The Voices of Recovery

“Service keeps you sober”

• Cliché’

“A generous heart. Kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity. They are key to a happy life.”

• Buddah

Finding purpose in recovery is a key to staying sober, avoiding relapse, and general happiness. Purpose comes in many forms, almost all include service. Let’s take a minute and define service.

Defenition:

Service: an act of helpful activity; help; aid:

Service can really look different for everyone, it comes down to making sure the activity fits the very broad definition above, then just do it. No one is out there keeping score for you, this is something that will not work unless it comes from inside you. Now maybe the assignment came from someone else, just keep in mind, if you do it, but you don’t want to do it, then it is not really the right kind of service. The irony about the right kind of service is it serves us as well as others.

“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

There are some real keys in the 12^th step, it requires honesty and it requires action. . What does a spiritual awakening feel like? I think we better discuss this. Here is a thought starter, once you are spiritually awake it is like a fire that burns inside you, in order to feed the fire, you must be of service to yourself and others it is the only way, as long as that fire burns in me, I am the safest I can be by feeding the fire. This then becomes my clearly defined purpose. The side effects of a Spiritual awakening are not to be ignored. Happiness, laughter, lightheartedness, giving and receiving love, caring, real happiness, real sorrow, feelings of empathy. I could go on and on. If feeding the fire is about service then finding ways to serve is critical to our recovery.

In Jail my co-host Shane had an amazing spiritual awakening, it was rooted in the realization that helping other addicts provided a higher purpose for his life. When he found this level of happiness this level of contentment it became a marker on his map. His life map of happiness. At that point anything that points his compass in the direction of that marker becomes a journey in happiness. He knows where it leads, it equals fulfillment, that hole he has tried to fill with drugs, disappears or becomes much smaller.  Your map must be full of new markers. As you set markers your recovery will get stronger and stronger. The formula is simple! Service = connection to higher power & other humans. This becomes the basis for a spiritual awakening, and maintaining a life of positive connection.

There are those who struggle and those who cannot see the light even when it shines right in there face, that is okay, there is still a solution, and even if it goes unrecognized it is still part of your spiritual awakening. Which is really to say the moment you can feel true love for yourself and share that true love with anyone without cost.

You plus me = a power greater than myself. I cannot tether my sobriety to someone else, but my connection to someone else can be that power. Once again finding purpose and fulfillment in service to another human being boom you have a marker on your map, something to keep you driving forward and staying clean. Having found this, life takes on new meaning, no longer something to be endured, it becomes a purpose filled journey.

Often times the thought of service is far harder than the actual service, this is a normal response to the idea of giving up the time and energy that is yours, however it is important to remember recovery is about you. As we recover we often talk about our selfishness as an addict, then we launch out to fix all of the relationships we have damaged, when really all we have to do is live clean and sober, the lives we have effected negatively, immediately fix themselves, our recovery is all about us, but effects every human connection we have had. We cannot talk our way out of something we behaved our way into, we must become a living breathing amends.

Now with all this said there is an un-measurable amount of benefit to our service that goes far beyond our personal addiction.  If your service alters one life for the better then you are walking an elite and spiritual path. In this day and age just caring about other human beings can be monumental.

Your addiction is about unhappiness, your recovery should be about happiness. As a user you were not always unhappy and in recovery you will not always be happy.  You will however be on the map for happiness, you will be able to set and identify markers on your map. Your spiritual mind awake your higher power will begin to manifest things in your life, put people in the right places, and move you to better and better versions of yourself. It will not always be easy but it will definitely be worth it.

Bottom line this first section, the freaking definitions of Vulnerability on the web sucked. So we are going to have to determine right here, what it is and what it means.

Here is my definition, which by the way I feel vulnerable sharing it.

Vulnerability is being your truest self despite the discomfort and fear it causes

True vulnerability is something we slip in and out of, this feeling that we are exposed to our core. That is not the vulnerability I am talking about, the vulnerability I am talking about the conscious choice we make to be teachable, to be honest, and to look at ourselves.  This gives us a unique opportunity to find a place of true growth.

Great example provided by Brene Brown on her Ted Talk “The power of Vunerability”

So I thought, you know what, I’m going to start with connection. Well, you know that situation where you get an evaluation from your boss, and she tells you 37 things that you do really awesome, and one “opportunity for growth?”

And all you can think about is that opportunity for growth, right? Well, apparently this is the way my work went as well, because, when you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they’ll tell you their most excruciating experiences of being excluded. And when you ask people about connection, the stories they told me were about disconnection.

It is in our nature to look at the “scary or risky” side of every situation and spontaneously protect ourselves. This includes the lies we tell ourselves, or the lies we choose to believe about ourselves. See the message is simple. Knowing it is simple has not made it any easier for me, but it is simple.  As an addict in recovery, either a day or a year. I know more about myself than at any other time of my life. I am no junkie, I am not a bum, a bad father, I am a great employee, a good friend. However I feel vulnerable as an addict. I sometimes want to lie, or omit the fact that I am in recovery. What world does this create for me, well we could talk about that forever, but the truth is, it creates a world that I live in that I cannot be my true self. I cannot change the hard fact that I am an addict, but that sure as hell does not mean any of the things others might think of me are true.

I hope this is making sense, because for me the subject of vulnerability flashes into and out of my life in a flash, in order to maintain it, I have to be in an almost meditative state. The raging inner narcissist (my great emotional bouncer) continuously tries to battle my moments of vulnerability. It tries to bring me to a place of anger, fear, or outward sarcasm or over the top humor. These are all ways I deflect those tough emotional moments & vulnerability.

Okay enough about how it looks, paint on the idea that if you hate it, you can learn to love it, then you will open your mind to a place of true recovery. That getting to know the true you is the greatest thing that will happen in your recovery. That recognizing the bright hope that burns in your future is the greatest discovery you can make.

 

This will only happen if you can find a way to lean into the pain, and there will be pain. The moment you turn and run from it, the vulnerability ends, you must not only lean into it, but in this place of recovery you are most likely going to have to sit in it. Truly embracing it means you better take note of it, so that when you go through this in the future (here is a secret you will go through shit in the future) you can find your way back to vulnerability and learn and grow.

 

“You cannot sail into your future, when you’re anchored in the past.”

Chris Alder The Voices of Recovery

 

“Well, I have a vulnerability issue. And I know that vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. And I think I have a problem, and I need some help.”

Brene Brown