July 28

PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 28: “Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.” ― David G. Allen

Many addicts have the idea that their lives will get better, and THEN they will stop drinking and using, etc. This is the exact opposite of the deal we are doing here. We quit using and drinking and life gets infinitely better because even with tragedy, pain, fear, and all the things that come with this daily thing called Life; we have hope and we have quit destroying all hope with substances and old ideas/behaviors. We have a tendency toward what is called “magical thinking”; believing that life will be wonderful when we: get the job, get the partner, get the house, get the car, get the facelift, do something, go somewhere, or a long list of ways to fix outside issues when that is not the root cause of our unhappiness or lack of enjoyment with life at all. So Patience teaches us to be happy before or without or despite those things not being part of our experience. Truth is that we are not going to be any happier with that event or thing or person than we are now. When we learn to just live life, a day at a time, just the way it is presented to us, right here-right now; then we are able to be happy when and if those other conditions are met. I wondered how happy I could ever be again when my husband died. There was so much that I had abandoned of myself to the marriage and the life we led that I did not know how I would ever find my feet again. And I did, although it was a whole new way of being in the world than the way I had been before him. Of course, but I did not know that at the time. So we get to do what is put in front of us each day and allow life to unfold, even when we don’t like the things that are coming or they feel terrifying. And I usually have an agenda that is NOT going to be met, but have learned to let that go, a bit at a time and see the real lesson being given to me by life. The world today is vastly different from the one that I got into recovery living within. So many changes to me and the world around me. I cannot even begin to list those things that are different now. And they have all been changing whether I was happy about it or not! Oh! My only task here is to accept the things that come to me and the way they are presented; and if I am having difficulty, I have 12 steps to assist me in turning my attitude towards that acceptance. The ONLY thing I can change is my attitude and my behavior. For me, this has looked like me changing my mind about what I think about things, then my behavior is adjusted accordingly. When I try to force behaviors to change and I don’t like it, I usually keep a bad attitude and then the behaviors change with a bad attitude. This is NOT acceptance in the way that I am happiest with, but either one will work. Eventually, I have found that I work through resistance to acceptance and my attitude gets softened. I was not told to come to meetings to learn how to stop drinking. I was told to come to meetings AND stop drinking and using. So I had to work on the attitude/behavior at the same time. Wow! That seems radical, doesn’t it?