One Day at a Time

What Our Anxiety is Trying to Tell Us

1. We tend to reject anxiety’s milder forms and are really terrified by its intense moments, like with panic attacks. It’s difficult to see when we’re fighting with anxiety that it can have any benefit, but it does.

2. Anxiety comes with some great treasures hidden inside, and they can be yours if you know how to get to them. First, you have to stop fighting and listen to the anxiety for clues.

3. Its methods of stopping us are varied and some of the common ones are: spinning thoughts, feeling disassociated, heavy breathing, and a racing heart. Whatever works so that we’ll finally pay attention, it will customize for us.

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“What if I can’t be fixed?”

“What if I can’t be fixed?”

You ask a bunch of guys about their biggest fears, and you hope for some open dialogue. You don’t really expect someone to whisper from the depths of the fog.

“What if I’m hopeless? This addiction killed my dad and my grandma. My sister’s relapsed over and over for fifteen years. And I’ve prayed and done everything I can for a decade, but I keep falling into the same pattern.

“What if I’m broken so bad that even God can’t fix me?”

How are you gonna respond to that? Think carefully, because whatever you say better not rhyme. It better not be some platitude or theological truism. He’s heard them all, and they’re salt rubbed in an open, bleeding wound.

We don’t want to hear “God can’t.” Our first reaction is to argue — God can do anything! And when that fails — you can’t argue your way out of the fog — we’re tempted to retreat to the safety of the Christian cocoon where the light’s bright, the fog’s clear, and people don’t talk about the hopelessness of addiction and depression.

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Perseverance is Key

Perseverance must finish its work
so that you may be mature and complete,
not lacking anything. –James 1:4

We go through periods when we seem to be standing still or slipping backwards. Perseverance is what brings complete recovery. Committing myself to the task before me, one minute at a time, one day at a time. There are rewards along the way… goals that have been accomplished, the sense of well-being, clarity of heart and mind.

Pushing too fast before you are ready or being critical of yourself for not getting through it faster can prolong the process.

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Beginning Recovery: What are You Waiting For?

BEGIN

It’s that simple. After all the planning and anticipation, you have to turn the crank the first time.

Without knowing what will happen or where it all will lead, you begin.

I used to think these beginnings should be a big deal, with some sort of grand official sendoff. Simply starting seemed anti-climatic.

Now, though, I sort of like it. I like the notion that you start by starting. It doesn’t require a ceremony or a permit or a “ready-set-go.”

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How can I prevent becoming desensitized to sin?

How can I prevent becoming desensitized to sin?

We can do so by seeking with all of our hearts and minds the truth that God has provided. This means reading, studying, and meditating deeply upon God’s Holy Word, the Bible. This should be done with much prayer, always seeking God’s will for our lives. A good Scripture for us in this regard is:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Tim. 2:15)

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Addiction and Laziness

Those who have done the most for their recovery have been early, on a daily basis, to pour headway on their desires to remain clean.

He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunities and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking recovery will make poor headway seeking it the rest of the day – especially newcomers whose addiction had been escalating in an alarming manner. If recovery is not first in our thoughts and efforts, we may become sidetracked, by temptation, toward certain failure. Morning listlessness demands listless recovery.

It is not simply the getting up that puts recovery to the front, but it is the ardent desire which stirs and breaks all self-indulgent behaviors. Early morning promotion may also increase your strength to the desire rather than the quenching of it. This strength in the face of laziness and self-indulgence gives rise to our faith, fullness, and gladness during the labor of the day.

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Dissecting the 12 Steps

We struggled for years with our addiction. We tried to do things our way. It didn’t work. We found recovery by working the Twelve Steps. And in the process we…

1. “Admitted we are powerless over our addiction – that our lives have become unmanageable.”
Those of us with addictions may have many reasons for seeking help in literature, support groups, counselors and treatment facilities. Some of us are divorced, jobless, despised by our children, depressed and we have nowhere to turn. We have lied to those who trusted us the most, but they are now tired of our excuses. For months and even years, we have lost our homes and our health – we’ve lost everything. We are alone, hopeless, and our lives are completely unmanageable – a.k.a. “rock bottom”.

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Our Perceptions Govern Our Lives

“It is all about how you look at things.” Ever hear that expression? We’re often advised to think positively, to believe in ourselves and to have faith in God. All of these things speak to our perspective on any life issue. All of these pieces of advice can feel like they’re easier to say than be lived, right?

When I was a little girl, living on the farm, come late summer and early autumn, our farmstead was besieged with grasshoppers. I tell you, it was a tiny snapshot of what any locust plague must have looked like. It was hard to walk anywhere without there being a grasshopper right there, almost crunched by my foot.

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Sexual Addiction Relapse Prevention

We have to become willing to tolerate the discomfort of a frustrated impulse – an incredibly difficult thing to do. Because not acting out is like developing a new muscle. It feels there’s something wrong, were being brainwashed, we’re making a terrible mistake.

Ironically, many of us sexual compulsives seem on the surface to be easygoing and flexible people. But when it comes to changing our minds about acting out, it would appear no force on earth can stop us. Here are some practical steps designed to break through the sexual compulsive’s “whim of steel”:

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