Written By: Cathy Shuba
"Happy Sunday!"
Last night I learned of Whitney Houston's death. Very sad, very disturbing and very bothersome whenever I heard someone on TV, radio or press make fun of her addictive ways. Ignorance at it's best! Did she relapse? Who knows, it is not our business! Is it a happy Sunday? Yes, for I have another chance to see this message to continue sharing my experience, strength and hope with others. Do our lives go on? Yes, as long as we do what we are suppose to do and always stay willing to learn and humble ourselves on a daily basis! How did you feel about this death? I was saddened, and it took me back to others I had tried to guide in recovery that just could not or would not surrender to their addiction and eventually died! Did it shock you, sadden you or did you just look at it as if you knew it was about to happen? I felt all three, and with that I thank God it was not me and that I still have a chance to reach out, share and hopefully inspire or motivate someone through my message to keep working on themselves in order to avoid a deadly relapse!
What is relapse? Why have I not relapsed? How do I keep from relapsing on a daily basis? First, I want to talk to you about relapse. Relapse happens long before the action of picking up occurs. Relapse starts with the desire to stop working on self. Relapse happens with the lack of willingness to do all and be all in one's recovery. Relapse, in my opinion, is another word for collapse! I say collapse because the world outside of the individual along with their mental and spiritual well being begin to collapse and it is all down hill from there. Relapse welcomes denial back into your life! Relapse allows for crazy thinking, thin skinned behavior and the attitude of "I have it all under control, I do not need this or that to keep me sober!" Relapse is becoming paranoid over everything and every little thing in the individuals life. Relapse is the inability to control or handle stress and anxiety in a more constructive way, which causes the person to over react at a drop of a coin! Relapse can be many things in recovery and for those of you who have relapsed and came back to recovery I wish you many blessings! For those of you who will never come back or have not come back, I think of you today and know you are in a better place!
Why have I not relapsed? For the grace of God, my desire to want recovery, my endless willingness to keep on keeping on, whatever I need to learn, change or improve within myself in order to live a loving recovery. My humble, yet full of compassion heart that is willing to love others without the desire to control them, change them and mostly force them to see it my way! My passion to share my experience, strength and hope! My forever learning ways of balance in my life and in my recovery, which has allowed me to spread my wings with boundaries. All of these things did not happen over night and I for sure did not learn all of this by only attending one meeting a week, talking to my sponsor when I wanted to or when I needed to and mostly all of these wonderful gifts were taught to me by all my down falls, mistakes and lack of desire at times. No, I did not relapse but came close a couple of times. I feel we have all experienced a dry drunk moment, lack of meetings, to busy for this or that and the always and never ending tests from God in order to keep us from relapsing. Well, at least that is how I see it or have experienced it in my recovery years. Yes, I did come close to relapse a couple of times and within those times I never realized what I was doing or where I was going in my recovery. That's where the denial came from and how I voluntarily invited it without even noticing it! Scary, huh? Be aware of the visitor called DENIAL! It took me to eventually wake up, get my head out of the bad neighborhood and realize where I was truly heading. Now, if you noticed I did not say my sponsor saved me or others in the program I choose to go to for recovery. I did not say them because being sober must come from the individual first! After all, I did not meet anyone sober or clean until I took the first step! I opened that door to "help" and have not left since and hope I never will! Now, I am not saying that I take all the credit in becoming sober, I am only saying that I had to make the first step in order to become sober. Today, I must always be aware of denial and know that it is very easy to fall back into that way of thinking especially when I may be having the feelings of pain from a situation I do not want to deal with or see it for what it is! The message of "denial" was one of the many gifts God had given me in order for me to better my recovery, make me more aware of it and has helped me know more about my patterns with denial in order not to relapse! For me, denial is a huge factor or 'trigger' along with other things I needed to learn about myself in order to prevent a relapse in my recovery. I want to keep coming back, in order not to relapse!
How do I keep from relapsing on a daily basis? Honesty with myself, acceptance of myself and love for myself! It takes a lot of work to live humble! It takes a lot of work in forgiving others and myself! It takes a lot of work to have and live compassionately! It takes a lot of work to deal with fears, resentments and having a voice for my own! It takes a lot of work,...period! It takes a lot of work not to look at it as work but with the desire to learn, grow and become all I can be in my recovery! It takes a lot of work to deal with things I may want to deny! It takes a lot of work to just work on me and keep me real and in the moment on a daily basis. It takes a good attitude, a not so thin skin way of thinking in order to better my behavior and responsibilities in my life and with others. It takes so many things in order to prevent relapse I do not have enough room on my blog to list them. Furthermore, the gifts from God that forced me enough fear to get help! The gifts from God that forced me enough disgust of myself to get help! The willingness to get help! The desire to get help! The want or need for sanity in my life! The desire to change, to see my addiction for what was and still can be today, to have me experience my own bottom, consequences and mostly my willingness to surrender all and allow for God's message to radiate just enough to give me another chance for life. I could say I wished Whitney had this or even the one's that were in my life and had chosen to never come back but I never had control over their choices and I had to realize that God's plan for them were different from what I wished for them. I look at God's plan today as another message to others who refuse to get help, change and live in their comfort zone called DENIAL! My message from God in all of this was DENIAL! What was your message?
Today, I will shovel the snow outside and remember all the times I needed to dig myself out of a bad and irresponsible situation due to my lack of willingness or desire to have sobriety in my life. I have sobriety and with that I must always be mindful of my recovery! I thank God that my almost relapses could have resulted in Me Never Coming Back!