovery-oriented action every day.
We focused on the Acknowledge and Connected recovery phases early in the month. Recently, we’ve been looking at what it means to Take positive, recovery-oriented action every day.
Today continues this past Sunday’s post (September 25).
Thank God I was in a safe place when I met with the DEA agent. I was as low as I’d ever been when our meeting was over.
After the meeting, I had a special one-on-one session with my counselor. Up to this point, my counselor had been firm and direct with me as she was trying to break through a thick shield of denial.
She could tell that my conversation with Fred had given me more reality than I could handle. I could no longer deny what my choices and addiction had caused.
I sat, cried, and whined dark views of my future to her.
Views like, “I’m going to jail. My family will disown me. My wife will leave me. I will never practice pharmacy again. My kids will be screwed up because of my screw-ups. The people in my hometown will think I’m a joke.” ETC…
Throughout this session, she kept reminding me that I was projecting and that nothing I said was sure to happen, and I needed to stay in today and not journey into tomorrow.
She also reminded me that God was the ultimate judge, and my thoughts about going to jail should be turned over to Him every time they entered my mind.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed looking at the ceiling of the room I shared with another alcoholic/drug addict. I could not believe where my actions had led me and what I had become.
I was always an energetic, goal-driven, action-taking type of person, and now I felt paralyzed and as low as whale dung on the bottom of the ocean floor.
After tossing and turning in bed for a couple of hours, I went downstairs to a lounge area. The only visual recollection I have of that moment is the orange vinyl used to cover the chairs and couches of institutional settings back in those days.
Sitting on the orange couch in the treatment center lounge, I talked with God, and it went something like this.
God, you and I have had an on-again and off-again relationship. There have been times when I have turned my back on you because I felt you did the same to me. I would like to have a clean slate with you going forward.
From this point forward, I am willing to give you my all. If somehow you can use me to prevent another person from ever feeling the pain I’m feeling at this point in my life; I am in. I will never deny you again. Use me as you need me.
I didn’t know it then, but I know it now…my life had started over at that moment. I had taken a major action step by turning my entire life over to God.
My faith of “convenience” had turned into a faith of commitment.
As I look back on that day in my life, my truth to Fred and the TRUTH Jesus provides had absolutely set me free. I had a clean slate going forward.
But there was one key aspect of recovery I needed to understand thoroughly…I will share about that tomorrow.
Psalm 121:2, My help comes from the Lord. The make of heaven and earth.
P.E.A.C.E
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
