This too shall pass

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We all go through trials. Suffering is a natural part of life. Every one of us endures this or that situation that seems to be neverending. And most times it seems that our suffering is worse that anyone else’s. Even news reports of natural disasters fail to change our perspective.

Despite our experience in the past that things do get better and the bad times fade, we forget this. Due to our alcoholic tendencies, we may even wallow in our despair, thus prolonging or making worse whatever we’re going through. Sometimes we are only happy when we’re miserable. Probably only an alcoholic or addict will understand this.

Last summer (2008) I was going through a bit of a rough patch. I had started a new job a few months prior and although I am pretty good at what I do I must admit to having had a steeper “learning curve” and have taken a little longer than I should have to grasp some of the details.

But this had made me vulnerable to “attitude problems” from other coworkers, mostly those much younger than I. I was being taken advantage of (or so it seemed) in those areas that I excel at, and in those areas I needed improvement in I was being gossiped about to other staffers, including management. This had led to some strain on my part and anxiety when I reported to work. Many days I hated going to work, not because of my tasks which I enjoy, but because of whom I worked with.

Insecurity ruled the day. I had even started another job search to hedge my bets about my ability to keep this one.

I titled this post “This too shall pass” as that is an AA slogan intended to remind us that no matter what we are going through, it will end. Whether our suffering is caused by others, or of our own mistakes doesn’t matter. It will end. What we must do is to learn from it. Or else it was just wasted time and pointless.

Someone once said that experience is the learning we gleaned from our mistakes. Experience makes the bad times and suffering we go through worthwhile, once they’re over.

As I write this now (this was originally a post on another blog that I am discontinuing, so it’s an edited update) things did get better. I persevered. I transferred to another office in the area and I fit it very well with my co-workers and management. I am appreciated and made to feel welcome.

Just remember this. It will pass. Just persevere, have faith that God will get you through it and perhaps is trying to teach you something. Pray for the wisdom to understand.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The Road of Happy Destiny

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The title of this post is in reference to a line in page 164 of AA’s “Big Book”, (a/k/a Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001). It reads:

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past… We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. I’ve always liked that line about the Road. It’s mentioned a lot in AA meetings. I like its imagery of the path of sobriety being an ongoing one with a destination, and that recovery and conversion are lifelong events.

It has helped me to learn that answers to problems do not arrive quickly, that as slowly problems develop, so do their resolutions. Life is a road, there are potholes and you get around them.

The “Happy Destiny” part helps me to raise my head up and know that the race isn’t won with just not drinking. We will die someday and what happens next is something to think about. It is why my Catholicism is indispensable to me. Catholicism liberates you from the constraints of contemporary times.

The “here and now” is fleeting. We are all meant for something better, both now and for all eternity.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The First Step: Powerless and unmanageable

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“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

And thus is the First Step of 12 Step alcohol recovery groups. (Other addictions are appropriately substituted for alcohol in other 12 Step movements).

In essence it reflects a corruption of the will, with the references to powerlessness and unmanageability. Our wills are directed towards using our personal power to do things to manage and direct our lives. The Step refers to a lack of power and the resulting unmanageability of life, pointing towards alcohol as a key.

Since our will uses things to manage our lives, apparently somewhere along the way we figured that alcohol was a great way to do this. And somewhere further along that way we discovered that this isn’t true.

At first we thought that the same will could be used to stop our drinking. But a will that has been thoroughly corrupted by alcohol is in no condition to assert itself and stop drinking. It becomes powerless, and the life it influenced and controlled is now unmanageable. Help is needed.

God could step in and thoroughly remove the addiction, or the desire to drink. Someone could enter into the person’s life and take it over and prevent the person from drinking. But it doesn’t happen that way.

We are never entirely without our will. There are dregs of it left, despite the wretched condition we may be in at the point of admitting defeat.

And so with whatever control over our wills that we have left, we plaintively cry out in some manner into the darkness of our lives: “Help! I can’t do this myself!!” We realize that we have been beaten and cannot go on as before.

God entered our life and pours into it His graces and we survive. Our declaration of powerlessness is enough so that He, who respects the gift of free will that He had bestowed upon us, calls to us and gives us the strength to go on and seek help.

The salvation of Humanity itself needed someone else’s approval and willingness before God can work a miracle in her:

Luke 1:38: “Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’ “

(Via USCCB)

And with that the Holy Spirit came upon her and Jesus was formed in her womb. The defeated alcoholic’s willingness to set aside self and allow God to move in is needed to begin to work a miracle in us. We are all called to be servants of the Lord, we are all called to do God’s will according to His word. As alcoholics we were so full of self that we couldn’t tolerate this idea, if we even conceived of it. Or worse, we felt we can discern His will through the bottom of a bottle of liquor.

John 3:30: “He must increase; I must decrease.'”

(Via uSCCB.)

One follows the other, we decrease, we set aside self, we adopt an attitude or demeanor of humility, and He increases in us.

I had written about this before: First Step: Powerlessness and weakness

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Today would have been Mom's birthday

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Today, January 20th, would have been my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 93. She died a few years ago, just shy of her 90th. The fact that she led and lived a full life doesn’t minimize her death. (“Well, Paul, she did live a long time.”)

I miss her. I have the hope of seeing her, and other loved ones, again in Heaven.

I am trying to spiritually develop so that my yearnings for Heaven are proper, that is I desire to get to Heaven to be united with God and not just so that I am reunited with my lost loved ones and God just happens to be there, too. That takes God for granted and that Heaven is just a perpetual playground or wonderful endless happy family reunion with Christmas and Easter dinners and picnics all thrown together.

Yearn for the face of the beloved, and all else will fall into place, as well. Trust in God.

(Note: This was originally published on another blog that I am discontinuing. I backdated it as I actually posted it to Sober Catholic on 29 January 2009.)

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

To suffer with

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According to the Oxford American Dictionary that is installed on my Mac, the word compassion means:

compassion |kəmˈpa sh ən| noun
sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others : the victims should be treated with compassion.

ORIGIN Middle English : via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin compassio(n-), from compati ‘suffer with.’

Take note of the origin of the word: “to suffer with”.

We suffer. We are all wounded and broken in some way. For you reading this blog and the others on the recovery and conversion blogrolls, you understand this. You wouldn’t be here unless you’ve been wounded and hurt in your past. Whether it is by others or most likely yourself (because of your addictions), you know suffering.

To me, it doesn’t matter whether the suffering is self-inflicted or bestowed upon you by others, suffering is suffering.

Suffering tends to isolate us. We think we are alone and this is reinforced by the resistance of others to be near us when we hurt. It sometimes feels as if we are like the lepers of old who had to wear signs identifying them as “unclean”, and thus to be avoided. Sometimes we push people away when we hurt as if contact with others will increase our pain. “Leave me alone” we shout, either with words or a “keep away, keep far away” attitude and demeanor.

We are Christians and as such we are taught by Jesus that we must accept suffering.

Matthew 16:24-25: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

(Via USCCB.)

This does not necessarily mean that we are just to deal with our own suffering. We must also bear one another’s burdens.

Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

(Via USCCB.)

Just as others are resistant to bear our burdens when we hurt, we are sometimes just as guilty when we see others hurting. We do not wish to be burned by whatever is afflicting them, or we are too distracted by our own concerns, or we selfishly prefer our own distractions and do not see and reach out when we can.

This takes us away from others and we become self-absorbed. We get carried away in our own interests and situations. We leave other people to their own suffering and we do not suffer with them. We lack compassion. We temporarily lack the ability to suffer with others. I say “temporarily” because if you possess a well-formed conscience you eventually notice this and wonder what is disturbing you. You discover that you have become too caught up in yourself and there is a world out there, or maybe just a small group of people that you work with or are related to who have been caught up in troubles of their own and have needed you. At least some small attention by you.

So you pick yourself up and resolve to do better. You try to sense what is going on in the lives of others and to tend to them. You hopefully consign your bout of self-absorption to the past (knowing it’ll return from time to time as we are sinners) and allow the experience to sensitize you to other people’s pain.

I chose that word carefully, sensitize. For in the cacophony of the World, we are oftentimes desensitized to other people’s sufferings. There’s just so much and we become numb to it all. And as we are addicts and alcoholics, we indulge ourselves in some distraction that fills us up. We may even rationalize the distraction as being something beneficial to us in the long run, calling it an “experience” or a mental health escape. This is all good, if it can be useful to others down the road.

As long as we remain focused on what is essential, that being:

Matthew 6:33: “…seek first the kingdom (of God)…“

(Via USCCB.)</p

This is New Year’s Day, 2009. We are all “supposed” to make resolutions for the year. In one of my other blogs I write about that: Resolution: One Day at a Time

(Via Trudging Paulcoholic’s Road.)

This may be one resolution that we might be capable of keeping the entire year, if we renew ourselves through prayer and meditation. That is: to try to stay attuned to the suffering that is about us, and to reach out and help in whatever manner we are able.

See you often throughout the year, both here and over at Catholics in Recovery .

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Suffering as foreshadowing destiny

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A recent article in Spirit Daily: entitled “OPEN TO GOD, CLEANSE, AND FIND THAT BIG PROBLEMS OFTEN MEAN A GREATER DESTINY” says what I’ve suspected in that sufferings, trials and problems in general in life may be indicative of greater and better things later on.

Read and ponder!

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Came to believe

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A few Sundays ago there was this Gospel reading at Mass:

John 2:13-22: “Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
‘Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.’
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’
Jesus answered and said to them,
‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’
The Jews said,
‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?’
But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture“

(Via USCCB.)

The phrase “came to believe” jumped out at me and made me think of the Second Step of recovery movements:

“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Both the disciple’s and an alcoholic’s “coming to believe” happen after some seismic event in their lives. The disciples had to witness Jesus’ resurrection to come to believe in His divinity and the Scriptural basis for His being, and the alcoholic had to fundamentally declare his or her own weakness about their addiction before “coming to believe” that God can effect change in their lives. For the disciples faith was the result, for an addict it is sanity.

Some may have a hard time reconciling faith with sanity, for faith is belief in the unknowable, and only crazy people believe in things unseen by any method. Maybe for us alcoholics in recovery it is not such a difficult thing. Our experience in recovery gives us an insight into the situations that are otherwise unexplainable, except by faith. Our ability to cope with this (or relish this) implies a sanity.

Where are you in “coming to believe?”

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

A general apology of sorts

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I feel the need to offer an apology for the lack of posting recently. My wife just told me that I apologize for “not blogging” too much. That’s possible. But perhaps my conscience is bothering me. Or maybe I’m just a melancholic moody alcoholic in recovery and those moods get the best of me. But, I have been very guilty over the past year or so of promising daily posting and coming up with various plans to get myself to do just that. I have not followed through by virtue of the fact that I have never posted daily apart from novenas or a special series on things.

A part of me says that I shouldn’t feel lousy about myself as I have been through a series of major life-changing events this past year, every one of which is usually at or near the top of lists that state: “Doing any one of these things runs the risks of relapse.” (Relocation, job-changing and marriage, all in one year!) But still, I was raised with the notion that if you say you’re going to do something, follow through and do it. The fact that I didn’t relapse and was never seriously tempted to do so is a testimony to my Faith and sobriety. Not a testimony to me, but to the tools at my disposal.

Nevertheless, my intentions have exceeded my ability to deliver. I suppose my eyeballs got too big at blogging possibilities and my grasp reached for too much and I should have toned down expectations and just delivered what I could when I was able.

At any rate, please take this apology as a sincere attempt to work through stuff and get back on a track of sorts. The situation announced in my “blog update-personal news” post is holding true. The office is getting organized.

Blogging, as I always state, will continue. Stopping is never an option.

Thanks for your patience.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

The Healing Rosary

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There is another interesting article from Spirit Daily entitled: “MYSTERIES OF YOUR LIFE CAN BE REVEALED AND HEALED THROUGH MYSTERIES OF ROSARY”

(Via Spirit Daily.)

I encourage you to read it and ponder.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Transcending hurts

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There is a nice article in today’s Spirit Daily entitled: “RISE FROM WHAT MIRES YOU AND TRANSCEND HURTS OF THIS WORLD THROUGH HIS POWER”

(Via Spirit Daily.)

A good read on spiritual warfare and healing.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)