Living the Tools for Recovery: For Life

I don't always write this blog to reflect my group share...but today seemed a particularly good day for my sharing. Let this not be a stroke of my ego, but a reminder that I also return to this and read: especially on my bad days...when I don't feel like blogging, or working the steps...I return here to read my reminders. In the end, I only expect to use these tools myself, if someone else is helped by reading...just an added bonus for my 12th step: taking the message to others.

I strive during my recovery journey, to make the recovery process a lifelong commitment. Changing the way I think, the way I react, indeed...the way I LIVE. I first heard about the tools of recovery as a topic was being read at the meeting. And I simply looked at them as being tools you pick up when a job needs done: like a tool I should use to "fix my car"...but after listening more...I have come to realize that the TOOLS for recovery are the additions to make my life sane...Recovery will become a way of life...making the Tools: My tools for life and living. Much like brushing my teeth is a tool for hygene and the brush itself is a tool for accomplishing cleanliness: the tools of a meeting, or phone calls, or meditation: will become a part of my daily routines for the cleanliness of my "life"...helping to keep me sober.

Bowling with a Spin----falling in the gutter

I went bowling recently and as I observed the Great bowlers in the lanes next to mine...I began to notice this really fast spin they put on their balls. The Balls didn't always go the fastest down the lane, but they had this incredible spin which gave the path of the ball a wide curve. Sometimes the arc of the curve came so close to the gutter's edge... i just knew it was going to go in the gutter... but it would get very close..and then curve right back into the sweet spot of the pins: STRIKE!!!!
Occasionally, however, the large curve, and grand spin would get so close to the edge...that it goes right over...and Boom, gutter ball!!!... all that talent to create a great spin...but ending up so close to the edge means that disaster is just an inch away.
Those of us who are used to living a FAST life and also justify our addictive behavior: are really just skilled at putting an excellent "spin" on the reality of our situation. This "spin" creates an "arc" in our life that puts us so close to the edge of disaster...that we are bound to "act out" and land in the "gutter"...it would be inevitable.
So, returning to our bowling analogy, it is better, and safer for us to attempt at throwing a ball that goes right down the middle and hits the sweet spot, for the STRIKE: a successful day with no addictive acting out or "using"!!! Doing things, thinkin about things, obsessing on shame, going places that are triggers..can all be just like the Ball that gets too close to the gutter.  Stay "centered", stay "focussed"...and the temptation of the gutter will pass...we won't always hit the sweet spot..and knock all the pins down "having a day without any middle circle behaviors"...but with patience, dilligence, and the grace of our Higher Power...we will stay out of the gutter for this day, for this moment, for The Now.
So be careful about giving Spin... be honest and anchored in reality.