I read Jeffersonian Democrat’s story of seeking and finding recovery and it brought back so much of what I had to endure in my early recovery. The most important thing that I found I needed to address was that I continued to fight against my disease.
Surrendering to it and accepting that it had in fact defeated me completely, into a state of incomprehensible moral bankruptcy, physically debilitating me to a point that I no longer resembled a human being and acknowledging that I no longer had the will to fight against it, was indeed my first step.
I have been blessed in my recovery, many loving and giving individuals helped me overcome all the obstacles that I placed in my path to defeat myself and return to active addiction. I was honored to have found a sponsor in 12-step recovery that has worked with me for over 13 years, until I moved away from California.
12-step recovery is available to anyone who feels the need to address a problem with alcohol or drugs. It is free and there are no rules, just suggestions. The five suggestions that I have taken to heart are these:
Go to 12 step meetings
Get a sponsor
Work the steps
Find a higher power that you can work with
Do not use between meetings.
With these simple suggestions, I will have found my way to 18 years in recovery come August 31, 2005.
It is indeed a long way from finding myself laying in my own urine, feces and vomit, in a cardboard box in downtown San Diego, California on August 31, 1985. Paralyzed and unable to comprehend what had just happened to me the night before.
I hope that this will give you an idea of the power of the Disease of Addiction.
This is a personal rendition of I am your disease From Courage to Change
The disease of addiction hates 12 step meetings; it hates all who have found the miracle of 12-step recovery. Our disease continues to despise all who have found a program of recovery that comes in contact with it. Addictive disease continues to seek only continued suffering and death for all addicts.
Let me introduce you to the disease of addiction, it is cunning, baffling, powerful and it has caused millions to suffer and killed many millions more as it spreads across our world.
It is indeed a trickster, catching us by surprise, pretending to be a friend and confidant.
This disease in the beginning offers comfort and solace, being available when we are lonely, when life was desperate and we wanted to die, did we not call out for its soothing comfort when life was truly hard or interestingly bright and good.
It was there first as comfort then it made us hurt and wail, then it begins to make us numb so that we can neither cry nor hurt any longer. This disease strives to achieve in the addict the ability to feel nothing.
The true brilliance of the disease is it will give us instant gratification and all it asks of us is to endure extended torment. The complete and utter annihilation of our very soul is its destiny in our lives.
It was always there for us, when life was both good and bad, we invited it into our lives to alter how we felt. We seemed to say that we did not deserve the good things in life and our disease wholeheartedly agreed with us.
The disease of addiction’ with our help was able to completely destroy all the positive things in our lives.
Unfortunately many people do not take this disease seriously, like they take strokes, diabetes, and heart attacks seriously. We become fools in believing that our addiction will not facilitate these diseases in our lives.
Addiction is indeed a cursed and hated disease, yet it did not enter our lives without an invitation, we chose to feed our disease; we choose addiction over the joys of living and learning to live within ourselves peacefully.
We hate our disease, yet it hates us more when we find 12-step recovery, our program, meetings, and our ability to bring a higher power into our lives weakens our disease. It slowly begins to fail in its ability to destroy our lives. No longer is it allowed to create havoc and destruction within our lives and those who are a part of that life.
It waits patiently, unseen, unheard, but ever growing in its desire to open the door of addiction and take back control of our lives.
When we barely subsist, our disease lives strongly, when we become living beings, our disease only subsists. It is always there, waiting for its opportunity to explode upon our very soul, wishing only for our continued misery and eventually our death. This is our disease.
Yet as long as we embody the core values of 12-step recovery, our disease will merely subsist, never again to challenge us for domination of our lives. Freedom calls, Freedom rings because we have surrendered our will and lives to something greater than ourselves. 12 STEP RECOVERY
A personal modification of From Courage to Change
