The Victory In Surrender

John King

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• Publié par: seorumer
• Publié le: 22 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• Langue: English

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The Victory In Surrender Top 10 Ways To Overcome Your Addiction Bonuses for:www.VictoryInSurrender.com Bonus One, What My Addiction Was Really Like This one here particularly tells what happens as we start to realize what it was like, struggling with our addiction. The second Bonus Chapter will tell what happened when I put the sword down and surrendered. The third Bonus Chapter tells what it’s like today in recovery. There are some very important things we’ve learned throughout our recovery that we want to share with other individuals suffering from addiction. Everything we learned and know in recovery I want to be able to share with those still suffering from their addiction. We are not alone in recovery and it’s not just me telling you to do this; it’s us together in the we of the program. We have an opportunity to share a little bit of what it was like in our struggle with our addiction, and what it is like today, which starts to give those still suffering some hope. I never realized this in the beginning of my recovery, but the same thing happened to me when I realized that I had to set the sword down and quit fighting my addiction. There was a time when I thought partying was great; I was having so much fun. Then I would say,” I’m going to party like this the rest of my life; I’m just going to control my drinking better.” The final thought was that, “I’m going to do this my way; I’m going to drink this type of alcohol only, and I’m not going to drink on weekdays.” Soon, I began to drink every day, and drive, and I didn’t care.

I went through a whole period where I really thought I was having a great time. I was probably the clown of the situation, not realizing how bad things really were or how I would end up. Finally I came to a line in the sand, of having fun and then all of a sudden, the bottom falling out. Now I had to fight the demons of my addiction, on a daily basis. I could go through my childhood experiences; how my mother, father, brothers, had all participated in my addiction. Most of the people who partied like me took it to their graves. In my addiction, I went through my whole life blaming others. If my parents had been there to protect me, then maybe I wouldn’t have been abused. If this had happened in my past, or I was taken care of in a different way, I wouldn’t have become addicted. As a child I was very angry and bitter. This was because of the things that had happened to me as a young child. Before I became a teenager, I went through the stage of experimenting with drugs and alcohol. As soon as I picked up the drink I realized it was a way that I no longer had to think about all those things I had gone through and I could get out of myself. To escape, that was really important. I had spent 27 years chasing my tail and getting out of me, before recovery took hold of me. Trying to get away from me and trying to get out of this cage of addiction was too hard, alone. Like a lot of other people suffering from addiction, I tried a lot of different ways to control it. I was warned about my partying, literally hundreds of times, but I didn’t listen. How many times someone would tell me, if you do this, it’s going to lead to this, but I never listened. Family members and teachers in grammar schools would warn me and my brothers, but I was always going to do it differently. I was going to do it differently than my parents. I was going to do it differently than

my brother, who I idolized. I was going to do it differently than him and his friends. I was the guy. I grew up thinking I was unique and that’s as good as it gets. It was different back then; obviously, the world was a smaller place. We didn’t have the transparency or the communication that we have today. We didn’t realize that our lives were so dysfunctional and our family’s lives were so dysfunctional. I had gone through grammar school and high school, pretty much, on the throes of my addiction. Back then, it felt like we could pretty much do whatever we wanted, when we wanted. There weren’t too many people who got in our way. There were a lot of enablers, in our addiction. We were legends in our own minds. I think growing up in this time, the people around us thought we’d grow out of the drugs and alcohol. With hippies, the Vietnam War was just ending and I was in high school; no one was watching us. People started to think, maybe those kids would grow out of this. I don’t think they realized that we were growing into this world of addiction, in a big way. There weren’t drug tests. Everyone drank and smoked, even on airplanes. I say this because everyone I associated with drank and smoked. I was part of the crowd and I loved it. I lived in a community that, by most standards, was very diverse, with all kinds of different ethnicities. It was tough. It was easy for me to make friends because I was always the life of the party. I always had the supplies to have fun with. There was a one mile radius that you hung around in. We didn’t know what was going on in the world until we would see it on the news. We didn’t know what was going on in other parts of the city because we seldom left the neighborhood.

Once in a great moon we would take a road trip and go somewhere. Our family didn’t go on vacations. When I look back, it created a lot of isolation and the feeling of “this is as good as it gets.” My uniqueness of thinking of all these things that had happened in my past really isolated me. I came to a point where we started to believe we were legends in our own mind. We really started to believe that. We were legends in our own mind, untouchable to our friends and family. I thought I was the toughest kid on the block. The reality was I just had a brother that was tougher than me and everybody was afraid of him. He was mean. It took me years to realize that it wasn’t me they were afraid of; it was my brother. The reality was I grew up in this whole atmosphere of drinking, doing drugs, and smoking. By the time I got into high school I had to do something different or I was going to end up in jail. I went into the military and once again, I took me with. That was the problem, always taking me with. I took me with and all my addictions and all my ideas in my mind’s eye. Coming from a big city I never realized the impact that I was going to have on so many other people around me. It was very clear that you had people who drank and smoked and people who didn’t. When I went into military I gravitated to people who were from big cities, who liked to party and have a good time. I always wanted to have a better time than everyone else. There were times even then that I could see my addiction really play a role in what had happened in my life, with the trouble I had gotten into. I started to curb my appetite for this particular usage of drugs or this particular drink or those people. Like anyone suffering from an addiction, I started to think I could control my addiction. Today I realize I was just kidding myself.

I was only 18 at the time and thought I was the guy. I had gotten into serious trouble because of my drinking and drug use, but I still didn’t stop. I had been warned literally a hundred times by my superiors. I was punished because of my alcohol and drug use. This was the first time that I had really admitted that I had a problem. I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I was locked up in jail and I pretty much had to save my butt to reduce my sentence. I told the judge that I got in trouble because of my addiction. I thought that it would help, and it did. Looking back at it, I didn’t realize that honesty was the best policy. They sent me to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the jail. I didn’t think I had a problem but there were all kinds of people there that thought I did. I was pretty much the youngest person there. I remember somebody asking me “What happened? Who are you?” I was with a group of men twice or three times my age. Obviously they had all been there for some other reasons than for drinking or drug use. I told them was there because I had gotten caught with contraband and I had a problem. I didn’t really specify anything else. I just thought that would keep the dogs off me and help me from getting thrown out of the Army. Little did I know that, being locked up pulled me in a direction of even greater negativity. Now I was with others who had been in the same situation. Misery loves company; here they were right with me. At age 18, I thought I knew everything. You couldn’t convince me that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, if I thought differently. I had no humility whatsoever. I was going to do it my way, never stopping long enough to realize what had fueled a lot of these thoughts of my addiction.

I went into the Army when soldiers were coming back from Vietnam, as the war was over. A lot of them had serious alcohol and drug addictions, just like me. I was in good company and pretty much thought I had died and gone to heaven. I met all kinds of people and I really thought that I had arrived as an 18 year old. Once again my addiction got me into serious trouble and I blamed everyone else. Thank god it was towards the end of my military career and I was able to get out with an honorable discharge. I went back to my parent’s house because I had no other place to stay and I brought me with. Looking back now, working on 25 years of sobriety, bringing me with was the biggest problem. I was so stuck in this cage of addiction that I didn’t really see or care about anything else. I spent another 10 years battling my addiction. I had different jobs but never had a nickel in my pocket because all the money went to alcohol and drugs. I ended up back in recovery, again. Thank god I had a GI bill that helped offset the costs on my recovery. I did a couple visits, when I was on active duty of rehabilitation places on a military installation.. Of course I was with a lot of veterans who had gone through the same thing I had gone through, but I never saw the similarities. Back then we had 12 step meetings but I really didn’t take my rehabilitation part seriously. It was easy to be clean and sober in a protective environment like a lockdown situation in a hospital. However, as soon as I left I ended up associating with the same people practicing their addiction, and going to the same places doing the same things. The reality was, I kept bringing me with in every geographical move I made. I can blame it all on my past and blame it all on other people, which I surely did or I could asked what roll I played in my addiction. It felt like a lifetime pointing my figure at people, blaming them for

everything that had happened to me in my past. Coming back from the military, I was seriously strung out on some serious drugs and alcohol, alcohol was like water. I thought it was easy to hide because of the circles that I ran with. I ran with like-minded people in a negative environment. I always thought I was doing better than others, because I had a job. Most of the time I could afford my habit. Personality-wise I wasn’t really intimidated by too many people, I thought I was the life of any party. I had been so blessed but never realized it. There were times in my addiction when I started to think death was a better option, my addiction became suicidal. The thoughts of suicide had come more often and I would ingest more and more drugs to kill the pain or myself. I had really woken up in some bad situations, in my addiction that I don’t wish on no one. I survived several overdoses, hallucinations and out of body experiences, that would rival any type of medication. Lots of things had happened in my past, years in the military, coming home with even a worse addiction than when I left with. I would, pretty much eat or drink anything that would get me out of me, because the mental pain was too great, to handle. My parents couldn’t see it because they were battling their own addictions of drugs and alcohol that they both took to their graves. My brothers and I pretty much fought for the scrap pieces of any drugs or alcohol that was left. We never realized we were cut from the same cloth of dysfunction, and how, all the abuse in our family affected all of us, not just me. Because really, back then it was all about me, only me. I was so selfish at the time of my addiction that I couldn’t think of anything but my next high.

I had no idea, this was a problem because everyone around me, was the same way. Looking back at my addiction today, I just wouldn’t listen to people telling me I had a problem. I had spent time in several recovery facilities in the military only to ease my sentence, for the trouble I had gotten in to. In recovery, I was around negative, likeminded people, who didn’t want to get caught again. This is not a good reason to be in recovery, trust me. I wanted to hang around other people that pretty much acted and did the negative things that I did. I never looked at it, as though I had a problem, everyone else did. The problem that I had in the beginning of recovery, was going to set the sword down and quit fighting, my addiction. These words, had never come to mind, you still couldn’t tell me anything. I had gotten out of the military and I was making more money than my mother and father, combined. However, I still couldn’t put two nickels together because it all went to feeding my addiction. In 12 step programs they call this, self-will run riot. That’s what you hear in a lot of different programs -- self-will run riot. I couldn’t control anything in my life at this point. I was a walking accident, waiting to happen, to me or anyone around me. If I got behind a wheel I was drunk, I was drunk all of the time, alcohol was like water. I was untouchable, I thought nothing could happen to me because I was the life of the party. I was the first one there and last one to leave any party. The one who could drink the most and do the most drugs. I thought I was the guy, never realizing that this was going to come and haunt me for a lot of years. I had gone to a meeting for the first time when I was 18, to help my time when I was locked up. Looking back at it now, 15 years later, I had finally come

to a point in my life where all the wheels had fallen off the cart of my life. I finally had come to realize, that I had to do something about my addiction, drinking, and drug use or I was going to die. On one hand I wanted to recover because I felt no other way that I could get out of this cage of addiction. On the other hand, I was faced with the reality of stopping forever -- hang on a minute, my mind said. Let’s not go so quick, I’m too busy to go in to recovery now, was my response. That’s what happened in my story that I share with you. What it was like, looking back on my addiction, it was a short period of having a good time, and a longer period, of really chasing my tail in a cage of addiction. How I survived is a miracle in itself. I hope you see some similarities in my story. In the next bonus chapter I’ll share with you the realities of what happened, in my addiction, for me to get to that point, to set the sword down. I’ll see you next in the bonus chapter and once again, thank you so much for getting to this point of your bonuses. Don’t forget to share your story at:www.VictoryInSurrender.com

This bonus chapter 2 title is: What Really Happened First of all I want to congratulate you for getting to this point to really read not only all 10 chapters but getting to the bonus chapters. In the last bonus chapter we talked about what it was really like. Everybody has their bottom, everybody has their story. Not everybody’s family is that dysfunctional. Don’t look at the differences, look at the similarities. That’s what we have to start doing. Addiction has a lot of similarities and it drags people down in a lot of the same ways. It’s not because of our differences. The differences are between our ears and in our mind’s eye, as they call it. You know the truth, our addiction has warped our mentality, our way of thinking. When I told my story in the last bonus chapter, I broke my anonymity. What is said here stays here, is what they tell you in recovery groups. We don’t talk about what has been said in the meetings. When people start their journey in recovery they need a safe place to go and share their story, without it coming back to haunt them from those rooms. It is bad enough things happened we are not proud of, however, anonymity is very important in recovery. As far as my story of what it was really like, those were some very painful times in my life, and I did just gloss over a lot of them. I didn’t mention anybody or incriminate anyone. Anonymity is important in all aspects of recovery. The stories are very similar and it was a part that got me to where I was in recovery. My story got me to a point where I ended up with a DUI and that’s where the book starts. It starts with talking about all the wheels falling off the cart of life and getting my DUI. Even though I had had other stays or visits or whatever you want to call it, in treatment facilities. I found people who were there to help instruct me on what to do but I just wasn’t open minded

enough to listen. I wasn’t ready to quit. I was young and thought that I’m going to have a good time and I didn’t know any other way to have a good time, at least in the circles that I traveled in. The people I associated with and the things I did and places I went, were all negative. They were all about negativity and all about drinking and using drugs, what a wasted life. All of that said and done, this chapter is pretty much, what happened to the point where I really had to set the sword down and quit fighting my addiction. I came to the point in my addiction that I really had to admit that I was an addict and alcoholic and I could no longer manage the insanity. This was a lot to admit all at once, just like it’s a lot for you to read this book because you can see the similarities. Sometimes you probably can’t read a book on recovery in public, without giving away your anonymity. A lot of times, I would tear pages out from the book and put them in my pocket, so I could read them waiting for the bus. Remember I lost my license to the DUI, very humbling experience. If somebody was giving me a ride and I had to sit in the car for any length of time or at lunchtime or break I could pull out a page and read it. I would finish reading it and then crumble it up and throw it in the garbage. A book is no good if you don’t read it. Your recovery is the most important thing you will ever do in your life. I was serious about trying to change what my doing does, the foundation of my recovery. Then I would have to get to a point to really reach out and talk to someone. I could not do this recovery by myself or by just reading a book. Now you’re looking at or listening to a lot of the similarities in my story. You’re not drawn to how unique you are and the differences. You might have a few 24 hours of recovery under your belt at this time or