Struggle

So, as a dear friend of mine says, I opened the door and got off the wagon, on Christmas after 2.5 years of sobriety in a 12 step program. I am struggling, I have all this programming about the "disease" and I notice it rearing it's head more so lately. Guilt, guilt, guilt. I have a 3 year old and I mostly feel guilty about me as a parent. There is nothing in my present behavior that is bad for my son. I know how I used to be though. I need to believe in myself more. I'll go days without drinking and then I'll drink and feel really guilty afterward. You know the pattern. I feel like it's programmed in to me. I enjoy myself while I'm drinking, I don't get drunk or black out but I still feel guilty afterward. The guilt perpetuates the cycle. How do I break the guilt?

I have consulted with several astrologers, I should mention that I want to be a certified astrologer, and one of them said that I am different than I was before and that I won't go back to my old ways because when I was 26 Saturn crossed over my ascendent and I started to form a whole new personality, I got sober and Max was born while I was 26 years old. I am also in my Saturn Return. I have 5 planets in Scorpio, Moon Libra and Gemini Rising. I need to focus my energy in a creative manner because of all the Scorpio, in the 6th house I might add, so I need to be involved in some sort of service to humanity or I'll suffer.

I don't want to go back to where I came from and I don't want to tell my self that I am different than other people anymore.

4th Step and Beyond

Okay, so I haven't written in a while, mostly because I don't want to talk about the steps. Not because I didn't have a good experience with them or because I avoided them while participating in AA, but because I just don't feel passionately about them anymore like I used to.

I did my first 4th Step when I was 6 months sober. It was 15 pages long. I wrote down EVERYTHING. Honestly, it was easy for me. I had the overwhelming relief of Step 4 when I made the decision to get sober, I felt like all the guilt associated with Step 4 had been taken away when I decided to do something about my self destructive behavior. My second and third 4th Steps were much more revealing than the first and much, much shorter. I was diving into some of the good stuff finally. The stuff that makes me tick. To my surprise, I am not the untrustworthy, manipulative, insane person that a lot of "us" are assumed to be. I think the 4th Step has always helped me to see that it's all in my head and that I need to start respecting myself. Believing in myself.

Telling my dirty laundry in Step 5 was also easy for me. I actually have a little bit of a problem keeping my mouth shut when it comes to talking with people about my problems. I have actually had recent life lessons in keeping my mouth shut about all the crazy negativity in my head. Sometimes, when you talk about these things, it feeds them and then they grow. I have seen this happen over and over again in my own life.

Steps 6 and 7 have always confused me a little. I feel like, "of course I'm ready to have God remove all my defects of character," who wouldn't be ready for that? I did these steps while I was reading the Big Book. While your reading, he walks you right through it. I remember asking myself if that was it, did I just do Steps 6 and 7? Some would tell me yes and some would tell me no. My 3rd sponsor told me that we have individual defects revealed to us when we are ready and then we work on those resulting in asking God to remove them. I can buy into this. I also like the idea that when you say the 7th step prayer, it's done. I think I have overcomplicated these steps for myself, always looking for that next character defect to be revealed.

When it comes to Steps 8 and 9, I felt like I had a lot of the amends happen as living amends. Getting sober was amends enough in most of the relationships that mattered. I wasn't going to call up my old drug dealer and apologize to her for ripping her off and some people I wrote to never responded, they were people who weren't that close to me but, that I had cared about at one time and that my drug abuse definitely effected.

I think Step 10 is probably my favorite Step. Let's review the day. How could we have done things differently and if we know we did something wrong, what can we do to fix it? I use this step a lot, it helps to keep me on track and easily forgive myself for imperfection.

Step 11, to me, is all about Spiritual practice. I love Spiritual practice. Prayer and meditation can take on many forms. I use a lot of ritual and do daily devotion at an altar. This is definitely a Step that you continue to use, I know that all of them are, but this one counts for me whether I am in the program or not.

Step 12 to me is "Help Others."

I felt like I had to write about the Steps although I'm not really into it. I can't wait to right my next blog!