Addiction Recovery: A road less traveled

The Balancing Act      A huge part of addiction recovery is making amends. The habits, characteristics, and traits learned while participating in addiction are harmful to the individual and hard for everyone around them. Ripples in water after throwing a stone are an excellent way to visualize this phenomenon. Our actions have ripples. These ripples affect the lives of those around us.      Making amends is an act of faith and quite the balancing act. Caution and action must be balanced in this effort to make amends with those hurt by our actions. When caution and action are balanced, the addict has spent time on their knees praying with God and consulting with trusted advisors on how to reach out and make amends. When caution and action are not balanced, efforts become impulsive and careless or they become procrastinated. In my recovery journey, I have experienced both of these. Being Impulsive and Careless     I remember talking to my sponsor ea...

    I watched a lot of westerns growing up. Something about the old west fascinated me! In almost every western I watched there was the infamous stand off between the hero and the villain. These stand offs were classic! The hero and the villain would stare at each other. The close up of their eyes and how stony they looked. One would always say something to get at the other. One of my favorite stand off lines came from The Outlaw Josey Wells . The hero looked at four other guys he's having a stand off with and says, "Are you going to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?" As you can imagine, the four guys 'blink' and Josey wins the fight.     Before I started my journey, I have encountered similar stand offs. I had been hurt by people in my past and hadn't learned to forgive them. Several of the people that had hurt me were people I had hurt as well. In my mind, before the my journey, it was stand off. I wasn't going to blink first. I blinked first, they wo...

There is a common principle in weight training known as progressive overload. This principle suggests the intensity of workouts should be increased over time. Pretty simple, and should be easy to implement right? Well, on paper, sure. In application, maybe not. Applying the principle of progressive overload requires an individual to be willing to change and then change when the time is right. For instance, suppose an individual can do 5 push-ups. The principle of progressive overload would suggest that for this individual to get stronger and build more muscle, they should try for 6 push ups. Once that is achieved, move on to 7 push ups. So on, and so forth. Over time, this means the individual must make consistent, little changes over time to get stronger. At some point, the individual will begin to regress if they do not increase the number of push-ups. Why is this? The muscles of the human body require stress to grow. If an individual doesn’t apply that stress, the muscles in the hu...