Archive for the Uncategorized Category

Everyones Recovery Is Their Own

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 23, 2025 by CunningChrisC

I recently noticed that I had a comment (about 5 years ago) on one of the blogs I started (about 17 years ago). It was from someone named Kim and went like this, “Where are the rest of the questions and your answers to the rest of step one? You stopped at question 3?”

Firstly, as I’ve said before, I’m a great procastinator. Secondly, “Helloooo, McFlyyyy…I’m an addict”. Thirdly, I’ll be 59 in nine days, and I was just recently diagnosed with ADHD or AADD or whatever it is. I don’t remember what exactly the doctor said because I wasn’t paying full attention. It was something along the lines of me having an attention deficit. Lastly, this was begun on a whim at a time when I was living in a new state, with a young child, a lousy husband, and no friends outside of NA, and thank God for them.

Back when I was in school autism and attention deficit disorders weren’t a widely understood, or even commonly discussed thing. When I became an adult I could never get a doctor to listen to me before in regard to getting anything to help me focus because I am, admittedly, an addict. I mean, I didn’t even consider that I may be on the spectrum or have one of these attention deficit disorders until I was in my thirties, and it wasn’t until after I got clean that I tried to get a diagnosis.

It took me over twenty years to get a doctor to listen to me. I guess they just thought I was looking for legal avenues to get speed. I gotta’ tell you though, these methamphetamines really do a wonderful job of allowing me to focus, but you must take them as prescribed. I do not recommend creative self dosing.

I am currently in school for IT (no agist comments from the peanut gallery, please), and I have never in my life been able to study and retain material at this level. If only I had been diagnosed earlier in life, maybe I never would have fallen into addiction in the first place.

Just doing the little bit of blogging I did about my step work was very difficult and time consuming. I don’t know if I will ever finish putting the step work in here, but I may. Only time will tell. However, what I do or do not do, should in no way effect what you do with your recovery. Don’t stop working your steps because I stopped providing you crib sheet material. Do your best. Be honest, especially with yourself, and above all…KEEP COMING BACK! Because it really will work if you work it, but you have to be ready, and you have to want it. Everynones’ recovery is their own.

By Christine C (me)

Leave a comment »

Dedicated to Freddy S. of the Netherlands

Posted in Uncategorized on December 8, 2021 by CunningChrisC

I just want to say thank you to Freddy S. of the Netherlands for reminding me of my blog. Yes, it slips my mind. My mind and my thought processes are a mess these days. I have become very forgetful and easily overwhelmed by emotion. There are many reasons for this that I cannot currently discuss, but someday soon I hope to be able to unburden myself of them. The days run together and although I mean to keep up with things like this blog it just falls to the wayside more often than not because life keeps getting in the way. Ahhh, life, right Freddy?

Okay, now let’s get on with this post…

I went through sort of a long term “depression”.  I haven’t picked up though.  I think I am coming through the other side.  I have 13 years clean now.  It would have been 20, but as this is a program of honesty, and since the one it is most important to be honest with is myself, I must admit that I fell off once – even if it was only for a few days.  At first, I didn’t admit it to anyone, not even myself.  It was just too embarrassing, too shameful.  It took a lot of faking it until I really was making it, you know? 

There was a lot of me sitting at the back of the room in relapse row, as we call it here in the states.  Anyway, when I first started going to meetings it was in a rehab; very structured and organized and controlled by paid staff.  Then I “graduated” the rehab and went on to a half-way house.  That’s where I first started to attend “real” meetings, run by other recovering addicts.  

When I first started to attend meetings there weren’t very many NA meetings at all.  In fact, I can only recall one.  All the rest of the meetings were AA.  Many of the people in AA didn’t actually want to share their meetings with drug addicts, because they didn’t see alcohol the same way.  They didn’t consider it a drug because it was legal, and they didn’t want people addicted to crack, heroine, pills, weed, etc. to share at their meetings at all really. 

Many of my peers (fellow drug addicts), many of whom were cross addicted to drugs and alcohol were frustrated with going to these meetings, but had to per the court system.  They were frustrated because some of the AA folks would cut them off in the middle of sharing if they wandered into talking about drugs.  I found a way around that. 

I realized that it didn’t matter if you were drinking from a glass, smoking a crack pipe or a joint, popping pills or shooting up; you had to bend your elbow to do all of those things.  So, I advised everyone who wanted to share, heck, who NEEDED to share to just talk about bending their elbow without getting into the specifics of why they were bending their elbow – and it worked. 

The AA folks didn’t seem to mind if we shared in this way.  More importantly it allowed us addicts to unload what was waying us down.  It was so great when NA became more prevalent in America and addicts could share completely unfettered by this ridiculous bias.  Now-a-days, it seems like all of the Anonymous programs are on board with the idea that a drug is a drug is a drug, whether you drink it, smoke it, snort it, or shoot it.  In the end we are all friends of Bill W.  So keep coming back, friend.

By Christine C. (me)

Leave a comment »

Remember RIF?

Posted in Uncategorized on September 10, 2010 by CunningChrisC
fundamental, adj.  Pertaining to a foundation or basis; essential; primary:  n. a primary or essential principle; basis.
 
Does anyone remember RIF?  You know, reading is fundamental.  Well, I do.  It started in 1966 with a retired teacher in Washington, DC.  Now it’s in all 50 states, a few of our territories and several other locations and it helps poor/disadvantaged children to have access to books because reading is a fundamental part of the learning process.  My point is that someone realized that the ability to read is a valuable asset/resource and that the availability of books to help nurture this ability is essential.
 
For me NA (and AA, CA and all of the other anonymous and 12 step related programs out there)  is like RIF for recovering addicts in that they recognize the importance of literature on the topic of 12 step related programs to help nurture recovery.  Therefore, anyone seeking recovery who attends any of these types of meetings is never turned down for [available] literature they wish to have, but may not have the ability to pay for at the time.  The anonymous programs I am familiar with realize that there is nothing more effective than the power of one addict helping another and this is one of the many ways in which they do this.
 
Yes going to meetings, attaining and utilizing a sponsor and a support network and working on your steps [with a sponsor] are also essential, but to me reading is like nothing else.  When we [that are active in our recovery and our home groups and service work] provide reading material it may be what gets through to someone when nothing else can.  Or, it may be all that is available to a person seeking recovery. 
 
For instance, when I was in the general population of prison we didn’t have access to recovery related meetings (you had to be in the rehabilitation program to access that sort of thing), but every now and then we would get our hands on some recovery related reading material.  Whether the supervisor of the rehab program provided it to our unit (cell block) or some compassionate guard (perhaps themselves an addict) slipped it to us it was widely coveted.
 
Everyone in the unit wanted to have it in their cell to read and re-read at their leisure, but we knew we had to share otherwise someone would end up complaining to a guard, or there might even be a fight over it and then it would simply get taken away and none of us would have it.  No one wanted that. 
 
I think what made the books and literature so attractive to us was that there was something that each of us could identify with somewhere within the text.  No matter how different we purported to be we could all find common ground with something or someone in that literature and for some of us it was the first step on the road to recovery.
 
The other great thing about the literature is that it’s not just for addicts.  Even if the reader is not an addict they may identify with the situation/predicament that the writer is/was in.  I feel that the stories and messages delivered in the literature can be applied to many lives and used to help improve many situations, and (if nothing else) that someone may at least find a glimmer of hope that helps them carry on for one more day, and one more day, and one more day until they find their break through.
 
Christine C.  (me)

Leave a comment »

Sick Day

Posted in Uncategorized on September 6, 2010 by CunningChrisC
Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days.  I have been sick with strep throat and every time I think it’s going away it pounces on me again. 
 
Saturday was the Peaceful Serenity picnic and I was really looking forward to going to that as it was going to be the first "larger"  N.A. event that I would have attended.  I’ve been to a couple of local functions that my home group and a couple of other home groups have hosted and that has been fun, but I heard that this was going to be big and a ton of fun. 
 
I was upset that I missed it because it seems that no matter how well I plan on doing something or how long in advance I prepare for an occasion something always seems to happen to screw it up.  Either I get sick, or someone in my immediate family gets sick, or something breaks that is costly to fix or replace and any money I had set aside dedicated to something ends up being used towards some "emergency". 
 
The up side of that is that at least I always have something to show for my money besides a cloud of smoke and if me or anyone in my family is sick it’s not because we are dope sick.  I owe the ability to be able to see an upside to being sick or not getting my way to N.A.  In days gone by being sick or not getting my way were great excuses to get high. 
 
Now I don’t look for excuses to justify as reasons to get high.  I just take things as they come and live in the moment one day at a time.
 
Christine C.  (me)

Leave a comment »

A Family Affair

Posted in Uncategorized on August 16, 2010 by CunningChrisC
I’ve often seen generations of families getting drunk together at a bar.  I’ve also seen them getting high and/or drunk at weddings, funerals, carnivals, in their own homes, at the kids soccer games and any number of other events.  Heck, I’ve done it too. 
 
While I personally do believe that there is some amount of genetics involved in addictive personalities, I also believe that addictive behaviors are learned.  We learn by watching our parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, idols, etc., etc..  We also learn by being mentored. 
 
What I mean by that is maybe when we were a baby we got some whiskey rubbed on our teething gums; or maybe when we were little we started being given sips of beer now and then; maybe we caught someone toking on a joint and they showed us how to do it too, either to show us how "good" it could make us feel or just so we couldn’t tell on them; or maybe someone taught us how to snort up, shoot up or cook up.  Whatever way it happened – it happened – we learned.
 
The good news is we can un-learn.  I’m not saying that we can ever forget what we learned to begin with because we just can’t, but we can learn to not do the things we learned.  We can learn to live a new way…a new life.  We can learn to live a clean & sober and hopefully healthy & sane life.
 
I know this because I see it happening all the time in "the rooms" of the anonymous programs I go to.  I know this because I see it happening in the lives of my friends in recovery.  I know this because I see it in my own life. 
 
I got clean in a rehab that I didn’t really want to go to.  I’m staying clean thanks to an anonymous 12 step program that I did not want to embrace and that I only attended because I was mandated to do so.  However, by the time that mandate had expired I had begun to realize that perhaps, as much as I hated to admit it, just maybe I belonged here. 
 
So, I decided to continue with it and little by little I have begun to see changes, not only in the people around me, but in myself.  Small, subtle changes that each by themselves perhaps aren’t much, but when added up begin to amount to something of value.  It’s a new me [a me I’m starting to like] and I am still a work in progress and that (in part) is what keeps me coming back.
 
Christine C.  (me)

Leave a comment »