Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
When will i be free? Are we ever truly free? What is free really?
I am held captive by various addictions, but i am still at the helm as captain whether to pay them heed. Their call is like a ghost on the ship, do I carry this ghost on my travels? Is the ghost part of me? Does the ghost exist at all?
So many metaphysical things to mull! I don't have the answers, but do throw a few thoughts around as to how to achieve freedom. I think how nice it would be to have a butt load of cash! Like, certainly many of my problems would be solved. It would give me the freedom to take on some bigger dreams, like opening a pet motel with a lazy river for dogs and a cat coffee shop.
I feel like I'm a person who would be wise with money, but legit we all know that money comes with it's own darkness. People be doing whack shit over petty amounts, leading to violence and bad decisions. I feel like money is kinda like alcohol, it scrambles your brain and turns you into an entirely different person.
I don't know what enlightenment is. It feels pretentious in most cases. People like to prove they are the evolved model, the more perfect human. I feel the truly enlightened are not about the ego. To live in a place without ego sounds like annihilation of the self, like kinda boring.
I don't exist. I am one with the universe.
Is that free?
No person is an exclusive product of their own devices, no one lives in a vacuum. We are all interconnected, our personalities sculpted by people and experience that make us us.
I resent responsibility in general. I am a mother, so there's a social contract that i need to provide my spawn with sustenance. I am a wife, so there's a social contract i must emotionally coddle my spouse for whatever drama is going down. I am a friend, and there's a social contract that i must respond to text messages in a reasonable fashion and post on timelines for special days.
Blah.
I like to think i am an alienist. I believe i can venture forth, cut ties to all my bull crap, and just be free as a nomad, seeking adventure and boxing everyone out.
Maybe.
What is free anyway?
Free from addiction. Is it possible? Can i ever be this perfect person who never falls to dubious decisions?
Maybe.
I am inspired by the words of many who sound like they did step outside the whole thing, could face the reality of the toxic power that imprisoned, sabotaged the light in their lives. I will get there, too.
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
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I was recently separated from my wife of 33 years and it's complicated. Anyway I rented a room about 15 minutes away and I see my kids about once a week. I see the people who own the house I live in once in a while but other than that I stay in my room where I do my cooking, wash dishes in the shower, read, color, and sleep. I get out at least once a day. I grocery shop and I attend 2 meetings...
I have known some enormously rich people in my life and they were not happy. It didn't matter how much money that had, they always wanted more. Money was an idol and obtaining it was their addiction. When they got older, they had severe problems, with their health or with the law or with their own families.
When I stopped worshiping the God of alcohol, that was when my life really changed for the better! I had money coming from places I never expected, and I got a new job that I really liked which allowed me to travel and see things I had never seen before.
After that job ended, I began building my own business without worrying where the money was coming from. I charged up multiple credit cards in the process but was able to pay them all off within 6 months.
My point is that worrying about the future is of the ego. Accepting the future is being, right minded. Sometimes people keep themselves in their own prison due to fear. You would be surprised at how much power you have if you only practice forgiveness and let go of all your fears and guilt.
Step 12 of the AA 12 steps: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result
of these steps, we tried to carry this message to
alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all
our affairs.”
You have to awaken before you can become enlightened. I copied the following from another site which says it beter then I can:
"""AA STEP 12: SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
The concept of “spiritual awakening” has many meanings. Keeping it simple, a spiritual awakening is really just a psychic change that, among other things, eliminates our obsession to drink. For some it can be quite a powerful and immediate experience, for others it is an ongoing co-current part of working the 12 steps.
The co-founder of AA, Bill W. mentions in his autobiography that for him it was a sudden, strong “white light” and life-changing event: “I stood upon a summit where a great wind blew. A wind not of air, but of spirit. In great, clean strength it blew right through me. Then came the blazing thought, ‘You are a free man.'”
It gives me chills every time I read that, because after that moment, Bill never took another drink. Thanks to him there are many more free men and women today. For most of us, the “aha” moments, that may not be a white light, are regular events and part of the spiritual awakening that happens over time in a subtle and gradual way."""
I highly recommend doing the 12 steps of AA or the lessons of acim or some other spiritual path that can take you where you want to go.
God Bless
I like what Jase said "Feeling free is feeling like I am enough just as I am' That's it, in a nutshell.
The truth is i use alcohol for "escape" and equated that with feeling free. Then the device for freedom became my jailor. Then i looked around and saw many prisons that wanted me in a dark place, and to see things clearer helps me climb out.