Posts Tagged: addiction and recovery

“A Long Slow Series of Clicks”

On October 11, 2023 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Follow me!” (Jesus)

“I believe in you, Jesus.” (Me)

“Good! Now follow me!” (Jesus)

A friend of mine has gotten super-serious about recovering from addiction. He used to feel that he was “terminally unique.” God loved everyone else in the universe, except for him. He felt like a mistake.

And then, my friend wrote something in his email report that I will never forget, something that will haunt and prod and help me to my dying day. “Thankfully by some grace of some power bigger than myself that I don’t understand, something clicked eventually, and it’s been a long slow series of clicks since then.”

Something clicked. Yes! But there are also those long, slow subsequent clicks. Recovery from addiction, learning Spanish (or anything else), the quest for wisdom, dieting—any good thing you can name—involve something clicking. But more importantly, all good things involve a number of slow clicks.

I once read something to the effect that, for too many people, “the Christian faith is often a sudden spasm followed by a long lethargy.” (Or was it “. . . followed by a long paralysis”?) That is not really the Christian faith, but a pale imitation of it. It is sometimes called “easy believe-ism”, but I prefer to call it just plain false.

Jesus did not speak simply of believing in him. He also spoke of following him. It was one of the main ways in which Jesus spoke of the life to which he was calling his disciples, then and now. With only one exception, Jesus’ call to be his disciple/s is in the present tense in Greek. The present tense connotes ongoing, repetitive, life-style actions. A good question for disciples of Christ to ask every day and many times during the day is this: Am I following Jesus right now?

May we all keep clicking along in our followership today!

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“Hermione Released”

On February 24, 2023 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

A great blue heron was released back into the wild on Monday. Hermione had somehow gotten a hook stuck at her neck. She couldn’t eat. The wound became infected with mites. She was a few hours away from dying.

But someone here at the RV resort where we are staying called the wild bird rescue people. Surgery, antibiotics, and a lot of Loving Care led to her return to Lake Ibis. My wife and I were there when they let her out of her cage and she flew across the lake and landed in her favorite tree.

Those who were watching cried, cheered, and laughed. It was a wonderful moment when my faith in the kindness and caring hearts of human beings was restored. I think I was let out of a cage of cynicism that has developed over the past several years of political and social turmoil.

But above all, I thought of my fellow addicts who are in recovery. We have been let out of our self-imposed cages, free to fly again. Was there some effort on our part? Yes, of course. But then there were our fellow addicts who helped get the hooks out of our necks, who helped us to heal, who fed us with her own experience, strength, and hope when we had none of our own.

And then, of course, there was our higher power. Some of us know that that higher power is called God. And some of us not only believe in God, but also in God’s son Jesus Christ. And we believe that he has set us free.

The word for salvation in Hebrew in the Old Testament is a word which means “to give space or to give room to someone or something”. A lot of people, I am afraid, think that Christianity is a matter of constricting people, of restricting people. Frankly, we Christians often give unbelievers that impression. However, the basic word for salvation is a word which speaks of ultimate freedom and not constriction or restriction. We may need to be in cages for our own protection for a little while during the healing process. But that is very temporary.

Faith in God frees us to fly again, to live again.

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“Making People Walk the Plank or Loving People as They Are?”

On July 22, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

You gotta love people as they are, not as they aren’t. If you love people as they aren’t, you aren’t. That is, you aren’t loving them.

I read a story today as part of my addiction recovery work. The story compared recovery to sailing. People were setting sail for the Island of Serenity onboard a ship named “Recovery.”

It was a good analogy, but I got off-course—of course. I said to myself, being cooped up on a small ship with a bunch of selfish, obsessive, compulsive people—yep! That sounds like recovery!

In fact, it sounds like the church, family, my softball league, my new chess club, and every other group of which I’ve ever been a member. If you put two or more people together in anything for any reason, then you have two or more selfish people. The closer the proximity the more that selfishness will wear on everyone.

There is only one person on the ship that I can do much about, and that is me. The others, I have to learn to put up with. Putting up with others isn’t the same as loving them, but putting up with them is a necessary precondition for loving them.

So, before you and I make anyone walk the plank, we might want to remember that we need all the crew members if we are to reach our common destination. It might help also to reflect on the fact that there are many times when others have wanted us to walk the plank.

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“No Matter How Far You’ve Traveled”

On July 18, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“No matter how far you’ve traveled on the road of recovery, the ditch is still the same distance away.” (From a 12-step friend who got it from another wise recovering person.)

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:27, English Standard Version)

When this covid-19 plague got going, I stopped. I stopped going, that is. I didn’t drive for weeks on end. There was nowhere to drive that I wanted to go. When I finally drove for the first time in a long while, I noticed that the ditch seemed closer than usual.

Well, no, that can’t be right! I was just a little rusty in my driving skills, and a bit more prone to weaving. The truth is that the ditch is in the same place it was before the pandemic began.

Now that I’m driving a bit more, it is important to remember that the ditch is still in the same place. And no matter how far I drive, it is still going to be about the same distance from the highway. And that means that the ditch is going to be close to the road. I still need to be careful. I still need to pay attention, and not speed.

So it is with life. So it is with my life as a Christ-follower. So it is with my recovery from addiction. Confident is not far from cocky, and cocky is not far from the ditch. Sometimes I think that cocky is the ditch.

Of course, being uptight can also land me in the ditch. If I get too anxious about life, following Christ, being a good husband, or addiction recovery, I am likely to oversteer. And a person who oversteers is an accident just waiting to happen.

What is the solution, if both cockiness and uptightness are problems?

Relaxed attentiveness! And for me as a Christ-follower, both relaxation and attentiveness have the same origin: trusting God. When I remember that God is actively involved in my life, I can relax, knowing that I am loved. I can also pay attention to the road in front of me.

Remembering that the ditch is still the same distance from the road doesn’t mean that I have to end up there.

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“Winning the Moment”

On May 5, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

 “Success is taking positive action, nothing more.” (From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey)

A friend of mine trains student athletes. He talks to them about “winning the moment.” His point is that you don’t have to wait until the end of the game to win. You can win three hundred times during the game by winning the moment.

What would winning the moment look like for me today?

  • Avoiding time wasters such as computer games, looking back on the past with either longing or regret, looking to the future with either fear or false hope.
  • Attending to my own recovery from my addiction.
  • Helping others with their recovery.
  • Writing.
  • Learning to write better.
  • Working on book reviews.
  • Taking good care of the house and our little corner of Eden.
  • Taking good care of our little dog.
  • Loving my wife.
  • Not talking too much.
  • Eating wisely.
  • Exercising.
  • Learning a bit more Spanish.

Well, there! My day lies before me. God, let’s win the moments! Let’s also help others to win their moments.

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“CAN I MOVE?”

On March 21, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

 “Can I move?” (Sundance to Percy Garris, in the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”  Sundance and Butch Cassidy were being interviewed for the position of payroll guards.  Percy had thrown a large gold coin a few yards away from Sundance.  However, Sundance had missed his first shot, with both the shooter and the target stationary.  After asking, “Can I move?” he moved, and hit the target—not once, but twice. After reholstering his revolver, Sundance said, “I’m better when I move.”  He got the job.)

I was reading a 12-step meditation this morning.  The author started off with a familiar Mother Goose rhyme.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”

And then, the author made a wonderful interpretive move on this very familiar rhyme.  The author suggested that, maybe, Humpty Dumpty just sat too long in one place.

I had never thought of that before.  It is amazing how much wisdom there is in apparently nonsensical (or at least simple) children’s rhymes.

We have a saying in addiction recovery meetings, “Move a muscle, change a thought.”  The idea is that if we are engaging in unhealthy, unhelpful thinking, the best thing we can do often is to move.  I have found this to be very helpful.

I am prone to blood clots, and the blood clots are prone to go to my lungs, heart, and brain.  One of these days, it is possible that, despite Warfarin (a.k.a. “rat poison”), one of these clots is going to do me in.  However, one of the ways in which I try to prevent clots from forming in the first place is to move around.  For example, I use the Promodoro Technique.  It is very simple.  I set an alarm clock to go off every twenty-five minutes.  Then, I take either a five-minute or a fifteen-minute break, and move around.  When the break is over, I reset the alarm for another twenty-five minutes.  This also helps my back and hip not to hurt so much.

So, if you’re struggling with unhelpful, unhealthy thoughts, you might want to try moving a bit.  It probably won’t hurt, and it might help.

This morning, I am having (or being had by??) by some unhealthy thoughts.  They, of course, lead to depressing thoughts, which are also unhealthy for me.  I sent a rather self-pitying email report to my sponsor, and he fired back a very unsympathetic (but very helpful) reply.

“No pity party allowed. You are in control of your own happiness.

God has given us a beautiful day. This could be the last snowfall of the season. How are you going to embrace it?”

Man, is my sponsor ever a good one!

Here is my reply.

“Thanks for the cold water.  No, really!  Thanks!

I will go for a walk in the snow, and make a snow man.  (I also need to clean off the driveway, but I think I’ll do the fun stuff first.)”

Excuse the abrupt ending to this post.  I need to go outside and play in the snow.  I’m better when I move.

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