Recently, a few folks in early sobriety voiced concern over the numerous recommendations offered as potential SMART (Self-Management and Recovery Training) resources for rehab advisors, programs, and systems to help them stay sober. They expressed an alarming level of exhaustion from trying to find enough time to mentally focus and identify an effective process, from the many, that might fulfill their recovery needs.
The overriding frustration is centered on time—anxiously wanting change to happen—and not finding enough time to facilitate change by maintaining a recovery plan, attending all the meetings, following advisor counseling, and working the sobriety systems. The time required to create a new sober environment: to change my dysfunctional lifestyle, fix my character flaws, and discover a believable higher power. Sobriety is rolled out as a daunting task of an endless journey, over time, of wanting to change how I see myself and the world around me when the truth is, I still don’t understand who I am.
After six years in what I now call “discovery,” I have found that understanding my true Self in the present moment is the only truth that will end my addiction!
The truth is that time will not change who I am and end my addiction. Psychological time—thinking—cannot pick up the pieces of what I have learned, experienced, and know from my past—my shattered ego—when I hit bottom in addiction. Thinking is the illusion that continually rearranging those pieces of my past and changing what I think of myself over time will keep me from repeating my past in the endless cycle that is addiction: thinking is the past trying to change the past in hopes of creating a better future—which is insanity.
The truth is I can’t think my way out of addiction; I can only feel my way through it, and I can only start to feel again by opening my heart to love myself again, to embrace and heal my emotions with love as they arise. By shining the light of loving awareness on how my mind works, I now see that my thinking, my past, blocks me from understanding my current emotions and healing now. My natural innocence of understanding the root cause of my feelings—first—makes me aware of my thinking and how my mind works. This innocent understanding gives me the power to redirect the energy of my wants and cravings from repeating the past to staying sober in the present moment, and it is always the present moment where thinking—addiction—cannot exist.
So, rather than just picking up the pieces from the past of my shattered ego, spending time in countless meetings and endless counseling sessions to fix my social character flaws, moving heaven and earth to change my living environment, volunteering for godly hours of service work, and finding a new belief to call my higher power—changing myself completely. First, I need to wake up my original innocence of understanding that if I don’t stay aware of my thinking and how my mind works, I am relying on “what I already know,” my past, the illusion of time wanting to stay sober in the future, which will only lead to repeating the past, relapse, and that is the definition of insanity.
I don’t want to minimize the potential value of meetings, creditable advisors, or meaningful service work. They provide vital opportunities to stay connected by unconditional love with others in recovery when I can’t yet love myself. But focusing all my energy on a new belief, wanting and hoping that changing my ego identity will end my addiction over time can become just another way to avoid the temporary pain of understanding the truth: that I can’t think my way out of addiction, by changing how I think over time. I am not the illusion of thinking in time; my true Self is feeling alive, in connection with the movement of life, silently understanding creation in the present moment.
I know that I own all the broken pieces of my ego identity lying all around me when I hit bottom in addiction. But rather than wasting time thinking about how to fit all those flawed pieces together again, what if I embrace my whole, broken existence with loving understanding to feel the temporary pain, heal my wounds, and extinguish those burning memories by staying sober (aware) of my thinking so I no longer repeat the past? I can only feel whole in the silent present moment—without thinking—when I open my heart to feel the energy of love flowing through me and start loving myself again. Only by sharing my love can I help others to understand, be free of addictions, and for all of us to be the world we long to see, sharing the Love we can only find within!
VAB 01-31-24
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