Yesterday I wrote about our meeting with Adam Moore and the new form of check-in that Becky and I implemented.
It went really well. We didn’t stay to the 5-7 minute idea because we started at 9:00 at night, but both of us feel it’s a much more thorough way to check-in and evaluate the day.
I’m so grateful for today.
I’m so grateful for Becky and that we are married and working on recovery together.
I’m so grateful that this addiction encourages me to reach out to God and surrender my will to His.
I’m grateful that yesterday I got a lot of things done that I’d been putting off.
I look forward to a day today that is filled with positive progress towards fulfillment and progress in work.
What am I going to study today?
I think I’ll read from the White Book and from Sitting in a Rowboat and find scriptures to cross-reference.
The first sentence in the White Book resonates with me today:
Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid.
Inadequate – yes, I feel that, especially with the sponsorship and Apple stuff.
Alone – I feel that too with work sometimes.
Afraid – I would say that’s the core of my feelings – that I’m not going to have as good a year as last year, that there will be financial stress, that I won’t live up to my own possibly unrealistic expectations of myself.
This is interesting too:
Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.
To me, this is comparing. Comparing is never helpful in my recovery. I’m never going to be “as good” or “as big” as the next guy in business. There will always be something I’m not doing. But all I have to worry about today is what I AM doing, how I AM helping people, if I AM being 100% honest and showing integrity in my business endeavors.
This is too true as well:
Our habit made true intimacy impossible. We could never know real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal.
One thing I feel that has really changed since being in true recovery is this – our physical connection has never been better. I don’t ever think about “when was the last time” or “who’s going to initiate” or any of those selfish feelings. Today, I worry most about emotional connection and the rest just seems to fall into place and feel so connecting and real.
I like what’s said here as well about recovery and the timeline:
The longer we remain sober and grow in a fellowship of recovery, the more we learn about both the problem and the solution. We are still learning.
We are still learning. It’s not probably going to ever be over in the learning category. There is always more to learn when it comes to true recovery and growth. I’m grateful we are going to Adam Moore now and will have the opportunity to learn even more about what steps we can take to deal with negative emotions, fear, and trauma that I’ve caused. I’m also looking forward to learning about parental boundaries and how we can create those effectively.
This is so true too:
Nor do we claim that sobriety alone will lead to a lasting and joyous recovery.
Sobriety is not recovery, at least not the whole of it. Sobriety could be “white-knuckling” it; where recovery is learning to stop and stay stopped, while also learning to surrender to God and to other people. Recovery is also progressive victory over lust, which, to me, means that I stop and stay stopped from lust as well and, as I practice surrendering lust triggers to God, the temptation or burden lessons and lessons.
Until we had been driven to the point of despair, until we really wanted to stop but could not, we did not give ourselves to this program of recovery.
To me, this is hitting a rock-bottom. It doesn’t talk about how far we’ve gone or what we’ve done, it just talks about being at a point of despair, really wanting to stop but not being able to.
I think it’s interesting that it talks about really wanting to stop. For me, there was always a desire to stop, but I didn’t understand the debilitating negative emotions or the lust part of the addiction. So even though I was trying to white-knuckle my recovery from the sexually acting out, the other two parts of the equation were running rampant; I had no idea what I was doing to myself or how hard I was making it on myself to truly surrender my will to God.
Today, I’m grateful for this understanding.
I like what President Uchtdorf talks about in his talk “Landing Safely in Turbulence:”
We can’t always control the storms that life puts in our path. Sometimes things simply don’t go our way. We may feel shaken and blown about by the turbulence of disappointment, doubt, fear, sadness, or stress.
A few words stick out here: control, doubt, fear, stress.
This is a good perspective too:
During those times, it is easy to get caught up in everything that is going wrong and to make our troubles the center of our thoughts. The temptation is to focus on the trials we are facing instead of on the Savior and our testimony of truth.
Making the troubles the center of our thoughts is the preoccupation talked about yesterday in regard to the addictive cycle. Focusing on the temptation or the trials in my life instead of the Savior and His teachings can be dangerous and lead me back down a path I don’t want to be on.
I’m grateful for my study today.
I’m grateful to be where I am today in recovery.
I look forward to a day focused on surrendering my will to His and keeping the commitments I’m making to live in recovery.
Hasta luego!
Nate
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