Life forced upon me the bit in recovery that I was terrified of, the bit I couldn't face, the bit I thought I would never do. I probably would never of done it if life hadn't made me. That incredibly terrifying bit about admitting to yourself and another human being the exact nature of your wrongs. I have been skirting round this for months and months not knowing how to go about it, and then suddenly - whoa, bam, it all suddenly happened, the secret was out, I pretty much had a breakdown, didn't think I could carry on living, the protective shell fell from me and then........
.........I transformed.......into a calm person, a person who can finally stop obsessing over herself, someone who can start learning to love and cherish others, someone who isn't driven to prove herself because really she knows she is evil, someone who will allow herself to live on lifes terms, someone who isn't desperate to control everything, someone who isn't presenting a false persona..........I'm someone who has been freed, someone who has had the darkest dingyest and most shameful closet flung open and light has poured in.........someone who realises that the answer isn't in making myself happy, but ensuring the happiness of everyone, someone who isn't self centred, but someone who can look out and see other people - other precious human beings walking the planet. Someone who feels calm and peaceful, someone who has lost the stress, the anxiety, the impatience, someone who has embraced peace and serenity, someone who values other people.
God, Martin was right - the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis!
I do feel like I have been reborn. I look back on the me of a month ago and that was a person in pain, a person carrying such a weight, a person with a grim secret locked away, a person with huge delusions, a person with armour like a fortress, a person acting in a role, an unhappy, unfulfilled, very sad person.
I can't believe what has happened. I can't believe that the thing I dreaded most is bringing me to this point.
I have fundamentally changed inside. I am a different person to the one I was a few weeks ago.
I would not wish to go back to that place.
I wish now to develop my spirituality and my love for other people. I wish to eradicate my self cherishing, bring positivity into my mind and share it with others. No man is an island. We are all interconnected, we all have to work for each others peace and happiness.
If six billion people just try to make themselves happy, the world is a sorry place.
If six billion people tried to make everybody else happy, the world would be a much nicer place.
I'm happy for you, Lacey...sounds like a crossroad and a seminal event for you...
Peace~MomNMore
Peace~MomNMore
Good innit?
I take full credit for it all. lol
It only took me fifty one years of getting myself and my life completely wrong, and God finally losing patience and loving me towards health despite myself.
Thanks for the mention Lacey, but "I" can't even take credit for sharing lol.....I'm just following, as best I can....following my HP, who I really do have to call God because it is God who kicked down the wall of my darkening fortress and showed me the way to find my inner spirit..... and it is my inner spirit I'm following....as is God's Will for me.
And boy, you describe what happens so beautifully.....I still have difficult moments and hours and yesterday was a difficult day, but today I was walking along the street and a bubble of joy welled up inside me and made me gasp out loud.....my eyes filled with tears of gratitude and love of God and the feelings flowed and flowed and I swear I was walking on air and a van pulled up in front of me and the sign on the side said:
"Welcome Home"
Good innit?
Welcome home.
Martin.
I take full credit for it all. lol
It only took me fifty one years of getting myself and my life completely wrong, and God finally losing patience and loving me towards health despite myself.
Thanks for the mention Lacey, but "I" can't even take credit for sharing lol.....I'm just following, as best I can....following my HP, who I really do have to call God because it is God who kicked down the wall of my darkening fortress and showed me the way to find my inner spirit..... and it is my inner spirit I'm following....as is God's Will for me.
And boy, you describe what happens so beautifully.....I still have difficult moments and hours and yesterday was a difficult day, but today I was walking along the street and a bubble of joy welled up inside me and made me gasp out loud.....my eyes filled with tears of gratitude and love of God and the feelings flowed and flowed and I swear I was walking on air and a van pulled up in front of me and the sign on the side said:
"Welcome Home"
Good innit?
Welcome home.
Martin.
Gidday Lacey
Good on you and it works when we work at it:)
light and love Zac
Good on you and it works when we work at it:)
light and love Zac
Hellllooooooooooo too all
I Have lovely days like that, just nice serene days, just getting on with life.
Even though I have some troubles, some big, some small, I'm learning to deal with them, ( on life's terms Not my terms )
Sometimes I even feel quite good with myself, a small step for me.
The Promises
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
God bless you all
P.S.
Think I'll change my Avatar
I Have lovely days like that, just nice serene days, just getting on with life.
Even though I have some troubles, some big, some small, I'm learning to deal with them, ( on life's terms Not my terms )
Sometimes I even feel quite good with myself, a small step for me.
The Promises
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
God bless you all
P.S.
Think I'll change my Avatar
Congratulations on your awakening!
It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I'm so happy for you Lacey!
Smiles and huggs Lacey, and thank you for being part of my recovery
one day at a time, Cookster
one day at a time, Cookster
Thankyou everyone. I cannot believe what happens in recovery, I really can't. As I have said before; when I stopped drinking I thought that's what it was about - just stopping drinking. I did not even in my wildest dreams imagine what would happen as I worked my way down this road.
I am staggered at how self centred I was. I am shocked at what an awful attitude I lived my life with. I am in disbelief about the denial I harboured - and all that was recently! Boy, I must have been one sick person when I was using.
The veil has lifted and now I can see. I'm not blinded by the darkness of delusion that was all encompassing.
I met a girl in NA once and we talked about telling your darkest secrets to someone. She had done it and said that now looking back they don't hold weight like they used to, they aren't important anymore. I couldn't believe how that could work. How could those awful awful things become irrelevant. How could you ever forgive yourself for being an evil person. How could you ever be free from them. How could you ever have the nerve to tell anyone.
In disbelief at what that girl said to me, I ran away with my secrets and sat on them for another nine months - terrified of them.
It so happens that now I have told a few people, and as that girl said it isn't a big deal anymore. How can the mere act of telling someone something free you? That really is something else! I am in awe of this process.
I am grateful to everyone on here who has been a part of that process.
Hi Stacey! Thanks for sharing your elation when you were freed. Hope you had a good holiday!
I am staggered at how self centred I was. I am shocked at what an awful attitude I lived my life with. I am in disbelief about the denial I harboured - and all that was recently! Boy, I must have been one sick person when I was using.
The veil has lifted and now I can see. I'm not blinded by the darkness of delusion that was all encompassing.
I met a girl in NA once and we talked about telling your darkest secrets to someone. She had done it and said that now looking back they don't hold weight like they used to, they aren't important anymore. I couldn't believe how that could work. How could those awful awful things become irrelevant. How could you ever forgive yourself for being an evil person. How could you ever be free from them. How could you ever have the nerve to tell anyone.
In disbelief at what that girl said to me, I ran away with my secrets and sat on them for another nine months - terrified of them.
It so happens that now I have told a few people, and as that girl said it isn't a big deal anymore. How can the mere act of telling someone something free you? That really is something else! I am in awe of this process.
I am grateful to everyone on here who has been a part of that process.
Hi Stacey! Thanks for sharing your elation when you were freed. Hope you had a good holiday!
I'm so happy for you Lacey,
I don't think you were ever "an evil person"... I don't think God makes evil people. I think he gives us the capacity for good and evil and most of us are mostly good and sometimes do things that from a more enlightened perspective aren't good for our souls......but with a step into the light we not only see our old actions for what they were, but also feel pain and regret....and then, quite quickly, that remorse frees us to feel compassion and understanding for our old selves....and we realise that our new selves were not responsible for our less enlightened behaviour.....we are born again in some sense.....is what I think is happening for me, anyway.
We cannot forgive ourselves until we accept that there is something to forgive, which means we must face the truth before we can find freedom from guilt.....and facing the truth, facing reality from a more enlightened perspective, might well be a definition of maturing.
I dunno, lol....and despite my rambling I really do know I dunno, but it's a joy to me to explore and chat about these things.
I'm so happy for you...
Martin
I don't think you were ever "an evil person"... I don't think God makes evil people. I think he gives us the capacity for good and evil and most of us are mostly good and sometimes do things that from a more enlightened perspective aren't good for our souls......but with a step into the light we not only see our old actions for what they were, but also feel pain and regret....and then, quite quickly, that remorse frees us to feel compassion and understanding for our old selves....and we realise that our new selves were not responsible for our less enlightened behaviour.....we are born again in some sense.....is what I think is happening for me, anyway.
We cannot forgive ourselves until we accept that there is something to forgive, which means we must face the truth before we can find freedom from guilt.....and facing the truth, facing reality from a more enlightened perspective, might well be a definition of maturing.
I dunno, lol....and despite my rambling I really do know I dunno, but it's a joy to me to explore and chat about these things.
I'm so happy for you...
Martin
Lacey, when I first entered recovery, I thought A.A. would teach me how to drink successfully. I had no idea the life and the road(journey) that I was getting ready to take
Gidday Lacey
Yeah i can relate to the thinking i was evil due to the insane mix in my head of catholic upbringing with predator priests, cycle of addiction and the insane thoughts that were in my head at times that was the only bonus of being a blackout drinker i didnt have to deal with my thoughts although i still had to wake up to the consequences of them the next day.
Stopping drinking didnt stop Me thinking i was evil but as i prayed to my new god as the old bugga i had in my mind was fired anyway as i prayed people crossed my path that helped me redifine my spirituality and intuitiveness that i shut down when i was a child.
Recovery is such a freeing journey for me and thanks for the post as it has bumped my gratitude more for the day reading others E.S.H
light and love zac
Yeah i can relate to the thinking i was evil due to the insane mix in my head of catholic upbringing with predator priests, cycle of addiction and the insane thoughts that were in my head at times that was the only bonus of being a blackout drinker i didnt have to deal with my thoughts although i still had to wake up to the consequences of them the next day.
Stopping drinking didnt stop Me thinking i was evil but as i prayed to my new god as the old bugga i had in my mind was fired anyway as i prayed people crossed my path that helped me redifine my spirituality and intuitiveness that i shut down when i was a child.
Recovery is such a freeing journey for me and thanks for the post as it has bumped my gratitude more for the day reading others E.S.H
light and love zac
I'm very happy for you Lacey. It sounds like you found freedom from the prison that goes on in our heads. I know I lived in my own personal prison for years swearing that I'd go to my grave with all of the bad, erratical things I've done while I was drinking/using. I just thank God every day for the rooms of recovery. It reall does work if you work it. Good Luck and God Bless.
Lacey you sound so positive it's fantastic! Good for you girlfriend. :-)
