Tags
addiction and recovery, connected, drugs, friendship, happiness, harmony, loneliness, love, suffering
June 6, 2015 was the day I celebrated 10 years of continuous sobriety. What that means is that I haven’t used alcohol or recreational drugs to change the way I feel. I haven’t experienced very many pink clouds in sobriety. A pink cloud can be described as
12 step recovery jargon referring to someone new who talks about how great life is, now that they’re sober. For me sobriety has definitely been a “one day at a time” experience. Sobriety is simple but not easy. And what I’ve learned is that no matter what, using anything to alter the way I feel is just temporary and won’t make anything better. And then along the way I found that there was a power greater than me that I could connect with that would help me feel better. I call it Spirit. When I used alcohol and drugs I could not connect to Spirit. In 12 step programs you are encouraged to find a “power greater than yourself.” For me, this process has been gradual over the last 10 years. To do so, I found a spiritual teacher, read many spiritual books, took classes and connected with people who were like-minded. 
As I reflect on the decade that has passed I can see all the wonderful blessings that have happened in my life. I have made some wonderful friends, have two daughters that have grown into beautiful women, healed my relationship with their Dad and his family, and I’ve healed the other addictions that popped up after I gave up alcohol – which were food, shopping, and co-dependency to name a few. Addictions are symptoms of something much deeper….. Professor Alexander describes in the article about Rat Park that “addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you. It’s the cage.” You may or may not agree with this argument but I found his theory very interesting. You can read the full article here: http://huff.to/1yLbpIi I also believe that addiction has to do with loneliness. The writer George Monbiot writes about the age of loneliness – stating that “Social isolation is as potent a cause of early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is twice as deadly as obesity.” http://bit.ly/1yAiWbA. Photograph: Feri Lukas/Rex
I can relate to this. Loneliness has been my companion. Sometimes I can be surrounded by people in a crowded room and feel very alone. And, I’m not alone in this feeling. Take the case of a person who thinks he or she has no friends, has a sense of aloneness, of not belonging to the universe, and a sense that no one cares. These feelings can produce a lot of suffering. But, connectedness has been my companion too. In my spiritual community, I have been taught that we are all connected. That there is the One and we are all connected. That my suffering, feeling separate, and alone is just a thought and I don’t have to believe my thoughts. That we/I are all connected to life and that everyone we/I meet is just a little different expression of that One. And finally – if we, or I, identify myself with love, happiness, friendship and harmony we/I can change our/my thought patterns from a sense of separateness to a sense of connection. 
A Day In the Life of a Sonoma County Girl 