Recovery Program

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today. ~ Henry Ford

New Year’s Day is a time of recollection and resolutions for most of the world, but I think it is important for those of us in recovery to remember that dwelling on the past and making promises for the future is something at which we have always excelled. The old cartoon above from 1905 is a great reminder that time marches on predictably, so we must act now before we are once again wistfully looking back at the past.

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I intermittently go on health kicks and routinely use the elliptical trainers in hotels to reduce the tension that builds in my back and neck from long periods of inactivity due to driving and flying. Never though, have I seriously applied myself to a diet regimen to lose weight. Actually, I never really needed to… until now.

I passed forty a few months back and started to become very self conscious about the extra pounds the last few years had added. When my wife headed off to Thailand at the beginning of November, I decided that two months spent away from her “to-die-for” cooking would be a good time shed to this weight. My starting weight was 165 pounds and I allowed my cheap programmable scale to set the goal of 149 pounds based on a BMI calculator. It really hasn’t been that hard, I don’t adhere to any specific diet instead just concentrating on reducing the number of calories I consume daily. After two months into it I’m at 152 pounds. Sounds successful right, so why am I feeling guilty?

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A large part of my recovery program involves my advocacy efforts and of course, this website. Not only do I take personal pride in the fact that TDA is updated nightly regardless of how I feel or how hard I’ve been working, but it is one of the things that keeps me sober and sane.

Tonight though I almost didn’t make the update because I am working out of town, have a near dead laptop battery, and have just discovered my power cord is still sitting under a conference room table on the other side of town.

So briefly (only 15% of battery remains) let me thank all of you who visit, read, and comment for being part of my recovery. I have discovered a whole new world and developed a deep appreciation for life since that day 14 years ago when I got off the juice, but unfortunately my laptop is still dependent. Have a great night, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a regular recovery update!

I was recently asked about my recovery program, particularly my method of managing stress and worry. It is a little unorthodox so I decided to make it a little easier to understand by drawing a diagram.

Seriously though, stress and worry are often the precursors to relapse so it is unfortunate that these are also two things in which alcoholics and addicts excel. There’s an old country saying that may be true for some, “Worry is like a rocking chair--it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere.” But for those of us in recovery, worry and stress actually do take us somewhere… a very bad place.

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