I am Powerless over my Obsession.

Step One:  We admitted we were powerless over our addiction that our lives had become unmanageable.

At every meeting I hear this read.  In every Recovery book.......Narcotics, Alcoholics, Co-dependency or Over Eaters anonymous this is on every first page.  Every time I come back into recovery after a relapse this is the first step I must take.

Yet it is still the step that trips me up before I ever get started.

I find I am working very hard today at not rushing back into my life, like a bull staring down a red flag.  Angry that I have had, yet another, set back. More determined then ever to get it right this time and FAST.   This is why I fall time and time again.  I build shoddy foundations.  Always focused on the stars and never on the branch right in front of my feet about to trip me up.

I started Step four recently after having ripped through steps 1-3 while still in detox.

.......Ya that isn't working out so well for me.

Let me give you a quick run down of the steps for those of you unfamiliar with them.  Personally I believe these steps can be applied into anyone's lives regardless if addiction rains supreme or not.

First step is to admit your life has become unmanageable due to your powerlessness over your addiction.  The second step is then about coming to believe that a power greater then yourself can restore you to sanity.  The third step is then making a decision to turn you will over to the care of this higher power as you understand them to be.

Those first three steps for me are the ones I rush through because I know from personal experience when I am controlling my life without the support of my guides(higher power), I make terrible decisions based on my Ego or addict and well .....then I land back in drug lala land,

I am learning that I need to slow this down however and really work these first three steps which I will share about in a moment..... Let me not digress.

Step four: Made a searching a fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  This is the step that peels back the layers of who you were in order to emerge who you are becoming.  I have to stop here because I do not have a solid enough foundation to face more demons in my closet, nor do I have the confidence of divine guidance that I will become something pleasant at this point.  Hence why this post and the return to step one.

Step five we admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Step Six, we were entirely ready for God to remove these defects of character, step seven we humbly asked her to remove these shortcomings.  Step eight we make a list of all the people we have harmed and step nine we begin making amends where we can.  These are the action steps that we work in order to peel back the negative energy that holds us back from entirely stepping into our personal lights, our personal powers.

Steps 10-12 are a repeat of one through three but now you are ready to actually starting walking in your higher power and giving back to the world what you have gained.  This is the glory that I am rushing to achieve.  Yet I keep tripping up on the first step.

I refuse to admit my life is unmanageable.  I refuse to see how powerless I am over certain things in my life.  I sit with the step twelve understanding of remembering what it feels like to be in my full power but refuse to admit I have lost that power.  It may be only temporarily and I do fully understand I am never disconnected from it entirely, but I have clouded the truth of who I am.

Admitting I am powerless is such a nasty thing for me.  Nasty in the sense that its hard to do, but when I do the freedom I achieve is out of this world.  It makes no sense to me and therefor my Virgo analytical mind cannot wrap around it and thus my constant trip ups.

 How can I be powerless and yet strive to step into my full power?  Why am I being asked to admit I have no power when the entire set of steps are teaching me how to take back my full power?

I have been blessed and equally cursed with having devoted friends of the twelve steps who have made this program their lives.  These friends eat, sleep, breath the program and have spent many years in deep study of these steps.  They tell me its not about ever having any power but turning all power over to God.

Then I have beautiful, spiritually mastered friends who speak very wisely and who have the lives I wish to achieve one day, teach me that God is within us and the power we seek is already in our souls and all we need to do is to step into it.

Equally blessed and cursed.  The twelve steps teach me how to peel back all my own limitations of stepping into that power, but I am being bombarded with the teaching that God is still outside of myself.  Hence the constant focus on the stars and the logs in front of my feet tripping me up.

But this is not where I wished this post to go......

Moving back to step one.  I am reminded of how powerless I am over the temptation and desire that my obsessive thinking leads me too.  I am an addict.  I have an addictive personality.  I am working the steps to let go of these limitations, but I must first admit that I indeed have them right now.

I cant stop obsessing in this now.  I go back and forth between wanting to get high, to over eating to thinking non stop about a guy.  My over thinking leads me to sit on my couch or lay in bed doing nothing so that my mind has full freedom to play in the obsession.  The torment it brings causes me to hide under the covers begging it to stop.  Begging for sleep so my mind gets peace.  And on very bad days... wishing to die so the torment will stop forever.

I know full well that if I get up and do some house cleaning or call someone, the thoughts will cease.
Yet I am paralyzed by my own mind.

This is powerless.

This is causing my life to be unmanageable.  When I am home all day because I have taken a leave of absence from work to get my shit together and I am spending it in obsession instead of cooking dinner for the three other people in my home that are spending their days working and in school..... my life is unmanageable.

I am learning to recognize when my thoughts are moving into obsession.  I have a sponsor who gives my wise counsel on steps to take to stop the obsessive thoughts from starting in the fist place and I am reminded yet again to work a more thorough first step.

I must admit at this point of my life I am powerless over my addiction.

I must take very small steps and look down at my feet lest I trip and land with my face in the mud again.  I need to focus on the little things to make my life manageable again.  Like getting groceries to make a healthy dinner for my family.  Like paying my bills and cleaning my house.  Like practicing a ten minute yoga routine every day and keep working at my treatment.

You see I may not have had a major surgery that you can physically see my illness, but a major illness I do indeed have.  The mind is a deep sess pool, full of things many of our doctors and scientist still have yet to understand.

Why some days I cannot function because my brain has decided to malfunction is beyond many understandings... sometimes I wish it was my right leg that was the problem, then at least I would understand myself better.

I didn't ask for this malfunction of Spirit, of a plaguing mind or a traumatic life.  But I got them none the less.  Sitting and whining about it as I have done for way to long now is tripping me up,  Its time to admit I am powerless over my lot in life and work at gaining the power back to better that lot for my future.

So I guess just for today I will move back into step one and focus on not tripping on that branch and leave the next step for tomorrow.