Using your writing efforts as a roadmap to recovery

Written for a 12 Step Group

When you write, it uses a different part of the brain that mere speaking - "Using your writing as a roadmap to recovery"

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Putting our complaints down on pen and paper first crystallizes in our heads what needs to be changed or accepted in our lives. Getting it all out and putting it all down is the first start of this recognition process that leads us to recovery. Without this recognition, that we are sick or something is wrong in our lives, we cannot develop the desire for change. We don't even know what is wrong to change!

Writing your complaints down is the first start to making the roadmap for restructuring your life. Restructuring our lives is very important if we want to get peace from our addictions. Those things that cannot be restructured need to be accepted. Either way we can find peace -- by change or acceptance. Now, one fellow on the list who poo-poo'ed people that complain or whine in their posts mentioned that we should ask ourselves "are we carrying the mess or carrying the message?" While a cute motto, non of us are in the position to dictate to others how long they carry either. That is up to each person to decide for themselves, but they can be aware of it. Just as I post about high capacity or lower capacity people with a great variance in abilities and capacities, so it goes with recovery too. Some people get it quick, others never get it at all and there are addicts of every shade in between these two extremes.

When you write, it uses a different part of the brain that mere speaking uses and I seem to get amazing results from writing as compared to just talking. Writing helps crystallize your thoughts, it shares recovery with other addicts and they can know they are not alone, so you can practice step 12 as a bonus to your own work. Every time you write it helps reminds you that you are an addict and reinforces in you of the importance and acceptance of Step 1. You can practice step 4 and 5 with list work. You can get important feedback from your hundreds of "list sponsors" from around the world, as compared to having just one opinion...all with one hit of the send key. Without online recovery support groups I would be nowhere near where I am with my recovery and my life today.

Just remember what the Buddhists say in the eightfold path about right actions. We have to use the right thoughts, the right actions and take the right direction with recovery. Just spinning our wheels in the wrong direction does little for recovery, so write about things that matter to you and your recovery. Some people use the list for jokes and other off topic subjects. While it is important to laugh once in while it still boils down to what my father used to tell me about living life "you only get out what you put in."

What I would do with posts that detail our problems is print them out and distill what needs to me changed in our lives. There is no better roadmap for change than this. Whatever we write or talk about that is eating at us needs to be changed or accepted. You have put in your inventory and thinking time to write our what is eating at you and have given it away to boot to your "list sponsors" all at once. Great simple living work! Now, all we have to do is finish the work we started.

Pages 88 to 89 of the 12 and 12 of AA underscores how important inventory work is to recovery work:

"When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotion-anger, fear, jealousy, and the like, If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. This doesn't mean we need to wander morbidly around in the past. It requires an admission and correction of errors now. Our inventory enables us to settle with the past. When this is done, we are really able to leave it behind us. When our inventory is carefully taken, and we have made peace with ourselves, the conviction follows that tomorrow's challenges can be met as they come."

When I first came to online recovery I saw how most people wrote about what needed to be changed, but then seemed to stop and not do much to change things. Years later some of these people are still in the same boat complaining about the same things. If they cannot change the problem then they must learn to accept it, these are the two roads to peace with a problem. They can gratefully accept it for maximum serenity or begrudgingly accept it as a start, but accept it they must one way or another if they ever want any peace. All we have to do is to look close at our writing and we will see what needs to be done in our recovery lives.

Now, some things will never be changed and the best we can do is lighten our load or work on accepting them. If we can see some light at the end of a tunnel, sometimes acceptance becomes easier if we know that a certain problems is for a short time only and can see future improvement in our lives. Be pointed in the direction of removing stress and problems in your life at every turn. If you make this your foremost purpose in life you will be successful at reducing your stress load. Remember, you are not recovering until you start refusing. Refuse your old ways that have been tearing you down all these years. When the individual has such conscious thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from that orientation - then they can find great success with improving one's life from applying this single pointed dedication to change and their practice and life becomes one.

Once you have put in the footwork, your job is done and you can release the issue to your Higher Power. It is much easier releasing things once we have done all we can comfortably do, then our job is done and it now becomes God's or Higher Power's job. I always end any request I make of God with what step 11 says; "Praying only for Gods' will and the power to carry it out." Then get your complaint or problem list, date it and put it in a God / HP box and fully release it to your HP. Now, I seldom do this any ore myself. I am just used of accepting things, releasing them and that is it. But, on rare occasions I still write out a release.

If you don't believe in God, find a Higher Power you can release your problems to. One might become a Pagan or Taoist easily as a first step. Both religions puts your higher power as nature and any atheist must admit that nature is more powerful than themselves. The Taoist also have a natural leaning towards going with the flow, which is what the 12 steps preach as acceptance. Buddhism is another good "religion of no religion" to check into. Some 12 steppers use the group as their higher power, in any case we all need a higher power in some form to release our lives to. (If you missed my post on dealing with step 2 and 3 issues write me)

With Internet recovery you are much more fortunate than those that just go to f2f 12 step meetings. You could never hope to crystallize all your thoughts and go into the same depth of recovery work in a 3 minute pitch at a f2f meeting as you can with email lists. In the end, I can sum up all I have written with 4 words from an old Zen master, "Attain deliverance in disturbances." So, make the best recovery use out of your writing and use this roadmap to recovery as the stepping stone to a better life through change or acceptance.