The State Of My Recovery

I really feel like I should post more personal stuff on this site. I am just another recovering person but my life is so full of blessings. I know that when I am down it sometimes help me to look at the blessings in someone else’s life in order to see the blessings in mine.

Since I started this podcast life has changed so much, which in reality is basically what has happened since I entered a recovery program. I have been really willing to change the way I think and live and have found things in life that really are beyond anything I could’ve imagined.

Sure in the past and even today I fight the change as I struggle to remind myself of the mistakes of my past. Learning is a struggle sometimes. In fact it is a struggle most times. I guess that is the only way it could be. It seems as my life does achieve balance I look for the reasons why it shouldn’t be.

I know in the last couple of months as I have had less free time my meeting attendance has gone down and as a result my spirituality has suffered. Not only am I blatenly aware of this but I remind myself of it on a daily basis. I am now trying to refocus my spiritual effort in order to find that balance again.

I feel great most days but I know it could be better and I find myself back to the ego way of making decisions. I recognize that I am not in charge but when I am making decisions sometimes I don’t recognize the truth of my existence.

I work in an environment where disease is all around. I form a shield daily and don’t let myself get to deeply involved with it. I even turned down an invite to a Super Bowl party because I know there would be people and factors there not healthy to my recovery. It is funny how I look at my recovery. I think it is sacred but it can improve dramatically.

The outlook is good for the next couple of months. My wife will be back to working the same hours as I do so I will be able to attend more meetings at night while she can watch my son. I also have cut way back on my television, focusing more on working out and reading. I also am taking more quiet time.

I have found it hard to meditate though. I seems like all of the meditation skills I learned before have left me and I find it hard to quiet my mind. Mostly of the excitement in my mind is positive because there are definetely more wonderful things happening in my life than bad things. Either way I need to find that strong connection again. The thing is that since I have refocused a couple of weeks ago the connection is growing stronger and I am feeling better all of the time.

Next month I am going on the 1st what I call “real vacation” in my life. When I was a child growing up in Southern California we used to only go on vacation to Las Vegas. When I moved to Las Vegas I only went on vacation to Southern California. What is real about that? Next month my wife and I will be going to Cabo San Lucas for a week to celebrate my 24th birthday and our 5th wedding anniversary.

When I look at that last paragraph I see so many blessings. Not only am I still married (I was seperated when I came into recovery) but I am still alive. I also will get to celebrate something which I never did and I am going on my 1st “REAL VACATION”. Did I also mention that my job is going really well and I moved into my dream house three months ago! WOW so many blessings.

I am going to call this post “The State of My Recovery”. I really do this all of the time but I never have done it in this form. This is really a daily inventory for me. I look at the good and what I need to work on as well as the big picture. By the big picture I mean where in general is my life heading and how am I in tune with it. I also look at in general where my spirituality and recovery are.

If you got this far I want to thank you for reading all of this and allowing me to share it with you. I do enjoy sharing not only my blessings but my lessons from recovery and addiction. I will get the next podcast up soon. Thank for being there.

Shawn C.