Times of uncertainty can be difficult for many people. This could be because uncertainty can bring with it lack of personal control. This could be because the uncertainty of the necessities of life are not really a guarantee to some of us that do not have adequate incomes to provide assurances for us. That is where hope, and eventually faith come in. At least so in areas that have social programs that make provisions to house, feed, and and supply health care for us. And hopefully we will be able to obtain enough employment income to supplement our needs. (This is for those of us who cannot maintain gainful employment). Hopefully those of us who are disabled or under-employed will be okay. If we have the necessities of life, and the opportunity to participate in worthwhile endeavors and recreation, life is good. With this we can breathe and let go of our worries. Just one day at a time. Thank you for reading.
As I think of give and take, and I think of my personal experience, I wonder if I think of myself as being unique. Recovering people I know describe themselves as being happy, joyous, and free. I think of myself as being reasonably happy and content.
I do not believe that I have a monopoly on the true experience of one day at a time recovery. I know that the people I know, who are in one day at a time recovery, have the experience of living happy, joyous and free lives.
I have been asked why do you have to be reasonably happy?
Perhaps my friends think being reasonably happy puts a damper on life.
Addicts and alcoholics have their struggles. Sometimes their struggles are the natural struggles of life such as depression, anxiety, uncertainty, loneliness, and disconnection. In reality, when asked if they are reasonably happy, they can recognize that adversity is a reality of life and that life brings with it reasonable happiness and contentment. This is freedom.
I understand happy, joyous, and free. It feels good. It is not a perpetual life style and it would be unrealistic to think so. Experience tells us this.
I understand reasonable happiness and contentment. It is not a perpetual life style and it would be unrealistic to think so. Experience tells us this.
Nothing is unique in one day at a time living and recovery. No one is unique in one day at a time living and recovery.
Connect with your story. Identify with the common aspects of others.
I have heard from many recovering people that not every day is a bed of roses and it would be unreasonable to think otherwise. Understanding this makes us content, or free, one day at a time. Thank you for reading.
Quite a number of years ago, while talking with a mental health support worker, I was told that we all have similar feelings, and struggles, but it appeared to her that such things in me seemed to be magnified. I don’t know why, but this statement seemed to ruffle my ego. In retrospect, I believe I was offended because I thought I was special. I thought I had this world and recovery figured out. I believed that I had obtained a measure of spirituality that made me important. I thought that I was an inspiration, and l didn’t realize that this serenity I found was a hint of an elevating mood disorder and a slightly inflated ego. I cannot say that it was all bad, but this sense of magnified happiness was slightly unreal. I still had many struggles which were common to the many adversities of life, but I had a good support system. I really didn’t have a grasp on day at a time living. I didn’t know how to be reasonably happy.
I have learned to live with adversity and I have learned to accept what I cannot change. Being reasonably happy is not second rate living. I believe it helps to curb obsessive want. Reasonable happiness has a lot of contentment and joy in it. Usually, when being reasonably happy, my ego has a bit of humility and my moods aren’t so elevated. I have become a recovering person who has a much better understanding of one day at a time living. I guess if you want to understand reasonable happiness it is living with humility and having reasonable expectations of yourself, others, and life in general.
I now know that I am important, that your are important, that all people are important. Recovering friends have taught me that we are no better or no worse than anyone else. In addition to this these people have taught me that we are just as good as others as well.
I know that in this introspective writing that I am quite self-obsessive but this is the way we share our experience and hope as we reach out to others. If you are a person who perhaps feels quite important I believe you are. I, myself, prefer to be reasonable and reasonably happy. It has a wonderful way of helping one to be contented and to face adversity one day at a time. Thank you for reading. Be well today.
Connecting with other people is important for our mental health and our well being as people. I know that some of us might be introverts but that does not mean that we don’t connect with others. There are times that as we are connecting with others that we help both those we are connecting with as well as ourselves. Some call this give and take. Some of us call it friendship. Some call this survival. The experiences of connection let us know that we are not alone and that we are enough. We get through the days, both good and bad, and we stay sober one day at a time. One friend reminded me the other night that one day – one day – one day – can lead to many years of contented sobriety. Another friend reminded me that life can be hard at times. Both of these people have been a big help to me in my years of recovery. Connection really helps.
Around the end of January – February it is a blues time of the year in the area I live (New Brunswick, Canada). A snowstorm has a way of sucking the energy right out of a person. These days feel just like blah.
I have shoveled my driveway and I walked down to shovel the steps of the church I belong to. There is not much to do on a day like this. I did a bunch of housework and I am passing time away writing a blog.
There is no desire in me to get a buzz or wasted. I feel lucky for that. There was a day I would be trying to figure out how I was going to get some pot. If there was someone to get drunk with, while smoking pot, it would be all the better.
Today I know getting out of it would just defeat the purpose. I have heard it said that as soon as a person like me starts to get into the booze the booze would say, “I am going to take you by the hand and you’re going to go where I want you to go and you will do what I tell you to do.” Pot does the same thing to me too.
The plan is to ride out the storm. Just for this day. Perhaps I will make a few calls to some friends. I know to live my recovery one day at a time. Thank you.
I believe that many people who live with mental illness and addiction have struggles in their lives. We can face this adversity and we can be well one day at a time.
I choose to stay clean and sober one day at a time and I try to monitor my thought process while doing so. In addition to this I try and be aware of the moods I am experiencing on a regular basis.
One of the things I watch for is vagrant thoughts. In this awareness, one pattern of thinking I see is self-righteous thinking. I have been told by a friend that I am no better or no worse than anyone else. Another friend added – just as good as. I have no reason to feel I have all the answers to recovery.
I have been reasonably well and reasonably happy for many years. I have not drank alcohol or smoked dope for all thirty of them. I have had my struggles and have been unwell throughout some of these difficulties but I keep living my recovery one day at a time.
I do not have all the answer to recovery and I am not so foolish as to think that I do. I have had a lot of support from people over the years.
I also know that medication is a main tool of my recovery. I take it as prescribed. This is my choice because I do not want to be ill. And I choose to stay connected with other people in give and take relations ships. They are my family and friends. I also stay connected with others who can help and I try to connect with those I can help.
So when I need I take a deep breath. I stay clean and sober one day at a time and often I pray. Help, thanks, and wow. I am responsible for my recovery and in this responsibility I know I am not alone. I hope you know that you do not have to do this alone. Be well today. Thanks for reading.
Is it the lack of control of our lives that increase bouts of depression, anxiety, anger, guilt, aloneness and shame? Do these emotions bring us to the despair of suicidal ideology? Do we become captive to these sequential thoughts?
This aloneness, this damned aloneness, fuels the fires of the despair of self.
We feel so alone that we cannot see even a dim flicker of hope in this dark tunnel we are in.
This dark tunnel had no opening but once we are on this dim road of depression we believe that a horrible grasp of ill will is smothering us just as sure as there was someone holding a pillow over our face. We gasp for breath like a person who is drowning.
The noises in our heads begin to wear us down. It tells us we deserve this. In some twisted way we start to accept this and we start to believe there is no way out.
Some of us try to hide from these emotions by escaping as much as we can. Booze, pot, sex… They work for a while and we don’t see we are carving our premature death date on our tomb stone.
“HERE LIES A TROUBLED SOUL”
Most people can’t understand this but we do.
Some of us have cried out God help me but we feel like we’re on God’s shit list. Maybe, just maybe, God is on our shit list. What is God anyways.
But we hear people say “We’ve been there.” And guess what – we still go there today but not as often and not as bad.
We have walked the thin line that turned into a foot path. For most of us it turned into a side-walk that we walk one step at a time. Some times two steps forward and one step back.
We know the bullies, the jerks, ands the mean people. Hell! There were times that we were them.
But now, this moment, this hour, this day, we know we are loved. We are a kin.
And we know that we are loved for we have learned to love ourselves. We have befriended ourselves.
When those thoughts come that want us to die – those thoughts that come when we want to die we say no. We say “NO” “I AM ENOUGH”. Though of us who have been there know life can be good. We need to reach out for help.
Maybe someday, somebody will need you to say, “I know you. YOU ARE ENOUGH”
We’ve been there and We know you, “YOU ARE ENOUGH”
If you are suicidal, feel like harming yourself or anyone else in any way, call your local mental health clinic or local help-line and/or if this is an emergency please call 911 or your local emergency number. You don’t have to face this alone.
We all face a new beginning every morning when we wake. A friend of mine has told me that we don’t just wake up. He tells me that we are awakened. This idea is becoming more apparent to me every day. Each day is a new beginning.
Please don’t get me wrong. I do understand the dilemma of every day being groundhog day. These are the days that we just can’t get out of the funk, the stress, or the depression that we are in. It is my experience that drinking alcohol or smoking dope doesn’t help either.
I believe that we are meant to connect with other people. I also believe that we go through difficult times and I try to take my life, and my recovery just one day at a time. There is work to do in staying well.
Many people ask for help in prayer and begin their lives putting one foot in front of the other.
Therefore we begin the day with a new beginning. The day might be routine, or the day might be a difficult or challenging task. But every awakening is a new beginning.
I have a friend who reminds me that the bad days will pass. So will the good ones. For the better part when we can get out of the troubles and unhealthy obsessions in our minds we will understand. We see the new beginning.
What do we do in our down time? Do we even know what down time is?
For me, down time is a period between projects. I found myself lacking energy and motivation between finishing an e-book and then publishing it on this website. My blogging had suffered quite a bit during this period.
What I do know is that if I have had picked up a drink or a puff during this period my disorders would have been off to the races and running. Good health would have been left far behind and sickness would have been way out in front. It is way easier to stay in recovery than to have to find a way back into it. Especially if obsession and compulsion come back.
I just do the little things. One day at a time living. Taking meds as prescribed. Eating right and sleeping good. Relying on recovery supports. Staying away from people who use and drink. This is just plain smart living.
Down time can be managed and you just keep living one day at a time. It is important to do the regular things. It is important to be a support to those you can help and also to turn to people who can be supportive to you.
Being healthy can be difficult. Life seems to go that way sometimes.
Today, this just one day, we can be ok. We just need to make the choice. If you can help someone do it. This is the gift of recovery which is given to us. Be well today.
Is it the lack of control of our lives that increase bouts of depression, anxiety, anger, guilt, aloneness and shame? Do these emotions bring us to the despair of suicidal ideology? Do we become captive to these sequential thoughts?
This aloneness, this damned aloneness, fuels the fires of the despair of self.
We feel so alone that we cannot see even a dim flicker of hope in this dark tunnel we are in.
This dark tunnel had no opening but once we are on this dim road of depression we believe that a horrible grasp of ill will is smothering us just as sure as there was someone holding a pillow over our face. We gasp for breath like a person who is drowning.
The noises in our heads begin to wear us down. It tells us we deserve this. In some twisted way we start to accept this and we start to believe there is no way out.
Some of us try to hide from these emotions by escaping as much as we can. Booze, pot, sex… They work for a while and we don’t see we are carving our premature death date on our tomb stone.
“HERE LIES A TROUBLED SOUL”
Most people cant understand this but we do.
Some of us have cried out God help me but we feel like we’re on God’s shit list. Maybe, just maybe, God is on our shit list. What is God anyways.
But we hear people say “We’ve been there.” And guess what – we still go there today but not as often and not as bad.
We have walked the thin line that turned into a foot path. For most of us it turned into a side-walk that we walk one step at a time. Some times two steps forward and one step back.
We know the bullies, the jerks, ands the mean people. Hell! There were times that we were them.
But now, this moment, this hour, this day, we know we are loved. We are a kin.
And we know that we are loved for we have learned to love ourselves. We have befriended ourselves.
When those thoughts come that want us to die – those thoughts that come when we want to die we say no. We say “NO”
“I AM ENOUGH”.
Maybe someday, somebody will need you to say, “I know you. YOU ARE ENOUGH”
We’ve been there and We know you, “YOU ARE ENOUGH”