Change

Our lives are constantly changing and when they are not we are in stagnation. Throughout my lifetime I have faced many changes. I know that for myself, and a lot of other people, change is a scary thing. People don't like change. I remember when I was working for a media company and it brought in this whole new computer database system. The way myself and my co-workers did our job was radically changed. At first we all hated it and were full of complaints. But once we got used to the new changes we wondered how we ever did the job in the first place without the new system.

Fear of change has been a big factor in my life. It was one of the main reasons it took me so long to get sober. Near the end of my drinking and drugging career I was living in a hell of my own making. But it was a hell that I was used to and knew what to expect from. Getting sober, living life without self medicating, that was something I hadn't done in almost two decades. It was a scary proposition. I could not picture a life without alcohol. Alcohol had become my best friend. It had become my solution to life's problems - a higher power. I say higher power because, similar to the way some people dedicate their life to God, I had dedicated my life to alcohol. I planned my life around it. It determined where I would go eat, what I would do socially, how I would act, etc. When I finally sobered up, God willing for the last time, I learned that I had to replace alcohol with a different type of higher power. I had tried to sober up before without doing it that way.

The first time I decided to sober up I was an out patient at a well known treatment centre in Toronto. I would go to group meetings twice a week. I was told that I should get a hobby to replace alcohol and drugs (and the time spent using and getting them) with a hobby. I said, what the hell, I'm game to try that. After thinking long and hard I decided to build a model train. After much research I drove to a specialty shop in Toronto, spent a lot of money, and bought a train set. It took me a few weeks of setting this thing up, building the platform, putting in trees, figurines etc. I finally had the thing up and running. After completion it took very little time for me to end up just getting wasted and watching this train go around and around and around. In fact while it around my head went around as well.

What I didn't know then, but know now, is that I had to replace my addiction with something greater than it and greater than me. It had to be something substantial. I had a hole in my heart  and a hole in my soul. A model train hobby would not be able to fill these holes. I needed something more spiritual. At first I picked a group of people for my higher power - this group of people were friends from the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It worked for me then. As the years of sobriety have gone on my belief in a Higher Power has evolved and changed into something of my own understanding.

During my first years of sobriety I tried my best to change what AA terms as character defects. I worked to rid myself of them and continue to do so. I also changed my career direction going back to school. Just recently my career has taken another turn. I have left a job I had for almost five years and begun a new one in another organization. While the companies are in the same industry each one is unique to itself. My duties are different as well. After almost five years in one place these new duties are a big change and with them comes that new job anxiety/nervousness that most of us face upon changing positions. Fortunately with my experience in making and facing changes I am confident and welcome what these new changes will bring.