Letters From The Inbox - Half Measures Feels Like Failure To An Alcoholic
It is good to be back!
I’ve spent most of the last 10 days away from my computer, on vacation, recharging myself.
Over the next few days I will be posting letters from the in-box and then will resume with regular post later on next week. The first letter I found,while working through e-mails,is from our regular guest writer - Steve C.
Through reading Steve’s posts - you can see how gaining a little perspective, looking at the world a little different and having the support of recovery literature and the recovery community can turn a life around.
Half Measures Feels like Failure to an Alcoholic
Hello there, My name is Steve C., a grateful alcoholic who happens to be blind as well. I went blind from a surgery that went bad in prison back in 1997. I’ve Been sober since November of 1996. So only had a few months of sobriety before the surgery.
Talk about a wrong time to stop drinking.
Believe it or not, being in prison was a blessing for me. There was no liquor store on the corner to drown my feelings with as situations were effecting me - so I had a good start at being sober while inside I was freaking out bad!
My story is like a lot of us who didn’t grow up with any knowledge of dealing with life on life’s terms.
My drunken feelings would run a muck. I felt I had to always run the show - do everything and feel everything. I never actually finished anything I started and did a lot of nothing in the process. Jack of all trades, master of none.
I never completed anything constructive, or helpful for anyone. I was so into myself- into denial of my sickness.
I thought I was doing a great thing for my fellow Americans selling dope. Looking at all of the alcohol adds everywhere, heck, I figured everyone else did it so I didn’t see the harm.
Even bringing dope across the border I thought; “This is good for my finances and my friends will really love me.” Well, the finances got better, but the friendship was only there when I had the dope sack and paid the bar tabs - only then it seemed I had friends.
So you sort of see, I always go the extra mile in over doing everything that was not constructive. I didn’t know how to do the right thing because nobody taught me what the true right thing was.
I had to learn a new way of thinking. To act like everything I do in Life makes a difference - it does!
Being blind, in prison and sober I suffered a lot from depression. One thing though that made me feel better was a feeling that came after a victory, completion accomplishment, a satisfaction in finishing something good.
Here is a story of over doing a thing the wrong way; I was arrested for possession, and distributing…Pot. So I go to prison of course. I go into the prison and the vocational director gives me a vocation - green house management skills! How to grow stuff! So get this - they put me in hydroponics so I can grow it faster! Now that tells me either you don’t have to be too bright to be in the Department of Corrections or they were teaching me how to grow dope faster to catch me faster.
After the Oklahoma City bombing happened, the Director of Parks from OKC requested inmates to come to the Oklahoma Capital to set up a major display of landscapes. I went to OKC and participated in a work release program where I lived for 6 months while I worked on the landscaping. I was paid seven dollars a month - that’s right, seven dollars a month for the huge job we were doing. My friend and I went out back to the woods on D.O.C. grounds and planted our first Marijuana plant, with the Skills they taught me in green house management.
Now Kids, don’t try to do this at home or on D.O.C. grounds with out parents permission. Smile.
Four months later we came back to the woods to see how my growing skills took and was greeted by and 7 foot marijuana plant. Needless to say, we became the most popular guys in the facility.
Talk about over doing it in a bad way.
So you see, I had the want to do - but No direction to do awesome things. I wanted the attention - but the wrong attention.
That was in summer of 1996. I was never caught. Never the less I was sent back up the ladder to minimum security facility - I was actually grateful. This was November 6, 1996 - the date I started my recovery.
I was at that point getting sick of tired of being always sick and tired.
I started reading the Big Book and the Bible together while I was locked up trying to learn how to be an asset to God and others.
I learned something I never wanted to learn - patience.
Patience has nothing to doing with waiting - I thought it did. Patience is the behavior I practice while I’m waiting. Hmm….for instance, while I am waiting I practice patience which is; staying-power, diligence, serenity, lacking complaint, persistence, trusting and acceptance. Wow, never heard that one! As I started this practice - things started to slow down in my head. I was able to think better thoughts. I learned to wait well, instead of wait bad.
Get it?
My life got easier even though life still had the same situations being thrown at me.
The first thing I needed to learn was how to get out of my cell without help from another person. I wanted to be able to use the bathroom when I wanted to - so the institution gave me an walking cane.
Not a mobility cane which is almost 2 feet longer. I told them I do not have an hip problem but a sight problem - they didn’t care. I must have looked like a goof bending over and poking at the ground to touch the grass and the side walk to find my way to the church, gym, school house, canteen, medical and more. But dog gone it I did it and who cared how I looked! I felt awesome doing it without help - inmates started looking at me with a little respect.
I wasn’t playing the pity poor me’s. Great feeling it was.
When I was let out of prison, (my dad was alive at that time) I noticed his door was in bad shape and needed to be replaced. So I sat back for a day to ponder this. Hmm, I’m blind yet I have the desire to do this. Can I do this? How would I do this? What would I need to do this job? So I started on another adventure of stepping out of my comfort zone and into doing the right thing first - b simply thinking first. I put up a brand new door, drilled both of the holes for the new door knob and dead bolt locks, aligned it and chiseled out the areas for the new hinges. Now it took me four hours instead of one like most people - but I did it and it is perfect. I sat back and pondered a long while about my little victory while being blind. Heck, I can do most anything if I first put my mind to it - plan, prepare then execute with patience in tow. Hmmm What A concept!
Another example of planning, preparing then executing…
I have this huge garage and needed a long sturdy table but I didn’t want to buy one or pay someone to build it. So I thought long and hard about this - instead of rushing into it. I used a braille ruler, notched grooves into the wood I wanted to cut, lined the circular saw to the groove then turned on the saw and cut it. It took me about five hours but I built a 9 foot long, 4 foot high and 2 foot wide table. Sturdy enough that it can hold me and my wife on it.
My father in-law, who loves construction, was so amazed he bought me a huge table saw. I do build a lot of stuff with that table saw.
I know what you are thinking - yes, I still have all my fingers! This is because I first plan, prepare then execute my plan - and I treat that saw with respect. I think every time I turn the saw on - my neighbors take odds on whether or not this will be the day I cut something more than wood. Smile.
I built an 7 foot lattice wall that goes around my hot tub and decking which turned out perfect. You see, when I first start to learn something, practice patience with perseverance and think on it- I can do most anything even being blind. If you get a chance, you can look at my pictures on previous guest post posted on Loving An Alcoholic.
To me, completion, victory, accomplishments, achievements, goal setting and finishing is like the feeling alcohol gave me back in the day. I feel I can conquer most anything and that I’m ten feet tall. There are unlimited things a person can do to feel this - Just Think on it!
Right makes might!
The most authentic thing about humans are our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.
We can learn a new Language, learn a new musical instrument, clean the house better than you have before, start a new flower bed, start an exercise program, learn a new skill, start a new hobby or collection. read a new book, listen to different types of music you may not use to.
You can read AA literature or Bible and finish it from cover to cover. Start a new trade, go back to school even if it is just for a new a vocation, like learning computer skills. You be the creative one - take charge of your new life!
A final short story;
I used to get bags of free donuts from Starbucks when I was working in a drug center. I searched for a way to get out of my comfort zone - do some good. At night I would go across the street to my neighbors,or next door or around the corner. I would figure out how to find their door so I could hang the bag of donuts on the door knob - I would then leave.
Bet they never thought a blind guy would do that! The attention I was looking for was my God’s approving. I never told them it was me. I never let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.
Brother James once told me that what I do in secret God will exalt me openly. How I mentally handle the situation, stress free, worry free, care free, anxious free with trust that this is what God wants me to do so He will help me do it.
Good Stuff???
Enjoy Life!
Thanks.
Write me Please if you want. fire242@sbcglobal.net
Would you like to have your experience and words of encouragement posted?
Send me your thoughts: support@lovinganalcoholic.com
******PLEASE INDICATE IN YOUR EMAIL IF YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR THOUGHTS POSTED******
Stumble it!
Tags: alcoholic, alcoholics, alcoholism, behaviors, believer, brother, denial, denials, dope, drinks, drug, failure, feelings, god, gratefulness, half measures, inmates, liquor store, literature, perspective, program, Recovery, Serenity, sobriety, stresses, suffering, transformation, worries, worry
