Direction, Destination…..

I had to spend time in the car today so I was spent that time listening to an Andy Stanley’s the Senior Pastor at North Point in Alpharetta sermon called Destinations. Highly recommend it! In Andy’s gently confronting way he described how we can plan to go to Florida. We can pack, rent a house, get money from the ATM, pray about the trip and get on the car going North on I-75 and go in the opposite direction of our goal/destination. I find this to compare so true for addictions. You want to “not use, eat, control, fill in the blank” you go to meetings, you talk to your friends, you take classes, etc. But when the urge to use comes, you are standing there with the choice to go North or South which way on the interstate do you go. Recovery is so much about using the tools. You have to use the tools daily to get you on the road in the right direction and then keep you on the road in the right direction. Addictions are so insidious they are about daily reprieves. So often we make to 6 days of decisions that move us toward the goal but then spend one day moving in the opposite direction. Those choices become more and more devastating to us, our credibility with ourselves and with others. Then the shame and guilt horse show up and ride us that much further North on I-75.

What action are you taking today that moves you closer to your destination? Recovery is one day at a time, one choice at a time……

What Do You Negative/Using Thoughts Look Like?

In the early recovering days it was simple… I would be reminded of past “fun” times, you know drinking beer at the lake, doing coke at a party, drinking bloody mary in the morning. The thought would whisper… “wouldn’t a cold beer taste good right now??? This would be more fun if I had a drink. I could dance better if I had a drink. I could enjoy the concert better”, there are many etcs. here. Of course those whisper thoughts are called romancing the drink or drug; remembering the positive. But I had to train my mind to see it all the way through. I would ask myself questions like… “how often did I really only have one drink?” Of course the answer was RARELY! I had to train my brain to “see it all the way through”. See it all the way through to it being 2 a.m. and all the fun is long gone. You know whether you are with someone or not you are extremely lonely. You come to the reality that no matter how drunk you are you are in emotional pain and the best question of all…. How did I get so drunk? I always set out to just have a few. When I played the tape through to the end and didn’t just focus on the previews of it, it always made me do something different. Doing something different means taking different action! Had I allowed myself to wallow in those thoughts I know I would have had a different outcome. You know that is so clear to me that I have control over seeing it all the way through. I don’t have control over the thoughts coming but I do control what comes next.

But then how do I apply this to other areas of my life? If you are reading this you probably know about obsessive thought. That can range from I don’t feel good, I am fat, my husband is a jerk, whatever. When I began to understand it started with my thoughts but it takes an action. So on a given day I began to focus on how frustrated I am about… work, money, husband, just fill in the blank and I began to run the he said, she said over in my mind. My anxiety level increases, I become irritable and then comes the thoughts of chocolate, ice cream, caramel or something fried. What happens next? This is the place where the action comes in. How often I began to focus on finding a convenience store or fast food restaurant that would give me my fix rather than seeing it all the way through. Just like a drink seeing it all the way through to how bad, how bad I’m going to feel, how irritable I will be with the people that I care about, how bad I’m going to feel about myself for failing again, how fat I’m going to feel and fat I am going to be. The person that is 100 lbs overweight didn’t get there overnight they got there one ounce at a time.

This same principle applies to any coping behavior. If I sit around and stew in trash I will feel depressed, angry, irritable, helpless and hopeless. Begin to see the tape all the way through to the end when the thoughts come. The Bible says in Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.

What is that troublesome area for you? Begin to take your thoughts captive in that one area. Say it is focusing on worrying about finances. You can see that thought of worry all the way through. The worry of finances has not made your situation any better and actually it often leaves you tired, depressed, afraid, and hopeless. What would happen if when the thought came you said God I give you the money to care for? You know the concern; I trust you are handling it. And then when it came back you told worry about money… “I’ve given you to God, He is taking care of you today. I need to think about work, kids, whatever but I don’t have time to worry with you right now.” The thoughts will be persistent until you stop feeding them, they will grow weaker and eventually go away. That doesn’t happen overnight but it happens.

Please know satan wants our thoughts to be negative and us to keep feeling defeated.

Begin to take charge of one spot of your thoughts. You will be amazed at how freeing it will be. And how victorious you will feel!