there is always a cost

[clean42day]

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life, which is
required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
-Henry David Thoreau

Consider the young man who was doing great in his high school studies,
then
suddenly started to fall behind. One day, a teacher pulled the young
man
aside and asked him what happened. The student told him that he had
asked
his father for a car, and the father told him that if he earned the
money,
he could have one. The student, being industrious and hard working,
went
out, got a job, saved the money, and bought the car. But then the car
needed
insurance, gas, and maintenance, so the student kept the job to keep up
the
car. The job took up more and more of his time, until finally be began
to
fall behind in his studies.

"Why don't you just get rid of the car?" asked the teacher.

"Get rid of the car?" came the reply, "but how would I get to my job?"

How often we feel that if we just get that new car, that new boyfriend
or
girlfriend, that promotion, or the condo in the good neighborhood, we
will
find happiness and contentment -- only to discover that the thing just
brings with it more pain, more costs, and more bother than it's worth.
The
new sports car runs only half the time, the new partner needs more care
than
your dog, the promotion eats up your weekends, and the new condo won't
allow
pets.

Things don't bring true happiness. Instead, they often sap your
strength and
leave you emptier than you were before. Think about the true cost of a
thing
before you pursue it in time, lifestyle changes, energy, maintenance
and
money. Can you really afford the amount of life that the thing will
take
from you in return for the happiness it brings? Are you willing to pay
the
price?

God, help me be aware of the true cost of the things in my life.



From the book - More Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie,
copyright
2000

p.s. A very wise counselor had us make a list one day...of the results of our addiction......
what did we loose....? What did our addiction cost us?

our family, our job,
our self-respect
our values and morals
our principals
our spirit
our freedom
the list could go on and on...materially, emotionally mentally and physically, and spiritually.....
And we lost those things little by little on a daily basis over periods of years slowly......unconsciously operating in denial that everything we held dear was slipping away......and even when we woke up and recognized it....we still couldn't stop. Lets face it addiction took allot of work.

Most people say that recovery is hard.........

What is hard about it is now we are operating in total awareness of what kind of work it will take to gain back what we had lost.

The work of addiction
and the work of recovery
are exactly the same.....
We will gain back what we had lost......

The real question is "what is the cost"?

in our addiction we were willing to sacrifice everything to get what we wanted.......

The same is true for recovery.....you must be willing to let go of everything your disease tells you is important in order to get what you want in recovery...
we must regain a singleness of purpose in recovery just like we did to get our drugs.

The cost is the same.....
but the rewards in recovery are incredible........

Many times we run on self-will and we want what we want when we want it....but many times we go ahead and go after it....and we do not get "what we need"

What is the long term cost is a very good question to think through b4 we go chasing after what we think will fulfill us and make us happy.
just something to think about.....what is the real expense of self-will?