Wow, that used to be a super tough question, and honestly it can still sometimes be, because the truth of the matter is that I’m super selfish. Our book tells me this is the root of my problems, selfishness, self-centered. So, what do I do to combat that? Specifically we are told that we are supposed to help people and I guess the reason why this has been brought more to my attention lately is from sponsoring the number of women I am. 4 is definitely a good amount for me and honestly it takes a lot of time and effort to talk to them on the phone, answer their texts, and meet with them on a regular basis. I do enjoy this kind of work for the most part, but I would be lying if I said I loved it all the time. Honestly, sometimes I don’t want to answer the phone, I don’t want to be bothered, and I don’t want to take time away from something that I would rather be doing, which sometimes is nothing at all.
So, why do I do it? Selfishly I do this kind of work because it keeps me SOBER and I have determined that service work has to be a part of my daily life. Of course this isn’t the only thing the book tells me to do to stay sober. I am supposed to grow in my connection with God, work on myself, apologize when wrong, and attempt to be a productive member of society. However without service work (of any kind), I know I would surely drink. Plus, this is everything our book describes that we are supposed to do and continue to do, once we get sober. We GIVE IT AWAY.
My question to you, is what have you given away today? And let’s make this clear, I’m not talking about helping your kids, your spouse, your pets, your parents, siblings, etc, because honestly at this point, I’m pretty sure that should be a given. Of course not to say that that doesn’t mean something too. Most certainly it does, but the way I look at it, that kind of work is still a little bit selfish, don’t you think? When I am helping my husband and my dogs, I am trying to help myself too. I make food, I clean, I take care of the household because it gives me a sense of purpose AND a happy home is with everyone happy in it, right? So, the point I am trying to make is that in a sense, I do this work selfishly.
What I am really talking about is asking the question, what have you done for someone else today, someone new in recovery, a stranger at the grocery store, a colleague, a co-worker, a friend? Have you reached out to someone and asked them how their day was? Have you helped a co-worker with work they missed while out? Have you held the door open or let someone cut you in line at the grocery store? Have you picked an item up off the parking lot ground for someone who dropped it? Have you thanked a colleague for helping you with something? Have you answered the phone when a sponsee has called, or an even better question (if you are in recovery) is, are you even sponsoring anyone? Have you taken a meeting into the jail, Detox facility, out-patient classes, or DMV classes? Who have you helped today?
I’m not saying you have to do all these things, but what about one of them just for today? What motives do you have behind doing these things? What do you get out of it? Is any part of it selfish? For me, I can honestly say that the most selfish part of doing these things is so I get to stay sober. I know that I have to keep doing everything this program has taught me from the beginning to better myself, to be helpful and to stay sober. I can’t forget that. This is MY purpose today.
So, I think a good transition from keeping it real would be to talk about our true alcoholic thought processes, those of which don’t just go away as soon as you get sober. For me, it has taken action and a lot of it, to allow my thought processes, patterns, and actions come to the surface so that I can try to do something different with them. Something for me that keeps coming up is when things just never seem to be good enough. All things: me, you, life, my house, my marriage, my possessions, my dogs’ behavior, my job, the business, our employees, the vehicles, how slow Wal-Mart is, the food choices in this town, THIS town, the list could go on and on.
So, let’s get into the nitty gritty of it and get REAL. I’ve written a blog on how I have struggled my whole life with the “not good enough” images of myself, but when I really sit down and think about it, I can feel that way about literally everything else in my life. Especially if I start comparing myself and my life to those around me. That’s when I really get in trouble. I’ve been taught time and time again to never compare myself to others, with anything, especially with anything in recovery. My sponsor would always tell me “you are right where you are supposed to be”. UGH. Don’t I know it. I can look at myself and tell myself that I’m not pretty enough, my hair should be thicker and longer, I should be skinnier, my skin should be less wrinkled, I should be more flexible, less awkward, be able to sing, play an instrument, be smarter, blah, blah blah. Crazy right? But isn’t that the reality of how pretty much all humans can think from time to time?
Then I go to everything else: my recovery, my job, where I am at in life, the fact that I don’t have kids yet, our house, our vehicles, our clothes, our possessions, our company, my marriage, everything can be compared to someone or something else. So, why do we do this? Human nature, I suppose. The sins of the world that are trying to cover the fact that we are all children of God, would be another good way of describing it.
Looking back, I used to feel this way when I was in active addiction, but the easy part of that was I could just drink and not think about it anymore (until that quit working, so I would just cry about it instead). Then when I was newly sober, I used to compare my recovery to other’s recovery, however I quickly learned that the reality is that I don’t necessarily want other people’s recovery, no matter how good I think it looks from the outside. I need to go through what I need to go through for a reason, whatever it is and however long or slow the process is.
So, is the grass really greener on the other side or is it just an illusion, a trick of the mind? What is the other side? Is that someone else’s life, is that the life we think we should be living in the next year, or a life that seems nearly impossible? For me, sometimes I will look at someone else’s life and think maybe I should be where they are right now, or they seem to really have it going on and have this whole life thing figured out, but what I forget to think about is all the life struggles that we don’t see or hear about from these people. We ALL have problems. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So, would I really want to trade my life with someone else just because I think they have it all figured out, but then when the trade actually happens, I come to find that I get all their issues, struggles and problems too? I once heard that if we all laid out our problems on a table, if we had the choice, we would always go pick up our own problem again, because really, we don’t want to deal with anyone else’s.
So first, I have to give myself and little slack and remind myself that I am only human. Next, I remember I am a child of God and my life is exactly how it is supposed to be in this very moment. Then I will choose to pray for all those out there that are having struggles that we just don’t know about. Confess, forgive, empty and fill. What I choose to fill my life with today is living in the here and now. Not to look to where I think I should be or what I think I should be doing, but staying present in today and to always remain grateful, reflecting on where I used to be. Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I still have hopes and dreams today, but they are OUR dreams, not someone else’s. I will have faith in my God who has brought me to exactly where I need to be and will continue to be with me through this journey of MY life. I will also continue to put forth the action that I need to take to continue to work on myself, which can only come from working MY program, not anyone else’s.
So, speaking of the truth, where is it these days? How do we find it? I can tell you exactly where you can’t find it is anywhere on social media. If that is what you are looking for, maybe try a face to face conversation and you might have more luck.
Something that I always say when I am getting ready to speak in a meeting is that I am going to share from the heart, to speak my truth and show my realness and that is what I choose to do in my life as a whole. Granted, I’m not going to be complaining to everyone about my life issues or annoyances, just like I wouldn’t shout in the middle of Wal-Mart, my gratitudes and everything I am thankful for, but I do believe when you are sitting down with your family, close friends, and especially sponsees and others you are wanting to be able to help, you KEEP IT REAL.
How did our society turn into this? Where everything is online and what we show online is nothing short of perfection. Do we feel like we have to post something every day? And how do we feel when enough people aren’t commenting and liking our photos and posts? Did we tell ourselves that we are posting to let friends know where we are at in life, but instead feel like we have something to prove? Do we want to show off all the cool things that are happening in our lives to make others feel envious? Do we feel like we have to be better than the next person, that the grass is greener on OUR side?
These thoughts have been rolling around in my head for awhile now, because honestly, I used to be one of these people in a way. I felt like I was important when I got to show off my “oh so wonderful life”. I felt a rush when I would look to see how many people liked the post, then check it an hour later to see how many MORE people liked the post. Because of my thought processes lately, I have chosen not to post like I used to on social media, not to keep checking it every 5 minutes to see what people are saying about it. Because here is the TRUTH of it, NOONE’S life is that perfect. It’s just not possible. Life happens, so let’s start being real about it.
One of the reasons I have been thinking about this lately, is because my husband and I just recently watched the Netflix documentary about the Watts family, saddest thing in the world. My point with this is seeing if you paid attention to the differences in the social media posts verses the texts in this show. The fake verses the realness. You will NEVER know what is truly going on in person’s life if you are just watching their social media accounts.
My question is, how can you respect, look up to, and idolize, anyone who behaves in that manner? Something that I have been taught from the very beginning of my recovery is that we find the “winners” and those are the ones we stick with. Today, I think I have a much better understanding of that. The “winners” doesn’t mean their life is perfect, or they make you believe their life is perfect, it’s the ones who stay real and aren’t afraid to tell you what is really going on in their lives. Isn’t that where the venerability comes from? Putting it all out there: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The way I look at it, is that’s what I want to share with those who are just getting started on this sober life journey and really anyone else. If I was to tell them that it’s all up from here, they would be sorely mistaken, and if they happened to glance at other sober people’s social media, then most likely they will think they are doing something wrong, especially when they have a bad day, because trust me those days will come.
I’m not saying that everything on social media is a lie, and that life isn’t wonderful and we don’t have amazing, magical things happen to us, but is flaunting it on Facebook what it’s all about? Or is there more to life than that? What if we talked about God on social media? What if we talked about our struggles? What if we talked about our blessings and offered for everyone to join in to include their blessings? What if we talked about what we stand for and what are passions are? Not in a condemning and argumentative way, just saying, hey this is how I feel and if someone feels differently then that’s cool too. What if we helped people on social media instead of hurting them, even if we THINK we aren’t hurting anyone? Maybe instead of posting all over social media, we should spend time with our family, take pictures, and put them in a scrapbook for us as a family to look at. Maybe we should start a book study and invite friends over to discuss it. Maybe we should reach out to others and ask how their day is? Maybe we should stop and smell the roses. Maybe we should get a dose of humility.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t do any of this perfectly, but the more I grow in my recovery, the more awareness I receive, not only about myself, but the people I choose to surround myself with, and the actions I decide to partake in. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want people to look at my social media account and think, “wow, she must have a perfect life”. I want them to see the real me and my real life experiences and think if she can do it, then maybe I can do it too.
And I’m back. Life is busy…very busy. And a lot has happened on here since the last time I talked to you guys. I don’t have all the time in the world anymore. Not like I had all the time in the world before, but with life these days, my free time is truly pretty limited. So, let’s talk about that. I feel like as an alcoholic in recovery, life can be even more demanding and more hectic, than perhaps of a normal person. It’s not just the work and family..its work, family, and all things recovery.
Since the last time I blogged, the biggest thing in my life is that my husband and I took over a company. Yes, that’s right, we OWN a company. Take that one in, Laura. I still can’t believe it myself. Finally and at last, we feel so much more financially stable now and so far, it looks like it will continue that way for the foreseeable future. There are so many pros about owning your own company. You get to make your own hours, hire your own employees, bring in as much or as little money as you want, take a vacation when you want, and actually have holidays. The downside about owning a business is, well, everything else.
My husband is the manual labor worker of our team, so he hires, trains, and works his butt off everyday providing for our family. Once he is done working for the day, then he goes on price quotes and makes phone calls well into the evening. He even works on Saturdays AND an occasional Sunday (the day of rest!). Me on the other hand, I have TWO jobs, actually let’s make that, 3 jobs. I work a full time job, I do all the back end work for the business, and I take care of our household. On a daily basis, I am working 8-5, coming home to cook, clean, do laundry, take care of the dogs, take care of household paperwork and bills, THEN do all the business paperwork. This includes and is not limited to, our marketing tactics, paying estimated taxes, paying employee taxes, paying unemployment, making deposits, conducting payroll, making sure everything organized and keeping up with our trusty business helpers with quarterly reports, liability, insurance, etc. and let’s not forget that I have gone out a handful of times in the field as well, on, you guessed it, Saturday and Sunday, making my work day a 7 day week.
But of course, we can’t forget the recovery part, as well. This includes for myself and my husband, going to meetings, saying “yes” when we are asked to do things in the program, AND having 4 sponsees, EACH. If nobody knows what that entails, let me tell you, it’s some hard damn work. First, I have to keep myself sane enough to actually be able to try to help these people, then I have to find time to meet with these girls every week, individually. And let’s not forget about the texts and phone calls I get from them throughout the day.
I say all that, to say this. My life is busy and it’s consisted of very hard work on a daily basis. Something I hear more often than I would like is the phrase, “only people with kids would understand how busy it gets”. I want to make something very clear, that just because I don’t have children, doesn’t mean I don’t understand, or that I’m not just as busy. My first thought to these comments are “well YOU don’t understand what it is like to own a home, have a couple of dogs, OWN a business, work multiple jobs, or have sponsees”, but I suppose that is not a very spiritual thing to say either. So, instead, I say nothing at all. But isn’t that the truth? How can we say something like that, when we really have no idea what the person next to us is going through, what their life is all about, or what their truth really is.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that parents aren’t hardworking individuals, but I truly don’t think its fair to compare that to anything else, like, just because I’m a parent means I’ve already done the hardest thing in the world. Maybe for you, but maybe for others something else was harder, like getting sober, buying a house, owning a company, getting married, going to prison. Maybe we should be saying, “hey this is what I’m going through and you know what, its hard”. Period. Why does everything have to have a judgement and a comparison?
