1. Drugs gave me wings then they took my sky away At first drugs are amazing and gave me this rush of excitement and clarity, they made me more social and I felt like I fit in. Over time, I began to distrust everyone and I constantly chased the greatest high. Eventually, I got to the point I used just to feel less bad, because I always felt horrible and I was constantly paranoid of everyone and everything.
2. It is called alcohol-ism not alcohol-wasm This is not a disease that will go away. I am an addict and an alcoholic for the rest of my life. As Verbal Kent says in the movie The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The same is true of my addiction.
3. I was the black sheep of my family until I came to NA and found the rest of my flock I never felt like I fit in to my family, I was an embarrassment. I was the one who was in and out of jail and went to prison. I was the one with all of the mental health problems. I was the one with the addiction issues. I was the one who could never be counted on. When I started going to recovery meetings I found others who had been the black sheep in their family, and they had gotten better.
4. Give us 90 meetings in 90 days and if at the end of that you are not fully satisfied we will gladly refund your misery It is not that 90 days is a magic number, nor is 90 meetings the magical amount. Instead, going to at least one meeting every day for three months give us structure and consistency in our life and allows for us to meet a lot of people in recovery and begin to make friends with positive, sober people
5. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results Also defined as doing the same thing over and over again, knowing the outcome yet doing it anyway. They both mean the same thing, that as addicts we will tell ourselves lies to continue our addiction, such as I can drink just one beer or I won’t get arrested this time if I use.
6. I may not always know God’s will but I will always know what God’s will is not I do not know for a fact what the plans for my life are, what my successes will be or how I will accomplish them. I do, how ever, know the quickest ways to derail my future and make sure that I don’t succeed in life. I may not know for a fact what God has called me to do but I can reason out with pretty good certainty what He does not want me doing.
7. If you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got also said as, “If you want to change who you are change what you do.” If I continue to make the same choices, go to the same places and hang out with the same people I will always have the same outcome. Basically, if I am unhappy with the outcome in my life I need to change all of the inputs.
8. I used to be a hopeless dope fiend now I am a dopeless hope fiend I changed this one to “I went from dealing dope to dealing hope. There was a time that I had no hope and my entire life was focused on getting and staying high. Today, I no longer do drugs and my entire life is focused on sharing the hope of a better life in recovery with everyone I come into contact with.
9. People who judge don’t matter and people who matter don’t judge This is a way for me to see that if people are not able to see me for who I am today and not who I used to be in my addiction, I don’t need them in my life. This does not mean that what other people think is unimportant. If I offend others and they have good reason to feel that offense it is on me to adjust my behavior and/or attitude. I need to realize that other people’s feelings are valid, otherwise I will fall back into my old addictive narcissism and the general lack of respect for everyone but me I had in my old criminal lifestyle.
10. Holding a resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die When I have a resentment against anyone, it is never them that it hurts. They may have forgotten about it, or have forgiven me or simply no longer care. The only person it really impacts is me. I cannot make a better past for myself, but I can make a less stressful present and future by learning to let go of things instead of holding on to them. Keeping that resentment alive creates a chance for relapse in my future.
11. The world record is 24 hoursSome people get caught up in the amount of time that someone else has and they put them or a pedestal, or even worse they get overconfident because of the amount of clean time that they have. Both of these can and will lead to relapse. The truth is, I cannot stay sober on the work I did yesterday, so I need to focus on the things I can do today for if I don’t I will not stay sober.
12. Don’t quit before the miracle happens We forget that we did not get addicted overnight, so we will not get into recovery that way. Time takes time, and we need to be patient because if we give up we will never attain recovery. Sometimes we forget that, because we are addicts and we want what we want and we want it now. Life doesn’t happen that way very often, and neither does recovery but it will as long as we don’t give up and keep doing the next right thing.
13. I can’t, God can so let Him This is an eloquent way to put the first 3 steps. We found in our addiction that we were powerless and could not control everything in our lives so it is time to turn it over to someone who can. I have also heard the 1st 3 steps translated as, “There is a power that wants to kill me and a power that wants me to live. Which do I want to do? (if you want to die you can stop here, other wise keep working the steps)
14. I looked to a drug for courage and it made me a coward We may take a drug or drink to give us courage to deal with something that we feel we could not deal with on our own. Eventually we discover that if we stay messed up we can stay numb and emotionally unavailable so we let drugs take our life over. In time, we use them to avoid anything and everything, which is a sign of cowardice and fear.
15. You are either working on recovery or working on a relapse Another way to say this is, “If you are not working on the solution you are working on the problem” as well as, “You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.” There is no gray area in recovery, you are either putting it first in your life so that you can stay ahead of your addiction or you are slacking and eventually your addiction will become stronger than your desire to stay sober.
16. My mind is a scary place to be all by myself This is also said as, “Your best thinking got you here.” It means that we struggle as addicts with a condition that Mark Lundholm calls, “First thought wrong” and I say is more like first five thoughts wrong. I need to surround myself with positive sober people and be willing to listen to their feedback and apply it to my life because my thinking patterns are faulty when I first get into sobriety.
17. I wouldn’t trade my worst day sober for my best day high also shared as, “I may not be where I want to be but thank God I’m not where I was.” The truth of this one is that over time we no longer use to feel good, instead we use to feel less bad. This is because of a severe depletion of various neurotransmitters in our brain and using being the only way to obtain them. Add to that the hopelessness of addiction and we find ourselves getting stuck in a rut. The reality of my addiction was that no matter how great today was I would still be running from my feelings, trying to escape life and being overly paranoid tomorrow. In my recovery I know that no matter how bad things are going today they will be better in the future.
18. Being humble doesn’t mean we think less of ourselves, it means we think of ourselves less This simply means that when I am humble I do not think that I am less than anyone or everyone else. Being humble just means that I have learned to put the needs of others before the wants I have. This has also been said as pride is who is right while humility is what is right.
19. Give all your problems to God. He’ll be up all night anyway We tend to hold onto things that we can do nothing about, beating ourselves up over our past and stressing ourselves out over our future when what we really need to do is focus on today because that is where change happens. To give us more energy physically, emotionally and psychologically we need to learn to let things go and there is no one better to turn those things over to than God. After all, He knows all about it anyway.
20. The good news is your feelings come back. The bad news is your feelings come back When we get clean and sober our feelings start to come back, which is amazing. I can feel genuine happiness, love, compassion and joy. Those feelings are amazing. But if I can feel again, that also means that I now have to deal with grief, loss, depression and heart ache. On one hand, yeah!!!! On the other hand………….Boo!
21. I’m allergic to drugs and alcohol. Every time I use I break out in handcuffs and felony chargesPretty self-explanatory, if I get into trouble when I use that sets a pattern that I should not continue if I no longer want to get into trouble. Much like an allergy, if I have a bad reaction to eating something I generally avoid it so I should do the same with drugs and alcohol because I have already experienced the outcome of using them.
22. People may not always believe what I say but they will always believe what I do Simply stated, actions speak louder than words. To the people who matter the most to us, our word has probably lost all meaning. We have burned bridges by continuously lying, stealing, cheating and manipulating people. They are no longer going to believe what we have to say, so instead we have to show them that we are telling the truth through our actions and choices over time.
23. I stopped counting the days and started making the days countIn the end, who cares how much clean time you have? I have seen people with 6 months making a bigger impact on the recovery community than people with 20 years. It is not about who has the most, but instead what you do with it. I would rather focus on what I can do to make myself and the people around me stronger and wiser than get caught up in the amount of clean time I have. Clean time will not keep you clean.
24. It is not what I know that keeps me sober, it is what I do that keeps me sober We hear people spout the Big Book, quoting it by page and then reeling off one of the steps telling someone else what to do and we begin to think that person has it together. That can lead us to stumble. I have heard a drunk at a bar quoting the Big Book to the person drinking next to him. Knowing and doing are two completely different things. Never forget that. See #22
25. What happened in the past is over. You can’t unscramble scrambled eggs This is also quoted as once you are a pickle, you can never be a cucumber again. They both mean the same thing, you cannot change the past. In fact, getting stuck on the past often leads to relapse and it always takes our focus off of today. The truth is, I thank God every day for prison, the physical and sexual abuse I experienced as a youth as well as my addiction. They all made the person I am today, and that person is a Hope Dealer. If not for all of the things that I have encountered, I would not have the strength and wisdom that I do today. Make amends, give the rest to God and move on. Never forget: You are exactly where you need to be!
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