Peerless

O LORD!

Thou art One -
Peerless and Inaccessible.

Thou art Being -

Infinite in Perfection.

Thou art Beauty -

Unsurpassed in Wisdom.

Thou art Good -

Wondrous in Power and Might.

Thou art Strength -

Ready and Able to Save.

Thou art Will -

The Fullness of Compassion.

Thou art the Truth -

Thou art God,

Thou art God,

Thou art God,

Irresistible is the Sound of Thy Name

who can withstand Thee?
---<--@

"This is my Name forever

the Name you shall call Me

from generation to generation."

Impatient

THERE IS A SENSE
of wide-eyed anticipation
which is a marvelous work, indeed,
wrought by our peerless LORD
to excite upon hearts of good will
a wonder of good things to come -
a wonder of good things
so infinitely unimaginable
yet always within
immediate grasp of our joy.

It lends to the soul
an almost impatient feeling
that stays at the limits
of one's awareness
and amidst the noise of
our necessary labors
and the sufferings of
this necessary life
is ever present, ever vigilant,
ever ready to take wing
to lend its refreshing certainty
and add buoyancy to our hope.

How marvelous, indeed,
my constant friend and companion
are the works of our LORD:
Alleluia! Amen to God, Alleluia!

---<--@

My Miyang

O Father of mercy and of love, in the deepest, darkest depths of despair, You have blessed me with a special friendship. The very first star in the firmament of the darkest night of my life.

You gave me Annelies Marie Frank, O Lord, as a light against despair. The first glimmer of hope that leads to faith in things everlasting and unseen.

Loving Father, thank you so much for blessing me with a friend as precious as Anne. Grant me, O Lord, I humbly pray, with the love to cherish her now and forever.

AMEN.

20101111

Year One

I've been in recovery since 2003 when I first learned about the 12 Steps.

The Steps work if they are worked. This I know for sure.

But the willingness to work the Steps, I have learned, is directly proportional to the pain of its necessity. In this way, relapse is a part of recovery. It drew me into my recovery by the pain of my active addiction.

I've never been to a rehab till now. It was only after countless relapses that I became exhausted enough to check myself into the DDB-EU TRC. And God made a way for me to do so.

That was exactly a year ago now.

I'm happy and thankful to report I've made some progress.

I've a safe space now. And a new family of friends who have found a new way of life without the use of drugs.

Thank You, God, and thank you everyone!


Recovery rocks exceedingly!
---<--@

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When sorrow walked with me.

- Robert Browning Hamilton

Gazer of Sky

APPRECIATE -
those colors in a dream
like the hue of endless skies!
Gaze into limitless horizons
far above landscapes deep within
that make beautiful the heart
of the lover for being quickened
by the soul that is in Love alive
like a dream awakening to Itself.

For what is beautiful

but the dream in the heart?
And how do we love the dream
but to believe it together -
like we appreciate those skies;
living to know each color by heart
as we gaze out into the deep -
reaching far into forever
believing endlessly.
---<--@

Love is faster than light.

Dreamer of Dreams

I am a dreamer of dreams,
a collector of memories!

Adrift in wonder, I am.
Asleep in time, I am.

I am from my dreaming
awaiting the one Dreamer
to awaken the dream in me:

"Where art thou,
O my dream?"

"Here I am, Lord."

"I am here, My beloved."

"I am Home."

---<--@


Life consists of cherished moments;
moments enriched by treasures
neither thief nor tyrant can take away;
moments that can not be measured
by hours, minutes, or seconds.

Alter Christus

O my Jesus, my Everything, my All!
My Lord and my God,
my Savior, my King, my Brother, my Friend.
Thou art my All, my Everything!
My Way, my Truth and my Life.

O my Jesus, Son of the living God and Son of Mary, lead me!
Lead me away from all that is not Thee.
Thou art my Light, my Joy and my Salvation!

O most loving Jesus, hear me: Have mercy on me, a sinner!
Take me, O Lord, take me far away from myself.
Hold me close, O Christ, into Thyself -
Into Thy Afflicted Heart, O Love, embrace me.
Immolate all my love and burning zeal for Thee.

Banish all my fears, consume all my sorrow!
Suffer with me the pain of becoming alive
and weep with me an ocean of Thy mercy
until all the darkness is gone and I am no more.
And only Thou, O glorious God, remain in me.

AMEN.

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8: 32

Lead me, Lord Jesus to where I end and You begin and all these things shall fall into place behind Thee, my God and my All.

An Accounting of Time

Our dearest Starshine;

Let me teach you
the way in which thy heart
does perceive the idea of numbers
and the concept of its operation
in those realms where
the mathematics of physicality
and the limits of its reality
in terms temporal
and in measures finite
does never and shall never agree
with the reality of things within.

Because the substance of thy soul
is the abode of the timeless
that in terms eternal
and in measures infinite
are an accounting of thy heart
that amidst thy comings and goings
perceive things as they are
like a vision of love forever
in moments standing still
and not as they seem to be
amidst the darkness of things
that appear and disappear
with the rise and fall
of the tides of exile time.

One is not the beginning
for one is time neither begun
nor is one perceived to have an end
because one is an infinity
and two is not two things together
but two things that become one
for three are not three things apart
but two things made one whole one
by the Love that visits
each our longing for itself.

And so when you shall perceive
each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,

(e.g. family and friends but above all conjugal love)
among all truly human relationships
you shall think only of one.

And when you shall seek to perceive
each our own expressions of hope
in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life
(e.g. complementarity of the sexes)

you shall think only of two.

And when you shall seek to perceive
those things born to thy own heart's longing
and felt through the beauty of remembrances

(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator)
awakening to thy slow awakening dream
you shall think only of three.

And ever be aware that the medium

of thy constant reality from within
is an emerging continuum of gratitude
spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit
bursting with the joy of living life
born from things that cleave as truth
unto that vast universe in thy soul
that make you think of the many
but return you always to one -

the One, O my Starshine,

the LORD!

The one Giver above His gifts.

Time is not distance for time is distant

only to those with distant hearts.

Nor is distance a hindrance to our hearts
that in the timeless, beholds and is beheld.

PEACE, I salute you.

---<--@

Therefore,

1 is for Perfection

2 is for Unity

3 is for Peace

Moreover,

4 is for Solidity/Strength

5 is for Belonging/Nation

6 is for Opposition/Division

7 is for Spirit

8 is for Probation/Tribulation

9 is for Retribution

10 is for Endings/Beginnings

A love that is undivided is a love that is one. And a love that is one makes all your family your friends and all your friends your family. Remember the LORD and His kindness all thy days: Strive to love with one love alone.

For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.

- Matthew 12: 50

On Loyalty

Starshine,
the things of Loyalty
are the relationships
that shall remain
forever with thee;
so defend your friendships
with courage and tenacity.

For we are not Loyal
if we do not remain
true to each other,
moment to moment,
from always to always
appreciating those things
that we share in our humanity
and respecting the things
that make us unique as persons,
seen as well as unseen,
in ourselves and in our nations
in the vision of our timeless belonging
with one another in God and Country
as each our own true self -
as each our own true names
written in heaven.

From the descendant gravity
of the spirit of war and division;
against things born of the darkness
defeated and empty of promise
stand fast in thy friendships!

Guard thy peace with each other
and in thy togetherness hope.

Never be Loyal
to inanimate and empty things;
those fickle and ephemeral
things of vanity!

But only to each other
and in the ascendant motions
of Sacred Life.

For the realization of all our hope
rests in the glory of our LORD
in all creation.

And all these created things
are made by our one common Creator
to be Loyal to all of these.
---<--@

Hapag ng Pag-asa (Table of Hope) by Joey Velasco (19670318 - 20100721) - Via con Dios.

What you do for your friends will be remembered by your friends. What you don't do for your friends will be remembered by your enemies.

On Friendship

The Angels of the LORD,
my precious Starshine,
each of which is distinct
in Beauty and Light,
being individually endowed
with splendor of truths
unique to each their gifts
possessed by each their person
from the very beginning
of their swift flight
across the timeless void
and into eternity
into the wholeness
which is God
for lack of human words
to define the strength of a relationship
that transcend the all of time
from across that veil of shadow and tears
beyond the sum total of human experience
call each other "friends".

Each of our family
who are related to us
by corporal bonds of blood
are the friends that our LORD
has chosen for us.

Each of our friends
who become part of us
by spiritual bonds of truth
are the family that we learn to choose
in the course of each our lives
to complete what our LORD
has begun for us
in our families.

Both bonds bind us together
in the strength of human relationships
that nurture life and sustain hope
through action of community
and the service of life.

You must love,
my precious Starshine,
to transform these bonds
into that one friendship alone.

And make these bonds
into the bonds of angels
who are each in God
spirits united in their freedom
created by the strength of friendships
bound in timeless truth.

So with each other,
my precious Starshine,
you must build on the good,
and give to the need of thy beloved
recognizing in thy shared humanity
the giving of the LORD
Who is the singular Source
of all our relationships.

Be thankful for friendship wings
human, angelic and Divine,
that take us all across
from moment to moment
into an understanding of its peace
lifting us into the unity
of those wholes upon wholes
from hope to hope
and strength to strength
past, into present
and into every present
across the void
into eternity.

Starshine,

there is always a reason to smile.

---<--@

To love first your friends is to know them -

May all our friendships be without frontiers!

20101018

Fending Off Loneliness

Loneliness is quite different from being alone.

I know that it is. And I understand it from a deeper level. Because with God alone, I truly am never alone: My belief in a Higher Power says so and my faith in my God accepts it as truth in my life.

For the LORD, my God, is not a solitary God but as a King rules all things, seen and unseen, without division.

Nevertheless, fending off feelings of loneliness remain difficult for me. The difference nowadays is I don't go into depression and despair of my life. I have a goal of life-long recovery and I know now to keep that goal ahead of my road.

I imagine the years active addiction took away from my promise and thought it was not enough to put me down. God held me back from destroying myself. I still have some good in me.

I never used to have any confidence whatsoever that I could recover from active addiction. But these days I do. God gave me a will of recovery.

I have tasted the maddening darkness behind me and I didn't like it; have felt the hurt of drug addiction; have known the helplessness of it all. I know I have to face life on its own terms but looking forward not back.

It's hard being single during these times. But then again, I am single not alone. It's the truth. I can not look back at what the past took from me. I must remain in the now and live the promise of my recovery a day at a time.

Loneliness is a feeling and like all feelings, it rises and falls. This too shall pass.

When feelings of loneliness sets in, I shall hold on to what is true in my life. I shall take comfort in the strength of my relationships with my family, friends, and above all, in my God Who is the singular source of all my relationships.

I know and I trust He will prosper them all into full fruition each at their own time according to His will of good for me.

The LORD makes all things whole.

The LORD makes all things one.

For God is a God of relationships.

Beauty and Industry

Starshine, dearest Starshine,
the labor of our heart - must -
always preceed the work of our hands.

So if you shall desire happiness
you must first know in your heart
what it is that you seek
even before you shall desire it.

For desire in and of itself offers
neither sight to thy heart
nor light to thy understanding
which you must require,

Beloved of God,
to know thy own truth by heart.

And seeking it not by sight
but through the eye of thy love
that in thy seeking believes

with conviction of faith
you will come to know thy happiness

by the grace of God
even before desire bears thee away
to where thy feet must follow.

For you work hard, dear Starshine,
you deserve to profit from thy labors.
But yet many are the times
that you fail to find thy love
which reduce thy labors into tears
and deprive thy heart of life's purpose.
Yet while there is yet longing in our life
precious Starshine, believe -
there is nothing in this world
that can ever undo
in thy heart of hearts
what Love for thee has already done.

So return again to thy longing
but know also to trust this time
in the Love that longs for thee back
and work hard, dear Starshine,
knowing to be happy with every hope
striving to always be free
to find thy peace and to prosper,
far into yonder horizons,

our beautiful forever.
---<--@

Hang on to the things in your life that doesn't change. Hang on to them till it hurts. For if life is all about change then the secret to living well must be this - stand still.

Will of the Wanderer

With every life, there is a longing
and within each heart, it is felt,
because there is within each soul,
an absence, mysterious and sublime -
like a truth, cloaked in questions,
like a desire within a desire.

In an unfamiliar, uncaring earth,
amidst the wilderness of this world,
it draws us near to familiar things.

Under unknowing, unfeeling skies,
among empty shells of broken dreams,
it knowingly leads us along safe paths.

With every dawning, it recalls us;
for our labors, it rewards us;
when we are at rest, it reminds us;
during mealtimes, it welcomes us;
when we are at play, it guards us;
with every prayer, it blesses us;
with every good, it leads us;
when we repent, it teaches us;
when we forgive, it forgives us;
when we grieve, it consoles us;
when we rejoice, it hears us;
when we sleep, it renews us;
when we fail, it tempers us;
when we forget, it remembers us;
when we succeed, it preserves us;
when we seek, it find us;
at every trial, it fortifies us;
from all evil, it delivers us;
at all times, it keeps us;
throughout our days, it sustains us;
and in eternity, it recognizes us -
for by our names, it knows us.

It is that which stirs from within,
that which calls us to remembrance
that which in stillness is stillness sought
that which loves our needful mankind
that which completes, makes whole
that which deeply yearns -
for the absent heart of humanity.

Bereft of answers, lacking in truth
forlorn of strength, exiles to destiny -
where there is a seeking for solace:
It remind us of our life's purpose;
an awakening that patiently waits
in the abode of the true self -
like the quiet to calm the storm.

It is the peace at every journey's end,
the Heart at the heart of all creation,
calling the wandering will back home.
---<--@

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Heartsong

I AM the unsung song
that lives within a dream;
the seed within a soul.

Every infinite universe
embraced from within
the heart of God.

I am the road
not the destiny,
I am the journey
not the destination,
I am the dreaming
not the dream,
I am the becoming,
not the being,
I am the singing,
not the song,
I am the climb
not the peak,
I am what soars!

I begin with a praise -
I breathe the air,
and cry out loud:
Alleluia to the LORD!

I end with a praise -
I lift my head,
and bow my heart:
Alleluia to the LORD!

I am heartsong.
---<--@

Man is a creature of possibilities.

Therefore, know your limits. But do not allow yourself to be defined by them -

Believe in your recovery and your recovery will believe in you.

A Friend Like You

I wish, my Jesus, to be

the friend that You see in me

to be constant, O Lord, to be true,

to be a friend, my God,

a Friend like You.

---<--@

Only You, O LORD, completes me.

Prayer

MATERIAL THINKING is static and physical but spiritual things are dynamic, fluid, and always in motion.

The smallest of good, when done with love in the heart, is a truth worthy of praise. What material thinking shall often dispel as insignificant, may be the very thing that gives it thought.

For the Spirit of the LORD is nearer to us than our thoughts, and more present to us than the absence that we feel in the depth of our hearts.

Spiritual things are manifest in the heart that is at work in God for purposes that fulfill the truth in our being human and therefore, whether in great leaps or small, faltering steps, advance the cause of creation and the divine purposes for which our Mankind is upon this inhabited earth intended.

Prayer breaks us free from the rut of material thinking; that stinking thinking.
---<--@

AS A RULE, my precious Starshine,

prayer is always more

than the sum of all that we can see

with our unseeing eyes.

A soul in prayer is a heart present to its thought;

a walk across the vast, empty deserts within;

a reaching out to places beyond self;

a looking above from within.

It is silence contemplating Silence -

alone with the Alone.

It is a growing, persevering,

often times frustrating work

born of great necessity,

out of thy love of God.

Prayer is an ascent to the timeless,

anchored upon ageless truth,

of all the things we love

and of the Love that all created things hope for,

most especially by the truth of thy heart of love,

and of thy faith yearning to God in prayer.

The way to God is a crooked line,

for we are all but human.

But the way of prayer

makes this way certain.

For the soul that perseveres in prayer

shall indeed profit

from the LORD Who rewards all things,

great and small, known and known to God alone,

when done out of love and fear

of the one common Creator

of all common creation, seen and unseen.

It is not only important that we pray,

and persevere in this way, my precious friend,

in private, above all in community with each other,

it is simply necessary for human happiness

and the well-being of the still small truth that lives,

like a mustard seed,

inside of every self

for all things true and everlasting

depend on a heart of prayer.

Prayer is spiritual.

Therefore,

there are seasons within the soul that range

from sweet to dry or empty

but never must thy heart stay still,

you must gather when it needs gathering

and to know also when to look beyond these seasons;

you must be vigilant,

pressing on till you reach the heart of God

to lay your hopes in the LORD.

So prayer may be long

or it may be short

but it must always be timeless,

its substance is the motion

that lives like a love longing for Itself.

And when the Silence shall to your bowed heart speak,

It shall do so swift as light,

being Spoken without words

and instantly manifest to your soul as winged truth -

then you shall seek to forget all other things

but God and God alone.

And in God you shall range far,

self cognizant of self,

intimate with the Intimate,

to dwell in holy remembrance of all things.

For far may your wandering heart be

but to love and in Love

you shall forever remain

when you shall in prayer persevere.

So do so, dearest Starshine,

and say AMEN:

Know for thy own self

why the heart that believes

believes only because it prays.
---<--@

Step 11

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.

20101005

Why?

I once asked God in prayer why can't He just make things all better for me.

I asked God why must I have to put up with all these seemingly persistent, never-ending frustrations and difficulties of my recovery.

Why can't He make things better for me?

For recovery takes hard work. It's not just about quitting drugs - that's really just the surface appearance of things...

To the newbie recovering addict or to the uninitiated, it might seem like a very simple thing to ask an addict to make the choice to quit or to just continue on using.

But recovery is deeper than it looks.

Recovery is initially all about making that big, life-defining choice to quit using. Because the first choice is the wrong choice and everything else is the choice of the addiction. This initial choice is almost always forced upon an addict when he or she "bottoms out".

But the real work of recovery begins after that initial choice to quit using. Because what constitutes the real work of recovery is about making those little everyday decisions that allow me to uproot bad behavior and strengthen good ones; choices that seem invisible to the rest of the world.

Recovery both implicitly as well as explicitly requires that necessary exercise of virtue and the art of its grace. Because the essence of recovery is really all about re-learning to live my life aright once again - slowly but surely - without the use of drugs or the inclination to seek the false "high" of drugs.

And this takes hard work indeed - vigilant, anonymous work.

So I asked God one day and He replied to me - "my dearest child, if I take away your choices, then you would cease to be you, and it is you that I love and nothing else but."

Recovery is all about freedom. If God takes away that freedom, what's the point?

And it's not like I have no help in my recovery -

I have the help of my brothers and sisters-in-recovery within the fellowship of NA and in the DDB-EU TRC institution. I have family, and friends.

Above all, I have God, my dearest LORD, Who loves me more than I can ever love myself.

I just have to remain vigilant in my heart of hearts. I just have to know what and who I must love above all. And trust that that's no longer drugs.

As long as I am certain of this, I know by the grace of God, I shall continue on recovering.

Recovery is an ascent to freedom.

=^.^=

Unconquered

DREAM, my precious Starshine,
and be thankful for the dreaming
more than the dream itself -

For as tomorrow remains unwritten
yet every hope is made secure
so trust you must in thy dreaming
more than in thy dream itself
for as the eagle soars with wings
knowing not how it must fly
so must your own freedom become
more than what can be held by hands:

Thy freedom, dear Starshine,
like thy dream and thy dreaming
is a thing held not by grip
but a thing beheld by thy releasing
for to hold freedom tightly
like it is to deny it's flight
is to lose it entirely.

For thy freedom walks
upon the unconquered grounds
and wills to take it's flight
untrammeled and untamed.

So seek of thy freedom,
my precious Starshine,
but in thy seeking know -
here and Now,
that freedom lives in the giving
like every dream is in the dreaming
for it is always in the giving
that we become free.
---<--@

Freedom that is free is free indeed.

O Unspeakable Beauty

O UNSPEAKABLE BEAUTY that surrounds, penetrates and transcends into eternity, O Beauty that shines forever brightly, ever here and ever there, ever always present in places sacred to Thy holy remembrance, in places found within the soul of every creature in need of Thee.

Arise in me and cure me of my deformity, my perversity, my ugliness, my constant rebellion.

Though I weep with guilt and shame at every thought of Thee, though I should recede back into the darkness where I truly belong, Thou has seen into my soul and my soul has caught a glimpse of Thee!

O what can a mere creature do at the hint of Thee, O unspeakable Beauty?

By Thy own Truth, Thou hast enraptured my heart and now I am madly in love with Thee.

I reject all that is not Thee!

Ever in spite of me, I constantly long for Thee, I thirst and I hunger for Thee.

O Beauty, Thou art Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful, who can resist Thee?

Bless me, convince me, lead me on and fulfill what Thou sees as Thy reflection in me. Become the fullness of Thy own image and likeness that Thou has imparted in me, and lose me forever into the depths of Thy Being.

Make use of me and recreate me into an instrument of Thy holy creation and a servant to all Thy beautiful works of divine artistry.

O wonderful God, O wonderful God! O what majesty! O what glory! O what Beauty! Thou art truly Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful. Arise in the hearts of all Thy servants, arise in our poor world, that we may learn to see what is beautiful for being beheld by Thee.

Abide in us, O dearest LORD and Love of my love, spread upon our souls Thine infinite horizons and become for each one of us as the breaking of the new dawn from on high.

AMEN.

I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine.

20100920

The Addict Bubble

"What is truth?" Pilate once asked Jesus (John 18: 38).

Oblivious to the fact that he was staring right at It, the Roman governor of that time exemplifies for us our sheer impotence before God.

Because unless God chooses to reveal it, we can not know the truth. And the most fundamental of all truth is we are each called to know, love, and serve the LORD, our God.

In particular Christian revelation, this truth is Christ Himself through which the Christian soul is made privy to the great mystery of God in all its splendor.

So what is the truth?

Thou shall love the LORD, thy God, with everything and in everything - that is the truth.

And in the Gospels, this truth was staring Pilate in the face.

He was actually sitting in judgment upon himself.

Now, the whole of our human reality is set in motion before us because of this one question; a motion that pivots around that one answer that Pilate sought in Christ.

This reality is like a bubble in the mind of God.

But to the addict mind, as it were, caught up in the wiles of active addiction, this reality is like a bubble that pivots around the self.

This bubble is the addict bubble.

For the suffering addict who is not yet cognizant of the message of recovery neither would nor could recognize this most fundamental of truths -

That thou shall love the LORD, thy God, with everything and in everything.

And that to this Higher Power alone must the suffering addict utterly and willingly ultimately surrender total control of his or her addiction to gain back control of his or her life.

He lives in an addict bubble; a sorry illusion built upon false hopes in false things - like a lie within a lie.

Simply put, within this unhappy reality built around a false sense of self, the addict worships not the God from Whose unifying and eternal Truth proceeds all other realities.

Isolated and alone, he sits in judgment only upon himself and unless God in His Truth so chooses to burst this false sense of reality, the addict will continue to suffer in vain.

Left entirely to himself, this suffering shall become his last end.

But recovery is possible because to God all things are.

So God, in His great wisdom and boundless mercy, bursts this addict bubble on his own good behalf and the addict finds himself bottoming out.

The suffering addict then seeks and providentially finds the fellowship of NA.

This is why it so important to live the message of recovery from an interior sense and not just from an exterior sense of exterior needs because the message itself is fundamentally spiritual in nature.

For we are the message itself - the entire fellowship of recovering addicts - lives lived in hope, replete with gifts, graces, and all.

That I am able to write this to you, my friend, is a gift of my own recovery...

Amen to the LORD if it helps to burst your bubble.

=^.^=

Christ-centeredness is other-centeredness.

20100914

Perspective

There were three addicts in recovery -

The first one was asked, "what are you doing?"

"Can't you see I'm trying to recover!", the first addict replied rather annoyed at the question.

The second one was asked, "what are you doing?"

"Well, I'm trying to recover because my family expects me to...", the second addict said rather unconvincingly.

The third one was asked, "what are you doing?"

"I'm working on my recovery. I'm really trying to figure it out. I'm sick and tired of being so sick and tired and have had enough. I no longer want all that hurt and the pain. I want my family and friends to be happy - and they are. Above all, my recovery is my investment on my own better self. I am so thankful to God for all He has done now that I am in recovery. My will of recovery itself is His will for me. Because now I have something in my life and I really do appreciate it, it doesn't have to be anything big, you know - just something. With drugs there is nothing."

Recovery is all about perspective. One can see the difference in the three answers given above to the same question.

This is one of my own life lessons learned in rehab. It is something that I still carry around with me. And now I am sharing it with you.

I hope it helps!

=^.^=

Life is a journey without destinations.

20100905

Reservations

Some recovering addicts I know say and think "reservation" like it were a hotel reservation.

"What's up with that?", I'd say to myself: Reservation is a thing tucked neatly right at the very corner of the mind that says I shall relapse if this and that happens to me.

It has nothing to do with space and has everything to do with time. It is not a where but a when.

At one NA meeting, I tried to save a seat for a buddy of mine once and was told I had reservations. What's up with that?

It is a very good thing to clear the mind of reservations.

But to do this, one must exert a certain amount of concentration to determine for one's self what a reservation really is and then invest some time in meditation to find out if one has any.

A good relapse prevention plan should always involve this as an exercise in prudence.

That's my own take on the matter.

RECOVERY MEANS: I never have to use again.

All

O LORD,
Thou art God
and that is all.

In my absence,
Thou art present.

In my sickness,
Thou art health.

In my weakness,
Thou art strength.

In my folly,
Thou art wisdom.

In my ignorance
Thou art knowledge.

In my dullness,
Thou art discernment.

In my bondage,
Thou art salvation.

In my blindness,
Thou art true sight.

In my darkness,
Thou art true light.

O LORD,
Thou art God
and that is all!
---<--@

The LORD Himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.

Exodus 14: 14

Ignite

STARSHINE,
your addiction is to life.

There is nothing worthy
about things that cause harm -
Destruction is only good
if it brings about growth and transformation.

So remember this
when you shall desire to find yourself
when you shall seek to one day be
as stars looking out from yourself
possessed by your own light,
being by the one Beautiful beheld
seeing far into the darkness
of our needful world:
Make no provision in your heart
for evil things: Here, Now.

For there will come a time in your life
when you shall be confused
when you shall cross an imperceptible threshold
into an in-between world -
By the ebb and flow tides of shadow and light,
you shall wander alone with the Alone
and you will be compelled to look for those things
that are meant to be yours
as well as forced to shed away all other things
that should no-wise belong to you.

So listen to good counsel, Beloved of God,
for it is better not to begin weeping
than to weep until the tears that was begun
are all shed away by our weeping together
for before you can shed your own starlight,
our most precious Starshine,
before the love in your heart ignites,
you must first shed away all your tears.
---<--@

Therefore -

Cast off the darkness of despair. And shed away all thy bitter tears.

The long night has not yet claimed you. For you are here now.

Abide by the sober strength of friendships forged in recovery. And l

et us linger in the shelter of our togetherness.

Weep with us these

tears that keep us salty and bind thyself to the slavery that keeps us free.

Give of yourself and you will see far into the darkness, our beloved Starshine.

Serve. Learn to love the act of service.

Then go and shine by the light of thy own seeing clearly.

Carry the message of recovery.

Arrive in peace.

Leave by way of the same peace.

=^.^=

Breaking Free

This work is dedicated to all suffering addicts and alcoholics:

THIS ADDICTION
has power over me no more.

It has power only over those
who believe in the lie.

This addiction has lied to me,
my family, and my friends,
right from the very beginning.

It has nearly destroyed me.

It has harmed those
whom I hold dear to my heart
who hold me dear to theirs.

Therefore, I no longer believe in the lie.
I can neither trust nor tolerate it:

I cast it away from myself!

The first choice is the wrong choice.

All the choices after that
is the choice of the addiction.

Therefore ---

The next choice I must make
is the one choice I must take
toward the road to freedom.

All the choices after this
are steps that take me there,
far away from here,
far away from the addiction,
far away from the lie
that sought to extinguish
my promise and my life.

The road exists even should I fall
because the road exists for me.

The road exists so long as I believe
that time will take me there
and truth will set me free.

So help me God,
So help me God.
---<--@

So, my friends, let us together say:

"V R S N S M V - S M Q L I V B" meaning "Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!"

Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!

- from the Saint Benedict Medal