Strength Office 629

Today a businesswoman actively sought not to beat me at business, which was her job, but to actively try to destroy my business.

She failed, but it was challenging to have such a fierce adversary. I felt terror. 

But, I did not let it affect my serenity and I held on dearly to my “physic change” around food, breathed in deeply as a Step Eleven for a long time and my food an exercise were flawless.

I choose to thank her for her ferocity.

If I can’t stay sober under adversity…I can’t stay sober.

Thanks, lady…

Strength Office 630

It is my experience that when I eat dairy, meat, or seafood my knees and lower back and my muscles feel stiff (which is not optimum for a guitar player).

It is my experience that when I eat fruits and nuts I feel neutral.

It is my experience that when I eat living foods I feel better.

It is also my experience that the better I eat the more in touch with anger I am.

I used to want to be a “nice guy”, which to me in my youth meant never getting angry.

But to be a “nice guy” I also ended up fat.

The only sponsor I ever had in OA taught me one really special message…”Fat is anger”.

Accept anger or accept fat…those are my choices.

Strength Office 631

Addicts are like crabs and children 

  1. When you catch one you have to put it in a bucket with a top on it. When you have the second on in the bucket you don’t need a top…because the first one always pulls the second one down.
  1. When someone else is relapsing I need to be an emotional grown up, instead of acting like a five year old saying “ Well if he can do it, I should be able to do it”.

I can act better than a crabby child.

Strength Office 632

I remember how shocked I felt when I realized:

“I have found a way to get drunk through food”.

Like Jeremiah 8:6 “No one repents of his sins crying “What have I done? “

I repent…I repent.

Strength Office 633

HP,

Sometimes it’s simply doing your will…sometimes it’s just taking responsibility for myself.

Like the 19 years it took Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” and the 18 years it took Dr. Manette in Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities” it took me 40 years to get completely free.

Help me to value my freedom above all else.

Strength Office 634

HP,

Help me to let go of the unwilling.

What was loving service in me, in the presence of unwillingness, becomes codependent caretaking…and then I am spiritually sick.

Help me to let go of the unwilling.

Amen

Strength Office 635

HP,

What do I really want in my life?

For me, it is full recovery from all addictions…so that I can pursue a different life.

I want to play and write as much music as I can each day.

To do that I simply: do daily inventory, pray “without ceasing” (1st Thessalonians 5:17) and serve the willing freely.

I am grateful for my new “outer circle” life of playing the most outrageous music!

I feel so lucky…

Thanks God

Strength Office 636

HP,

Help me not “dull the edges” of my pain with food around relational disappointments, aching bones or a horrid landlord.

Because I don’t want to “dull the edges” around the nuances of my son’s smile, the softness of my wife’s skin or the awareness of your Holy Presence. 

Amen