[MajestyJo]

Quote:
When I saw the title of the post "Where Are You," my immediate thought was "In today!"

Looking at where you where, what it was like and what is it like in today.

The person that was just isn't any more. I don't have thoughts of drinking and try to remember it isn't about the alcohol or the drugs, it is about not picking up people, places and things outside of myself to make me feel better. As I became aware over the years of how much I could still slip back into those old thinking patterns, I realize that I need the program just as much today as I did when I first came into recovery.

I no longer have those cigarettes to stuff a feeling. I no longer can eat sugar and use food to stuff my feelings. I have a problem in this area because the weight loss clinic I went to said to eat several times a day and that seems to feed into my addiction and gave me permission to eat more instead of less. I found it wasn't so much about eating as what I was eating. And as they saying goes, "It isn't want you are eating but what is eating at you." So much of our disease is mental and emotional. We think that because we haven't picked up our drug of choice, we are okay.

Another of my obsessive compulsive disorders was relationships. I haven't had one for about three years. I really don't have a desire to have one, and yet if it happens that is okay because now, I know how to keep it healthy. Before I stayed in sick relationships that were abusive to me which in turn found me back into self-abusive patterns and abusive habits directed at others. I am a firm believer that we are products of our environment.

I was raised in a very strick religious home where alcohol was not even allowed past the door. In my rebellion, I cussed and swore, drank and used people, places and things and spent most of my life trying to prove I wasn't a lady. Even in recovery, I resented the lady when she came out. In today, I don't resent the lady. I am even mistaken for one on occasion.

I love this program. It gave me back myself. My self-esteem, my self-respect, my self-worth, my self-awareness and taught me to learn to take care of myself instead of directing my energies to caring and fixing everyone else. I have to give away what I received in order to maintain my sobriety (soundness of mind) and to do that, I go to Al-Anon meetings, the occasional AA and NA meeting when required, and post here at *** and am a moderator on Circle for Recovery and Recovery Inn. This doesn't leave much time for my own sites. That is why my New Year's Resolution is to maintain them on a regular basis, especially the Yahoo ones.

This program is a day at a time. Today was not one of my better days, but oh so much better than my best day prior to recovery. At the moment, I am going through grief, and it isn't about death, but about loss and change. I have been going through the sadness, have already gone through some of the bargaining, but still have anger, depression and acceptance to go through, probably more than once or twice if I am correct on how the process works.

The nice thing is that it is okay and I don't have to pick up in order to deal with all the emotions. I realized that having my snooze this afternoon was partly my fibromyalgia and sleep disorder but it was also in part, using my bed to process my feelings. I was in pain, laid down with the heat and accepted the fact, if I sleep I sleep, if I don't then I will get up. Before I would have taken pills to make sure I slept and blocked everything out.

Recovery in today is being aware and given freedom of choice as to what I am going to do about it!

My sharing at another site on depression.