How I Did the Twelve Steps of Recovery

When someone is trying to get sober, whether from alcohol, drugs or both, there are various methods out there for that person to try. There is harm reduction, which in my opinion just kills someone slowly (see previous blog for more details). Some people white knuckle it. Others take medication such as Antibuse or Campral. The problem with medication, particularly Antibuse which makes you puke if you drink, is that it may stop you from drinking but does not get rid of the mental obsession of wanting to. The bottom line I learned from my addiction was that I didn’t have a drugging or drinking problem but a thinking problem. Alcohol and drugs were but a symptom of a larger problem. I did not know how to live life on life’s terms. After several attempts to become sober I finally found a method that works for me – the 12 Steps of Recovery. This is how I did the 12 Steps.

Step One – We were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. The first word of this Step is extremely important – “we”. This reminds me that it is a “we program”. Before entering into the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous I was always trying to quit on my own, under my terms. It wasn’t until I finally admitted defeat and asked for help from others, facing the same disease as me, that things started to get better. It was easy for me to admit I was powerless over alcohol (and all other mind altering substances) as it had control over me. I planned my day around alcohol, I spent all my money on alcohol (and drugs). I ignored my family and friends for it. My addiction had all the power and I had none. I had a physical allergy to alcohol and a mental obsession with getting it. My life had become extremely unmanageable. I couldn’t pay my bills, I had run-ins with the law, I couldn’t be depended upon, I quit jobs before I got fired. Most importantly I couldn’t manage my feelings. Any feeling I got I numbed out through self-medicating. Basically I had to admit that I could not safely take a drink or drug again. I could not accurately predict what would happen if I were take that first drink or drug. Step One is the only Step that I had to take 100%.

Step Two – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. I was stuck on this step for awhile due to the fact that I waffled between atheism and agnosticism for years. I finally got over it when it was pointed out to me that the Step was “came to believe” not “believe right away”. That simple statement helped me move on. The second part of the Step discusses my lack of sanity. I had to admit what I was doing was insane. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Every day (and it was daily by the end of my drinking/drugging career) I would wake up and say today is going to be different. I’m only going to have a couple of drinks and no drugs. I would take that first drink and all my good intentions would evaporate and I would do the same thing I did the day before. The next day I would awake making the same resolution only to fail at it again. I had become insane.

Step Three - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. The first Three Steps are not action Steps. You are coming to realizations about yourself and your disease – that you have one, that only a higher power could alleviate you of this disease and that your way wasn’t working out. In Step Three I am asked to make a decision. Merely a decision. A riddle often used to explain the first part of this Step is: there are three birds on a wire. One makes a decision to fly away. How many are left? If you answered three you are correct. The bird merely made a decision it did not start to fly away yet. The second part of the Step is turning our will and our lives over to a Higher Power. When I first began this step I didn’t know anything about my higher power. I still don’t know much. I like to keep it simple – there is a Higher Power and I’m not it. All I know at the beginning of my sobriety was that I had to stay sober. That was my Higher Power’s will for me. As I began to move on into the Steps and discover my character defects my Higher Power’s will expanded to me striving to rid myself of those defects.

Step Four – Made a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves. People tend to complicate the hell out of this step when they don’t have to. I like to follow the recovery slogan – Keep It Simple. Why complicate things when I don’t have to? The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous explains how to do this step. Make a list all of my resentments, write down what they affected in me (self-esteem; lack of control, etc.) and look at the part I played in it. The Book tells me to take a look at my sex life and to investigate my motives when having relations with another human being. Simple and straight forward. I didn’t need to fill out some form with 100 questions.

Step Five – Admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Again I kept it simple. I read my moral inventory to my sponsor. As I shared my Fourth he shared similar things with me so that I knew I wasn’t alone. Following my Step Five (and following the meeting I went to afterwards) I went home and did the Seventh Step Prayer:

My Creator I am now ready that you shall have all of me good and bad

Please remove every defect of character that stands in the way of my

Usefulness to you and my fellows

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen.

Steps Six and Seven - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. And Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Steps Six and Seven are when I began to work on ridding myself of my character defects and shortcomings. I know I will never be completely rid of some of them but as the Big Book tells me I strive for progress not perfection.  For me these steps are a big part of my emotional sobriety. I had put the proverbial plug in the jug but I also had to learn how to change my behaviours, thinking and reactions to emotions. This is an on-going process that I will do for the rest of my life.

Step Eight – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Again I kept it simple the list for this Step was made up of the names from my Step Four resentment list. As time went by and my memory cleared others would be added to this list. I looked at the names and prayed for the willingness to make amends to those people. I started with the easiest and made my towards the hardest – the willingness came when it was meant to.

Step Nine – Made direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Again as in Step Eight I began to make amends that were the easiest to make and then worked my way towards the ones I was having trouble getting to. Again I was able to make amends when I was meant to. There was one incident where I saw someone who was not on my list who I hadn’t even thought of. It clicked in my mind that I owed this person an amends. He was in the driveway of his parent’s house and I zipped over there in my car, blocked him so he couldn’t drive out and proceeded to make amends. It went extremely well. The hardest amends I had to make was to my Mom who had passed away a couple of years prior to me getting sober. I was told, from those who had gone before me, to go to the cemetery where she was buried and make amends there. The first time I tried I felt silly and didn’t feel that I had made amends properly. I tried again with similar results. The third time seemed to work and I felt I had cleared my side of the road. As I am Jewish it is customary to leave a rock on the gravestone of the person you are visiting as a symbol that you were there. I left my silver chip. Almost five years later I would return to that cemetery to bury my father. In my grief I saw the silver chip was still on the stone. It was a reminder that Alcoholics Anonymous is there for me in times of happiness and grief and would support me through thick and thin. Not all of my amends went well. One person refused to accept them and I had to accept that. I do not make amends in order to get something in return. If I do get forgiveness it is just an added bonus, but not to be expected. There’s a reason the Ninth Step is not near the beginning of the Steps as one has to be prepared for the amends not to go well. If I make amends in the early stages of my recovery and it does not go well it could cause a resentment which any alcoholic/addict knows could send one back out drinking and drugging. There were some people I couldn’t make amends to right away (for various reasons). This did not mean that I stopped moving on in the steps. I could not stagnate for that could have devastating consequences. I moved on to the next step with faith that my Higher Power would put the rest of the people I needed to make amends to in my path when the time was right.

Step 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when were wrong promptly admitted it. – This step I do on a regular basis. Some people do it at night time but I try to do it throughout the day. I usually can tell, from that uneasy feeling in my stomach, that I have done something. I then make the proper amends. If I do this Step properly I will not have to do a Step Four for anything new.

Step Eleven - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. I do the Step Three, Seven and Eleven (St. Francis of Assisi Prayer) prayers on a daily basis. I look to the Eleventh Step prayer as a guideline to strive for. It lists all of my character defects and their opposites. Being Jewish I had never said The Lord’s Prayer, which is recited at the end of meetings in my area. I would join hands but not say the prayer. In my Fifth year of sobriety I listened more closely to the words and decided that they were actually good guidelines to live by and began to say it. I’ve also started realizing there are not coincidences in my life but God-incidences.

Step Twelve - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. The Big Book’s Spiritual Appendix tells me a spiritual awakening is a personality change sufficient enough to bring about recovery from [addiction]. I am a recovered alcoholic (I no longer have to drink or drug to live – the obsession has been removed from me) I have had a spiritual awakening. I carry the message to other alcoholics (addicts) by speaking at meetings, sharing at meetings, setting up chairs at meetings, taking down chairs at meetings, greeting people at the door, welcoming newcomers and many, many other ways. For it is only by giving it away (the message) that I am able to keep it.

I do my best to live these Steps on a daily basis. So far they have worked for me. They worked where no other type of program had worked before. When I see in the new or hear that a friend has died due to the disease of addiction, I have to say But For the Grace of God Go I.

Dave the Dude

How I Learned To Be Happy

I've been clean and sober for just over eight-and-a-half years now and have grown a lot during that time. The most important thing I learned was how to be happy. When I first got sober in 2005 one of the first things I learned was that I didn't have a drugging or drinking problem -  I had a thinking problem. I was unsatisfied and unhappy with my life and who I was and didn't know how to fix that. I had thought that by drinking I could become happy. It worked at the beginning but as all alcoholics/addicts come to realize that after awhile that solution becomes another problem.

First I had to put the proverbial plug in the jug and start to change. Learning what I could and could not change was a huge step in finding happiness. There's a reason that all 12-Step meetings begin with the Serenity Prayer - it is a message of truth.

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

Courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference

I cannot change another person, institution, policy, etc. I may have some influence but I cannot change them. The only thing I have power over changing is myself and my reactions to people, places and things. Once I accepted this I gained a huge step towards happiness. Being young in sobriety the only thing I understood about that was that I had accepted that I could not change the fact that I was an alcoholic/addict. I cannot predict what will happen if I take that first drink or drug. Simple and straightforward. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't an easy lesson to learn. I had to hurt myself, and others, along the way to this enlightenment. It took a lot of emotional and spiritual pain to come to this conclusion but come to that conclusion I did and thank God I did for it allowed to me begin a journey of change. The last line of Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is, "We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny." This says to me many things. One that there is a happy destiny in my future as long as I stay sober and continue to change for the better. Also that this journey will not be smooth gliding, like people who are not alcoholics/addicts, I will face bumps along this road. Health problems, deaths, relationships issues, etc. As long as I can accept that I must face whatever life throws at me without self-medicating I'll be okay.

Another realization that led me to happiness was that I had to look inward to be happy rather than outward. If I am not happy with who I am than no amount of wealth, material things or another person will make me happy. This was a hard lesson to learn. By the time I sobered up at the age of 35 I didn't even know who I was. I had learned from an early age to wear different masks for different people. I wore a mask for how I thought my family wanted to see me. A mask for people at work. One for my friends and later different masks for different friends - be they good friends or fair weather friends. I once thought that I would be happy if I identified myself with my job. I began to hate that job and so I hated myself as well. People use to ask me when I was going to stop partying and I would answer when I get a girlfriend. I got said girlfriend but the only thing that changed was I took a hostage and made her life miserable. In sobriety I realized that if is unfair to another to depend on them to make me happy. Unfair and impossible for that other person is human and fallible. I had to learn to love the person I was before I could even begin to love others. 

Once I came to a place where I knew who I was and could love others I had to be aware of my motives when dealing with them. If my motives were ones of selfishness then that relationship would not work out. If I am to enter into a relationship with another human being I have to be straight up front and not manipulate or use that person for my own gains. It has to be an equal, open  and honest relationship. The key word being equal whereby I don't allow myself to be used unfairly. Not to say I don't or won't make self-sacrifices for the people I love. That is part of happiness as well. Being able to give and accept unconditional love. 

The last change towards happiness I had to make was to stop having to be right all the time. I learned a valuable lesson from Alcoholics Anonymous - I can be right or I can be happy. When I first got into sobriety I kept trying to be right - particularly in my intimate relationships. This lead to constant bickering and relapse. Not relapse as in I took a drink or drug but relapse of my emotional sobriety. I learned that after I sobered up I had to manage my emotions because one of the reasons I liked to use was that I couldn't manage them - they were unmanageable.  When looking at the 12 Steps of recovery one will see that the only Step that mentions drinking/drugging is the first one. None of the others do. That's because it's a program of living. I thought I had joined up with Alcoholics Anonymous to learn how to not drink. In fact, I joined to learn how to be happy, joyous and free. 

Today I am free from my addiction. I do not have a mental obsession to use any type of mind altering substance. I face life on life's terms. I choose happiness over having to be right. I accept that I must change and not expect others to. Most importantly if my acceptance is higher than my expectations than things will turn out just fine.

This is how I learned and continue to learn (nothing changes if nothing changes; if I don't change my dry date will) to be happy.

Dave the Dude.

I Am A Jew

As a Canadian I really like the "I Am Canadian" commercial and so I decided to steal the idea and write I Am A Jew. (Note this probably doesn't apply to all Jewish people and may even offend them but offending each other is part of being Jewish).

I AM A JEW

I am not a lawyer, banker or doctor
Although some of us are
I am not from Israel but from Canada
In fact more Jews live outside of Israel than in
In Canada it's ham not Canadian Bacon
I'm not supposed to eat either - but I do

I got to synagogue not a church
I have a rabbi not a priest or minister
I didn't get circumcised at my Bar Mitzvah
It happened when I was a baby
Jews don't rule the world
If they did I sure wouldn't be in debt and paying off a mortgage
I'm not cheap or a penny pincher (see above line)
I don't know Moshe, Abe or Yitzhak from the Bronx
But I'm sure they're nice Jewish boys
I love a good Shiksa
Even though my Mom told me to stay away from them
I have nothing against Arabs
In fact I used to have a cocaine dealer from Lebanon
I can pray in Hebrew but have no idea what I'm saying
I have Hebrew tattoos that I actually know that they mean
And the Rabbi said I CAN be buried in a Jewish cemetery with the tatts
I like Matzoh Ball soup, a good roast and bagels with cream cheese
I'm not good at sports but many Jews are
My name is Dave the Dude
And I Am A Jew
                     

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day everyone. I can truly say that I am grateful to be living in Canada - what I consider to be the greatest country in the world. Unlike our neighbours to the south Canadians don't wear their patriotism on their sleeves which I think is a great thing. If it's one thing I've learned in life is that being humble is a great way to live.

The great (I sure am using the word great a lot) thing about Canada is that we are a nation of people who respect each other and each other's ideas, beliefs, etc. We pretty much believe that you can do and believe what you want as long as you don't try to jam it down our throats. Not all our citizens are like this but I'd say a high majority are.

My grandparents came here in the early 20th century to form a new life. Fortunately they landed here prior to the Holocaust in Europe. Immigrant Jews - as many immigrants do they worked hard to give their children the things they did not have. My Dad's dad, Morris Marder, opened up the Model Shoe store in Oshawa to support his family. (http://localhistory.oshawalibrary.ca/pdfportal/pdfskins/Vernon1928/vernon1928.pdf)  He also was one one of the founding members of the Beth Zion Synagogue which is still a vibrant part of the Durham Region Jewish community to this day. I remember sitting beside him in synagogue as a child and I would have to repeat the page numbers the rabbi announced to him because he was hard of hearing. His wife Sarah was from Austria, under the Hapsburgs, and was a big part of the Jewish community as well.

My Mom's parents came from Poland. The family lore is that the day my Zadi (Yiddish for grandfather) landed in Canada in 1939 there was an earthquake. My Bubi (Yiddish for grandmother) would join him shortly after. My Zadi had a ton of jobs from garbage truck driver to store owner. He didn't join a synagogue but made sure his two daughters had a proper Jewish upbringing (when they weren't hiding under the bed when the Hebrew School teacher showed up). My Bubi and Zadi were the only ones left on my Mom's side of the family as all of their family was murdered in the Holocaust. I can remember my Bubi crying on a regular basis. I didn't learn until I was older that she was crying for the family she had lost.

My Dad and Mom (and their siblings) went on to become vibrant Canadians and passed their values and beliefs down to myself, my siblings and my cousins and we in turn pass those beliefs and values down to our own kids. Canada is a country where people from different religions, crees, colours, sexual orientations, etc. can come together in mutual respect and get along.

Canada may have it's problems but they are dealt with in a civil and democratic way. We are a nation of people respected world-wide which is why many Americans put our flags on their backpacks when they travel the world. We were one of the only countries whose banks didn't blow up in the 2008 financial crisis. We love to say sorry even when we're not at fault. We were the first in North America to legalize gay marriage. We love our hockey, our beer and we do say "eh".

Our political spectrum spans the left to the right but no one wants to kill one another over our ideas (at least literally). We may disagree on how to help those in need but we do help them. We may disagree on our education curriculum but we try out best to prepare our children for the future. We may disagree on how to pay for health care and what to pay for but everyone is able to see a doctor when they are in need and not have to worry about paying for the visit. We may disagree on which hockey team is better but we don't punch each other out when our team loses (although the odd riot does seem to break out). Heck we're a country whose allowed a political party to take office whose sole mission is to break up the country. Now that's mellow - or as some would say Canadian.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!!!!

Broken Promises from McGuinty to Wynne with an Endorsement from Horwath

Since the Liberals (or as most rational people now refer to them the Fiberals) came to power in 2003 they have had a long list of broken promises entwined in an enigma of scandals (don't know if the word enigma is appropriate for that sentence but it sounds damn good). I'll let you in on a little secret I actually voted for Dalton McGuinty in the 2003 election. I actually believed him when he promised no new taxes. Granted, I was an active alcoholic and crack head at the time and therefore in a state of insanity so I can hardly be blamed. But even before I sobered up I could tell that something was amiss with the McGuinty government. He started his legacy of broken promises right from the start with the passing of his first budget.

McGuinty introduced the health care premium. He said that he had inherited an large, unknown, deficit, from the Harris government. This broke his "no new taxes" promises despite him trying to deceive us by calling it a health care premium. He probably thought, who can argue with money for health care? Well maybe that would have some merit if the money didn't go into general revenues. Currently we face the highest deficit the Province of Ontario has ever had. Despite this lack of funds the Liberals instituted all day kindergarten which we cannot afford. It broke a recent promise of freezing public sector wages by giving a raise to the Elementary School Teachers plus a load of other benefits we can ill afford. The Liberals would continue to blame the previous Harris government for many of its blunders even 10 years after Harris was out of power.

At the same time that McGuinty broke his "no new tax" promise he also broke his promise that he would protect our health care system by delisting OHIP payments for optometry, chiropractic and physiotherapy services. While on the subject of health care let us not forget the billion dollar E-Health scandal. Not only is the amount of money spent on this failure a gross injustice but the lack of oversight of what the money was actually going towards was ridiculous. The government was outsourcing much of the work to consultants and allowing these consultants to hire consultants for themselves (some of those were consultants hiring themselves as their own consultants). I know - my head is still spinning over that one. Despite the billion dollars spent, the wasted money on consultants, Ontarians still do not have a functioning E-Health system.

Let's look at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) Corporation. Does anyone remember the scandals that came up week after week after week whereby retailers were stealing winning tickets from unsuspecting people? Plus - why is the government in the business of running gambling enterprises anyway? On one hand they are trying to deal with problem gamblers and on the other hand they are advertising for people to play. (I know this isn't just a Liberal issue but an issue for all parties, provinces and not just Canada but I thought I'd throw it in anyways). These casinos have a list that problem gamblers can put themselves in that bars them from entering a casino but the list is largely ignored. Until a gambler who is on the list, but got into the casino, wins then they are quickly identified and have to return their winnings. Crazy!!!

Then there was another no tax promise where McGuinty implemented a new tire fee - he said it's a fee not a tax. Did he think we are idiots? I guess so since he kept getting re-elected. Speaking of taxes remember when the HST came in and Ontario tax collectors lost their jobs but were rehired immediately by the feds. Well they all got a $45,000 severance package for that seamless job change. Basically they do the exact same thing but works for the feds instead of the province. Most Ontarians would love to make that much money on an annual basis and here are the Liberals just giving it away. In fact public sector unions if not in the "dreaded one per cent" are pretty damn close. Teachers can make up to $90,000 a year and yet they still complain and take sick days off when they're not sick because they're worse whiners then the kids they purport to instill morals and education into.

For years McGuinty insisted that the government was not there to bail out pension funds because a majority of Ontarians don't have pensions. He quickly broke that promise by bailing out GM pensioners and Nortel pensioners.

Let's look at energy. McGuinty has brought in a total failure of an energy plan. He first promised to shut down all coal fired power plants by 2007 - with no plan in place to replace them. When he realized what a fiasco this was he broke the promise and said they would all be shut down by 2009. After shutting some down we didn't have enough power so we started buying power from US power plants - but not just any power plants - COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS. Can we say hypocrites. Continuing on with his green energy scam he pays prices for green energy way over what the actual cost should be. McGuinty forced Ontario households to have smart meters installed in their homes. He said it would save money but, of course, it didn't. Not only did it not save money but he added on a fee for the service (not a tax mind you but a fee).

Let's look at how McGuinty's Liberals brought in a two tier justice system to our glorious province. Natives illegally took over land, committed crimes on an on-going basis (and continue to do so) but scared of a little blow back he has allowed one justice system for natives (do anything you want we won't say anything) and one for the rest of Caledonians citizens. I don't know about you but in my Ontairo (and Canada) we're all equal regardless of race, cree, colour or religion but not in a Fiberal Ontario.

Back to money wasting. Under McGuinty's leadership he made post-secondary tuition the highest in the country. Now I wouldn't be so upset at that, as I feel students shouldn't get a free ride, but for the fact that he gave away free tuition to foreign students. Let's not forget that this is the guy who dubbed himself the Education Premier.

There are many more scandals, like the Samsung Scandal (Google it) that I could get into but I think, at least I hope, you get the point. Fast forward to this past week where lots of broken promises and hypocritical stances were taken. McGuinty no longer Premier had said he would remain as a sitting MPP until the next election. Well he couldn't leave politics without one more lie - he has resigned. At least McGuinty can always be counted on to break a promise.

Enter Kathleen Wynne. Our first woman Premier - that's great. Our first lesbian Premier - also great. But the accolades must stop there. She continued on with the Liberal tradition of lying to the public. She was a key player in the election team of McGuinty in the last election - yet she says she had no idea about the decision regarding the cancellation of the gas plants (another wasted $500 million). If that is true than she must be pretty incompetent. Which would you rather have a liar or an incompetent person as your Premier?

But wait - the fun does not stop there. This week the public found out that the Liberals broke a law that they brought in themselves by deleting pertinent e-mails regarding the gas plant cancellations. Laws, mind you, that have no repercussion but broken still. Which brings us to the leader of the NDP - Andrea Horwath. In the morning she's calling the Liberals corrupt and in the afternoon she's propping them up by helping them to bring in their budget. First she delayed voting on the budget by a couple weeks while she "gaged public opinion" then she kept these Fiberals in power instead of giving them a vote of non-confidence which the Tim Hudak's Tories did. Let's remember that Wynne is not an elected Premier - she has not been given a mandate by the citizens of Ontario. Yet Horwath ignored public opinion and voted yes anyway. She then had the gall to defend her actions saying the longer she helps keep the Liberals in power the more the public can find out how corrupt the Liberals really are. I don't know about you but I think I have enough knowledge of their corruptness and don't need to wait any longer.
Dave the Dude

One Dave At A Time: High School Years

One Dave At A Time: High School Years: I don't know if it's a trend to say one hated high school but I sure hear a lot of people saying that. I seem to be in the minority ...

High School Years

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