"Happy Friday!"
It has been several days since my last new post. It has been several days that I have been introduced by dictators in recovery. It has been several days of chaos, drama and unnecessary bad talk about my intentions, my message and mostly my Sobriety Fitness. It has been several days of dictatorship recovery!
Have you ever experienced people in recovery who are new to a meeting, a recovery group on Facebook or just say they have been around recovery for such and such amount of years but when they open their mouths, all that comes out is chaos, drama, and panic stricken behaviors that tends to change the meeting or atmosphere into a non-peaceful place? Have you ever experienced a dry drunk? Have you ever experienced an individual who is so hooked on every single word in a 12 step program book that they can not think for themselves, let alone live in a serene recovery of their own? The strait jackets at its best! Have you ever experienced someone in recovery that is the first to tell you your wrong, you need to change and that their way is better regardless of what the group feels, meeting feels or how you feel? Have you ever experienced someone who is so determined to break you down, a meeting down or group down by their controlling and dictatorship type ways? Have you ever experienced someone who thinks they are protecting a 12 step program by their bullish ways only to see them as disturbing, unkind, bad example of a 12 step program? I seen all of this in the last several days! I call it a dictator in recovery!
When I drank, I told you what to do. When I drank, I expressed how I thought a situation should be, how you should be and how everyone needs to listen to my way. When I drank, if you did not obey or listen to my way I would destroy you with unacceptable words, unacceptable behavior and mostly unacceptable manipulation in order to get my way. When I drank I was a dictator!
I have been sober for over 18 years and still see this behavior with people in recovery. Heck, I experienced it myself after being sober. Yes, that's right,...I am admitting that I, myself was a dictator in my sobriety. I do not say recovery because recovery is for positive, life changing and spiritual behavior one displays when struggling with or without an addiction. I was a dictator with my sponsees, people who were at meetings and people who just aggravated me, because they just kept relapsing. "Geez,...I was a miserable, not compassionate and sometimes bitchy sober person!" Thank God after 5 years I finally had a spiritual awakening when I had seen someone else act the same as I at a meeting and realized that I have said and acted the same way. That really disturbed my whole portrait of what type of a sober person I was being. I needed to dictate to myself a change that will give me a recovery of love and acceptance and many more positive things I was so much lacking! I needed to dictate my own negative ways!
What caused me to act that way? Not working on my recovery, my inner me, my defects of character, my focus on others when it really should of been on me, my lack of discipline going to meetings, sharing and service to all. Lastly, my know it all, too big for my britches attitude. It was a change that turned into a gift of my well being and how people see me, want to be around me and love me today! Although, I still see others in their bully and dictator, self righteous and dry drunken ways. I just say a prayer for them! I have compassion for them, for I, at one time in my life experienced that behavior too! I even see it in people who belong to Al-Anon that claim that they have been coming for years but still hold on to their resentments, anger and fear of that lack of their control over others that still use or ones that have even become sober. I pray for them and hope that they allow themselves to "Let Go!" I must admit it can be very hurtful when you run into one of these people in recovery, but I must remember that my recovery means more than their wrong, unattended and lack of work they put forth into their recovery. I can only accept it for what it is and not engage in. Their misery, pain and control will not be a net that captures all of my serenity for their power and pleasure. I will not wear their issues! Repeat after me,..."I will not wear their issues!" My way of recovery is by spreading my message of what I know, what I have experienced and what has worked for me. I will lead by example! I will not lead by dictatorship!
I have found that most of these people who I have seen these behaviors in, are those who are the first to criticize your successes and positive changes you have made in your recovery. They find enjoyment in,...raining on your party! Is this jealousy? Is this anger really with themselves because they have not reached that level of peace in their own recovery? Is it really just because and nothing else? Is it because I bring change in the recovery world and those who are so PROGRAMED by the program can not see pass it? Call me the ERIN BROCKOVICH or the JERRY MAGUIRE of recovery. I guess some will understand my MEMO,...as Jerry Maguire so desperately needed to write in order for change, in order for his message to be heard in order to be free of dictatorship! Yes, I know they are movies but what the message is in both of those movies was to inspire the true message of love, dedication and mostly their unstoppable passion for what they believed in! I am not a dictator in my recovery! I am passionate about my message in my recovery!
Did you ever see yourself as a dictator in your recovery? Are you in denial of it? Have you realized you have been and just realized when you read my blog? If so, try to figure out what needs to change in order to find peace within in yourself. If you never experienced this, well that is absolutely fantastic!
Today, I will run knowing and realizing it is so important to have a serene recovery and no one can take that away from me unless I allow it! I will run in peace!
Sobriety Fitness by Cathy Shuba is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.sobrietyfitness.com.
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