topic acceptance

[DianaMarie7968]

hello family, I'm a recovering addict/alcoholic, my name is Diana, I picked this Topic because i try to apply "Acceptance" in my dailylife.
Tonight I have 8 months clean & sober, i was ask to speak tonight at my f2f meeting..
I touched on acceptance tonight, because my first 4 months were a total rollercoaster ride, my family knows nothing about recovery, which is fine, but My brother asked me 4 months ago to go to this bar where he was playing(he's in a band)..and my mother was like, ya you dont have to drink!, I tried to exsplain to them that i'm in recovery and I do not belong in a bar! cuz I know when I walk into a bar i want a capt Morgan & a diet coke! , 6 shots and I'm just begining, they both tryed to make every exsuse, i stood my ground with both of them telling them NO i'm not going, well my brother told me basically that ive changed , and blah blah blah...well i felt that they were trying to hurt my recovery process so, i told them both I love them but I wont be comming around much, I need to do some real recovery, with my sponcer, and meetings and step work, i'm on step 3 acceptance for me in MY recovery today is to accept that others and my whole family are never gonna understand this disease of addiction, I have to accept that I am not willing to TEST my recovery by going to a bar to support him while he's playing in his band...
Acceptance for me today is just to let go and let God...I know what I do and so does He...Today I accept that i'm a recovering addict, and the more i accept it the more I'll grow...I hope i shared this right, its my first time, but i'll get better at it, as time goes on, its a pace not a race...Thank you all so much for this awsome site I love it, and God Bless You all, Love DianaMarie

[DianaMarie7968]

would anyone like to share on this topic "Acceptance" ?

i would love some feedback, also helps me understand more also...please..lol

[craig]

Craig/alcoholic dos 1/12/1988 After 2 half assed attempts of AA in '84 & '86;I do not think I wanted to get sober. Nor did I think it was possible to get sober. Cases alter circumstances, and my life not only was so far out of whack like in a wind tunnel vortexing down the toilet. I reached my nadir. As the Big Book helped me to realize that my score cards read zero;I figured out the second half of step one was true. My life was unmanageable. That's a fact Jack! Next,I truly was able to admit that glass in hand,(not only was I warped) I could not say when my drinking would stop. I lost any power to control my drinking. The most important feature that gave me a leg up and a clue of how to deal with accepting my chronic,progressive,fatal disease is the concept of SURRENDER. It was really that simple for a complicated booze hound such as myself. Once I did surrender to a power greater than myself,I let HP take care of all. Thanks for letting me share on this good topic of acceptance presented by Diana.

[clean42day]

There is only one thing that kept me from long term recovery for so many years and that was fully accepting that I was powerless over drugs. No matter how much my life had become unmaneageable I continued to practice suicide on the installment plan for 25 years. I finally hit the big surrender after 4 relapses and 17 years in and out of the rooms of recovery.......when I finally accepted that there was no way I could "ever" use drugs and still keep the power of choice in my life at the same time. and it was insanity to think I could. When i gave up the lie - and started telling myself the truth - was when I hit the turning point and quit trying to test the theory of "practicing insanity and expecting a different result".

unfortunatly quitting drugs was only the surface issue - Accepting that my life was still unmanageable without drugs was another level of acceptance because the only thing I had changed was my drug use. That is where the rest of the steps come in - we must continue to grow or we will go right back into the disease without a drink or a drug. it took me a really long time to understand that the disease of addiction and alcoholism doesn't need a chemical to keep itself alive. A seperation from our spiritual source is the core of it - and without treating that spiritual dis-connectedness and bridging that Gap - all I am effecitively doing is "playing" around with this program and pretending to recover.

above the acceptance of my disease and that I can never again safetly use drugs - is all the other concepts of acceptance above that. I still have a hard time discerning what I have to accept and what I can actually have the power to change. I am absolutley sure I can accept responsibilty to change me and along with God - be the author of my life through the choices that I make - but sometimes the topic of acceptance gets really convaluted in this program.

Acceptance to me means to - TELL MYSELF THE TRUTH! AND THEN ACT ON THAT TRUTH IN A HEALHTY WAY.

I do not for instance accept "abuse" "manipulation" "emotional toxicity" or "unhealthy behavior" in my life and just automatically jump into powerlessness over those topics. I am just as responsible to recognize and discern what is "healthy" and what is not - and act in ways and take actions that are towards my highest good in those areas too.

I can accept that "things" people and places are what they are - but I don't have to continueally expose myself to those things by claiming powerlessness over them.

Accepting the truth is the first step - doing something about it becomes the next rigth thing to do.

That does not mean I go around tyring to change others or the world to my liking...what it means is that I accept that I can "change me" and the positions I place myself in.

light and love

Gail

[DianaMarie7968]

Thank You ,

awsome share, i love learning, and my sponcer says the same thing

unfortunatly quitting drugs was only the surface issue

[janbear]

I had to get off the drugs and alcohol first. Accepting i am an alcoholic/addict was difficult for me. I could accept my powerlessness, but the unmanageability was harder for me to accept. Through continuing the steps i accepted a Higher Power who i choose to call God. Acceptance comes with each step for me and its apparent to me in my life that more i am openminded to accepting others the more serenity i have. To me acceptance doesnt always mean i am going to like a situation. I simply need to accept it for what it is if i want to keep my serenity and move along. I can trace alot of my own irritations to lack of acceptance of others or situations. Fortunately we have the tool of using the Serenity prayer. At one time i had a sponsor suggest to me to pray a little differently if i need to and i find i hve often needed to and still do it.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the peoplei cannot change.
Courage to change the personi can and the
Wisdom to know that person is me'

[admin]

I remember when my hubby said he didn't understand. I told him it was okay if he didn't understand but it was very important for me to understand and accept that I am an alcoholic and drug addict and that I just can't drink or do drugs. Today my wishing to avoid places where alcohol is being served is not just because I am in recovery it is also because I just don't desire to be in those places. It's just not my thing anymore.

I am also reminded of what it says about acceptance in the Big Book. From Acceptance Was The Answer:

It helped me a great deal to become convinced that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue; that I had been drinking as a result of a compulsion, even though I had not been aware of the compulsion at the time; and that sobriety was not a matter of willpower. The people of A.A. had something new; there was a certain sense of security in the familiar.
At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem. After I had been around A.A. for seven months, tapering off alcohol and pills, not finding the program working very well, I was finally able to say, "Okay, God. It is true that I--of all people, strange as it may seem, and even though I didn't give my permission--really, really am an alcoholic of sorts. And it's all right with me. Now, what am I going to do about it?" When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away. From that moment on, I have not had a single compulsion to drink.
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.
Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God's handiwork. I am saying I know better than God.
For years I was sure the worst thing that could happen to a nice guy like me would be that I would turn out to be an alcoholic. Today I find it's the best thing that has ever happened to me. This proves I don't know what's good for me. And if I don't know what's good for me, then I don't know what's good or bad for you or for anyone. So I'm better off if I don't give advice, don't figure I know what's best, and just accept life on life's terms, as it is today--especially my own life, as it actually is. Before A.A. I judged myself by my intentions, while the world was judging me by my actions.
Acceptance has been the answer to my marital problems. It's as though A.A. had given me a new pair of glasses. Max and I have been married now for thiry-five years. Prior to our marriage, when she was a shy, scrawny adolescent, I was able to see things in her that others couldn't necessarily see--things like beauty, charm, gaiety, a gift for being easy to talk to, a sense of humor, and many other fine qualities. It was as if I had, rather than a Midas touch which turned everything to gold, a magnifying mind that magnified whatever it focused on. Over the years as I thought about Max, her good qualities grew and grew, and we were married, and all these qualities became more and more apparent to me, and we were happier and happier.
But then as I drank more and more, the alcohol seemed to affect my vision: Instead of continuing to see what was good about my wife, I began to see her defects. And the more I focused my mind on her defects, the more they grew and multiplied. Every defect I pointed out to her became greater and greater. Each time I told her she was nothing, she receded a little more into nowhere. The more I drank, the more she wilted.
Then, one day in A.A., I was told that I had the lenses in my glasses backwards; "the courage to change" in the Serenity Prayer meant not that I should change my marriage, but rather that I should change myself and learn to accept my spouse as she was. A.A. has given me a new pair of glasses. I can again focus on my wife's good qualities and watch them grow and grow and grow.
I can do the same thing with an A.A. meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects--late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke--the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on what's good about it, rather than what's wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on what's good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what's bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.
Today Max and I try to communicate what we feel rather than what we think. We used to argue about our differing ideas, but we can't argue about our feelings. I can tell her she ought not to think a certain way, but I certainly can't take away her right to feel however she does feel. When we deal in feelings, we tend to come to know ourselves and each other much better.
It hasn't been easy to work out this relationship with Max. On the contrary, the hardest place to work this program has been in my own home, with my own children and, finally, with Max. It seems I should have learned from my wife and family first; the newcomer to A.A., last. But it was the other way around. Eventually I had to redo each of the Twelve Steps specifically with Max in mind, from the First, saying, "I am powerless over alcohol, and my homelife is unmanageable by me," to the Twelfth, in which I tried to think of her as a sick Al-Anon and treat her with the love I would give a sick A.A. newcomer. When I do this, we get along fine.
Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of Max and other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my "rights" try to move in, and they too can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my "rights," as well as my expectations, by asking myself, How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety? And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level--at least for the time being.
Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that's God's will for me.
I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance and off my expectations, for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance. When I remember this, I can see I've never had it so good. Thank God for A.A.!
Big Book pp. 416-420

Thanks for letting me share. Great topic!

[mellotripp]

Insanity, I got my own Doctorate on being Schizo, then I had to quit playing God, for that is what drove me nuts. As long as I try to keep my own will out of the way of his, things seem to turn out OK. When I realized I was powerless over myself, it quit being me against the world, what the heck, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. God told me to practice acceptance, he just didn't understand me.

[newbeginning]

hi there , its great to hear your your story. your on the right track to recovery

[Milkman]

For many years, the only Acceptance I knew, was accepting the fact that I was a drinker. I accepted that fact about mysef, because that was what I thought I should be. Anyone that didn't drink, I knew I couldn't trust. You were a "staightee", a nerd, a whipped husband, and didn't know what end was up, lol.

What else was there to do in life, besides hit the bars after work and on the weekends, party to some live music, and get "high", so I could drink more, longer and not miss out on the "action"? And FIGHT? Oh yea, loved to fight, once I got enough "liquid courage" in me. If I wasn't the cause of at least half a dozen fights in the bar each weekend, it was a dead weekend. I didn't lose too many, as even though I was "under the influence", I still knew how to choose my opponents. Although the few times that my choices weren't too good, I have a few scars and memories of black eyes to remind me.

I thought that I had an image to protect, lol. A drinker, a fighter, and a lover, lol. The drinker turned into a drunk, the fighter turned into a fool, and the lover, well what can I say, didn't have too many 2nd dates, lol. The booze helped me make a fool out of myself, in just about all aspects of my life. And of course, with the booze, came the drugs. Offer me something that would get me "high" when I was drinking, and it didn't really matter WHAT you gave me, I took it, snorted, ate it, but somehow resisted the urge to mainline.

Another thing I accepted when I was drinking, was that I WAS gonna go to jail, about every 3 or 4 years, because that was a fact of my life. It happened like that for many years, untill those 3 or 4 years, got to be 1 or 2 years, and then, every 6 months untill at the end..........Prison, the big house.


I had to accept the fact, that I just couldn't drink. Accept the fact, that if I kept on, my life could only get worse. I had to accept that I couldn't even have ONE drink, because, hell, I had tried that many times with the same results.

I stopped accepting that part of my life finally, after everything I had was gone, family, friends, home, dignity and self respect. I started accepting that I was an alcoholic and my life had become unmanageable. Once I did that, I started to take the steps to change that.

First, I spent about 2 and 1/2 years in recovery programs, after care and a half way house.

Then, I went to a lot of meetings, which I had learned in the program, would help me stay tuned in to sobriety.

Got a sponsor

Worked the 12 steps of recovery

And the most important thing I did, was something I didn't do, and that was I didn't pick up that FIRST one.

Today, I manage recovery sites that I created, still work the steps, go to meetings, and don't pick up the first one.

I am an Alcoholic and Addict, and I accept that fact today. My life is manageable but still have a long ways to go. It's a never ending process that I have to take One Day at a Time.

Milkman
DOS 10-29-2000