I've been struggling on Step 2 for some time now. I've been thinking a lot - if I can get over the hump of this step, I can do all the rest. It's not that I have a problem believing in a HP, because I do. It's just that I've asked for help and surrendered so many things over my lifetime, and yet I feel like I still failed time and time again. Failure has been such a huge issue for me. Last night I thought, shouldn't Step 3 come before Step 2? I mean, how can you come to believe unless you're willing to surrender first? But, I've stayed at 2 for a while now. Yes, I've seen recovery happen for others. That's not "coming to believe" for me. I know it can happen for others. It's me I have a problem with. I know in my head it should be possible, it's knowing in my heart that it's possible that I've had difficulty with.

I was reading an article in a magazine yesterday that talked about a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. I knew I had to have it. I ran out and got it immediately. I'm a pretty avid reader and have read lots of books to figure out what's "wrong" with me, why I keep trying all the time but I can't seem to get anywhere.

This one is hitting the nail on the head. I finally got to the root. For the first time I have hope. I have hope that my life won't be a complete failure. It's not a motivational or inspirational book. It's based on research and talks about the two different mindsets people can have, from childhood on - and how it affects them throughout their lives. One is a fixed mindset: where they believe they are born with certain abilities and they can't ever change them, and the other is a growth mindset, where they believe that they can change with effort. Now I see why I've persevered and succeeded in some areas, but not in others. And now, I have hope again, that I CAN have recovery. That I can change, with my HP's help. That it IS possible for me to plan things, stick to a routine, make it a habit.  This was really affecting my success with abstinence - because that requires making food plans ahead of time. Before, I had despaired of doing ANYTHING on a routine basis - I don't even have a regular sleep time, or for doing laundry; I wing it with everything.

So before this, it felt to me as if I was born without ears, and Step 2 involved trying to make myself come to believe that my HP would somehow enable me to be able to write music. Now, I see that I had the ears all along, and I was just didn't realize I could use them.

Thank you HP, you rock!

Tags: Reflective

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 I can't sleep. Oh man, this is going to be a helluva blog post, I can feel it. Well, better to get it out here than to let it fester. 

Why I can't sleep:

• I'm hungry, but I won't eat because I won't break my abstinence. (I eat three meals a day and that's IT. If I'm still hungry after dinner, too bad, so sad).
• I'm in pain. I have a cyst under my arm - my armpit actually, that's gotten from bad to worse over the last two days, and now I get (pardon me if I get too graphic for you here) a shooting pain all the way to my, uh, nipple just from raising or moving my arm. Yes, I'm scared, and what's scaring me even MORE than that is that...
• I'm unemployed. I got laid off my job recently, and I have no medical insurance right now. I spent the day job-hunting on the internet and let me tell you, it's bleak. I'm dragging my feet all the way, because I really don't want another "Dilbert" style corpo-crap job, and yet I fear that that's all I'll qualify for at this point. It wasn't long before my head was spinning from reading the banal and half-dead job descriptions: 
  

"Accounts Contract Specialist, responsible for           maintaining TRS records, keeping within budget constraints, informing XYZ department of ABC minutae, and various and sundry mindless drivel..."

OK, I give up. I think maybe I'll become gainfully unemployed on a full-time basis. My problem is, I used to have exactly such a job, and I HATED it. It was soul-crushing, mind-numbing, heartless. My true skills are in other areas, but you can't really get another job professing skills that you claim to have without the solid job experience to back them up on a resume, right? ***sigh***

So, I just came back from Circle K. I went there to get some coffee and milk so that I could calm my hunger pangs. Cuz when I can't sleep due to hunger, I make myself sugar-free hot chocolate, or else some decaf. Anyway, as I was sniffing the coffee to see if it was fresh, some chick came in and said something to the cashier, who signaled to me silently, pointing to her, "She's HIGH." After she left, I said, "Really? I can never tell."  She said, "Yeah, well, I used to be an addict, it takes one to know one. I've been clean now though, for 3 years." I told her that's awesome. She then started telling me a little about it, how the good Lord helped her, how she had to hit bottom, she went to jail, stopped hanging out with the people she used to hang out with, that she always knew the good Lord would help her. She said, "I don't even know why I'm telling you this, I normally don't tell people any of this."  That made me think. Maybe I needed to hear that. Maybe I need to know that her Lord will help me too.

Because I'm feeling kinda hopeless right now. Maybe her good Lord will give me a miracle of a job I can actually like, with a salary I can actually live on. Maybe he can help me with my abstinence in OA. Maybe he can help me quit smoking, although right now, that's the last thing on my mind. Maybe he can even help me with troubling relationships. I know that I'm a lot better off than a lot of people. I'm thankful for a lot of things. But right now, I'm feeling like I just don't know what to do.

This pretty much sums it up" 
 

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