Choices, choices, choices. What a wonderful option to have. I rememeber when I was in my addiction that I thought I was doomed to live a life in addiction. Never feeling a day without pain was what I thought I was to endure for the rest of my life, however long I had left. Next thing you know I found recovery. Then the miracles started happening and I found out that I had a choice to act out or not to act out. Then the choices started to florish. I could chose which meeting I wanted to go to or who I was not going to speak to any longer. These weren't big choices but they added up. The gave me confidence in myself so that when it was time to make a big decision I was on my game. I had my sponsor to assist me and the people in my fellowship to bounce ideas off of. But, when it came time to meet the rubber to the road it was just my higher power and myself. Choices its a God thing. |
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When I was acting out I had no choices, I had to get the next "hit" I had to stumble down a progressive painful path of using and being used. It was all I thought I was worth.
Today, today I have choices. I am cautious with my newly found/earned freedom but by the grace of GOD I have earned my choices and hope to continue to make them wisely. Thank you for this blog and this program and the support. Ally
Acting out has consumed my life and become the only thing I think about; therefore, if I can not act out that means I can't do what I want. Thus, my choices have been taken away from me.
This is a truly sick way to view the world and my life. The truth being, in my addiction I had no choices. The only thing I could do was act out. That is not a choice, it is a compulsion. A clear distinction. One gives you opportunity for decision making, the other does not. One is freedom to think and one is slavery to a thought.
In one of Ted's previous posts, he makes an excellent point. Today, I sit here on the computer, an instrument that has taken me down many dark paths in my addiction. But it was never the computer that put me in trouble, it was the choice I made about how to use it. Now I sit here typing my feelings, and the computer is being used as a tool for my recovery. An excellent example about the choices we can make if we think with clarity and "choose" to use the program.
Yesterday was a tough day for me. I found myself very stressed and upset. These feelings can trigger me to act out. In fact, one of my first thoughts was about acting out. My second thought was to call my sponsor. Since acting out has gained me nothing to this point except pain and anguish, I chose to call my sponsor yesterday.
Guess what? It was the right choice. After talking with him, I felt better about myself and my situation. I would hate to think of the consequences had I acted out. I hope next time my first thought will be to call him.
Today I choose recovery.
Other parts of my life were the same way. I didn't think that I could choose the people I hung out with, the work that I did, and once I had started a supposedly "committed" relationship, that I had no choice about getting out of it if it had turned out that I had made the wrong decision. This made me feel powerless and out of control - I reached for sex to pretend that I had the gift of free will. But the will wasn't free. It was the lack of choices in my life that backfired on me. It triggered the addiction and I was no longer in charge.
I see things differently today. I realize I am responsible for the content of my life. What I do, who I do it with, what work I choose, and when I'm wrong, I can reverse that poor choice with a better one.
It is very freeing, having choices instead of an addiction. Thanks to all of you who have helped me find this new reality. It will make all the difference and I look forward to the rest of my life with optimism.