September is National Recovery Month.
The focus of my blogs throughout the month of September will be on addiction and its life destroying tendencies. The writings derive from my own personal experiences of battling addiction and living a life of recovery.
Today is a continuation of my September 6th post and is the final day I will be writing about the Acknowledge part of the acronym ACT.
ACT leads to sobriety…
A – Acknowledge you have a problem and you are powerless over it and you need help.
C – Connect with a power greater than you and people who have solutions that will help you conquer your problem.
T – Take positive, recovery-oriented action every day.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was hoping that my acknowledgement of God would restore my sanity and take my compulsion to use away from me instantly.
Recovery doesn’t work that way. It is not a one and done.
Recovery is a verb.
I was told during the very early stages of my sobriety that my recovery was contingent upon my spiritual condition and my spiritual condition was contingent upon my willingness to surrender my life to God on a daily basis. I was told by people who were successful in their recovery that I needed to work Steps 1, 2 and 3 on a daily basis.
Step 1–Admitted I was powerless over my addiction and my life had become unmanageable.
Step 2–Came to believe a power greater than me could restore my sanity.
Step 3–Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him.
Abbreviated version = I can’t (Step 1), God can (Step 2), I think I will let Him (Step 3)
What I haven’t mentioned up to this point is my butt was on the line. I was in all kinds of trouble. Due to the fact I was stealing drugs from the pharmacies I worked at, I had my own personal DEA agent I corresponded with on a weekly basis. The State Board of Pharmacy was most likely going to take my license away and the local Sheriff and County Prosecutor were following the DEA agent’s lead on what to do with me.
If I used again, I was done. I had no room for error, so I tried my best to listen to the winners who were in recovery and do what they told me to do.
For the last 10,987 days (30 years, 28 days) I’ve been surrendering my addiction and my life to God first thing in the morning.
For 10,987 day I’ve been Acknowledging the fact, that I can’t and God can–so I let Him.
I totally agree with the opening quote–Transformation definitely happens on the other side of surrender…you don’t have to be an addict to benefit from surrendering your life to God.
Tomorrow I will begin sharing my experiences about the Connect stage of the ACT recovery acronym.
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
