Tricky Angel

Addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful.



"Make peace with your addiction, 
find a place for it in your life, you can do it!
Everybody does it, it's harmless, no one will mind...",
the strange impulse said to my innermost self.

I struggle for answers like Peter sinking in the water.
Many a times I gave in to the temptation and drowned.

But if I held firm, if I stay put, if I trust and not panic...
something else comes to me... in many different guises,
in persons - mine and others, events, places, creatures, things,
above all - through Eucharistic bread and wine - my Savior,
my blessed Savior, my Jesus comes and finds me!

"No, my Jesus will! He will mind. For I am of His flock.
How will I explain this (in confession and in the communion of prayer)
to my most loving God and Giver of all good things in my little life
if I place upon His Throne in my heart a pretender to my love
such as you - Tricky Angel?", I thought to myself.

- selah -

Tricky Angel,
I know you and I know your tricks.

I know you from your mouth - laden with lies,
your tricks from the rottenness of its fruits.

I understand you not and desire of you
no understanding whatsoever.

In the Name of my most blessed Lord Jesus Christ,
highly to be adored and praised, my Savior, my God,
exalted above all the heavens and across all the earth,
by His Blood, by His Wounds, by His Passion, and Cross -
I command you to leave, begone from me!

I choose Jesus.

Recovery Attitudes #1

( What is Recovery?)

Recovery is - simply -

the process of re-discovering

a love that is greater

than your love

of the demon drink

or the demon drug.

Because -

addiction is all about happiness

and happiness is all about freedom

and freedom is all about the truth

- drug or alcohol addiction -

is fundamentally a problem

of loving the wrong things.

It is a misled sense of affectation

for a false happiness - that leads -

to a false freedom - that leads -

to nowhere - again and again.

The potency of this addiction

may be determined by how determinedly

- consciously as well as unconsciously -

the soul of the addict

has become willing to accept

the lie that keeps his or her spirit

locked deep within the suffocating confines

of substance abuse.

- selah -

Therefore,

the staying power

(i.e. the power it has over one's right choices)

of demon drugs or demon drink

is not in the drugs or the drink

it is in the deception.

And the longer the lie is held,

the more lethal it shall become.

---<--@

Clear Thinking

This is what the PROVEN outcome of every individual choice to hang on to recovery - no matter the gathering storm - looks like...

This is what I want, so help me God.

Laban ng Buhay

Laban ng buhay,

hamon ng panahon!

Gumising O puso,

tumugon sa hamon!

Lumaban sa agos,

pag-asa'y itaguyod.

Laban ng buhay,

iwaksi ang takot!

Manalig sa sarili.

Maging tapat sa Diyos.

Kapwa mo'y mahalin.

Katotohana'y intindihin.

Puso ng tao'y

parang tala sa langit

na sa gabi'y nangarap

at minsa'y nagising

sa dilim at liwanag

at sa umagang parating.

Ito ang kalayaang

hindi kayang alisin

kalayaang sa puso'y

kung bibigyang pansin

kapangyarihang tunay

na pumiling taglay.

O pusong natutulog

gumising sa dilim!

Dusa'y intindihin.

Imobt ay alisin.

Ningning mo'y patikasin,

liwanag mo'y palawakin.

Laban ng buhay

sa kadilima'y ipahiwatig

sa mga pusong nakikinig

lumaban sa agos

tumugon sa hamon

at lumaya ng lubos.

Laban ng buhay,

hamon ng panahon!

Puso ko ika'y tumugon.

Mamuhay ng may tapang,

problema'y harapin,

langit mo'y abutin.

Kung pangarap mo'y

malayang susundin,

kung liwanag mo'y

siyang pagtitibayin,

sa laban ng buhay

kamit mo'y tagumpay.

Laban ng buhay!

Puso ko sa dilim

sa Diyos ang tingin

pangako Niya'y dingin

manalig, maniwala

mangarap ng malaya.

---<--@

Liwanag at Dilim

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.

=^.^=