Why I Pray In The Shower

If someone would have asked me in my drinking days what I would be doing in 2011, I would have made the same joke I always did about not being alive when I was in my fifties. Although my drinking was nowhere near as bad as some of the people I drank with back then, I actually romanticized the idea of being the type of person who partied hard and wasn’t afraid to face the consequences for it. Fortunately, as all the readers of my blog know I eventually stopped drinking, and I am of course still here. The point I’m trying to make though, is that if my drinking was bringing me the happiness I thought it was at the time, I never would have made a joke like that. Then again nothing could have brought happiness to someone like me, who didn’t like or love themselves. A lot has happened in my life since I stopped drinking on April 27th, 1996, and while not everything has been perfect, I believe it was all supposed to happen for a reason. Besides that, I am able to see that many more good things happened in my sobriety than what we call bad things, and I’m at a point in my life now where instead of worrying when the other shoe will drop, I tell myself more good things will happen. It took me almost all of my fourteen and a half years sober to get to this point, but I can say I have not had an unhappy year since I’ve been sober.  I also believe this one will be another happy new year for me.  It doesn’t mean that there won’t be some challenges to face or a few obstacles to overcome, but I know now that it can only make me stronger.  I also know that as long as I continue trying to become a better person than I was before, I simply cannot fail to be happy in life, or with who I am. Something I certainly wasn’t when I didn’t love or even like myself not so long ago.

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Tags: another happy new year, Happiness, happy with who we are, living sober, loving ourselves

I’ve talked in some other posts about the things I did, and still do, to try and be a better person than I was before, but I’ve never gone into great detail about what has helped me the most in this endeavor.  You may have already guessed by the title of this post what it is, but let me elaborate on why self-examination and understanding ourselves not only helps us to grow as a person, but also find greater happiness.  The beginnings of my self-examination began shortly after I started going to AA meetings and hearing people share how much happier they became after taking a personal inventory and talking to someone about what they found. I knew if I also wanted to be happier in life I would have to do the same thing, and I didn’t waste any time in doing The Fourth Step, which was the personal inventory, and then doing the Fifth Step with someone I trusted. After doing both Steps, I felt like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders, and I began to feel the first signs of greater happiness. However, it would take doing the next four Steps and a continual practicing of the last three before I would feel like I was on the right path to becoming truly happy in life.  Although practicing the 11th and 12th Steps were instrumental in me finding the happiness I had always been looking for, I couldn’t have done so without also practicing the 10th Step. It was the 10th Step that helped me in my continuation of self-examination and even after I stopped going to AA, I would continue to take the different types of personal inventories that this Step told me about. Eventually over time, I began to understand myself better and needed less self-examination, but I would never stop looking at myself first in any situation that was giving me troubles in life. For example, if it was a situation that caused me to feel fearful or insecure, I would try to figure out why I felt that way and then proceed to change what I needed to about myself in order to stop feeling that way. Or, if it was difficulty with a relationship, although fear and insecurity was usually at the heart of this type of trouble, I would try and see where I may be at fault and change what I needed to about myself and my behaviors to help improve on that relationship. These are just the basics of self-examination and I will tell you it takes a lot of practice to get good at understanding ourselves, but when we begin to better understand our emotions and why we do the things we do that bring us troubles in life, it helps us to improve on ourselves and better understand others. When we understand others and why they behave the way they do, we begin to have less troubles with people in life,experience less fears and insecurities, and love ourselves more. I have found that loving myself is the most important key to loving others and being happy with who I am.

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Tags: personal inventory, self-examination, Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, understanding others, understanding ourselves

I was looking through my year book the other day and after seeing all my old class mates, some who are now my facebook friends, I got a little sad as it made me realize how fast the years have gone by since high school. It took a long time for me to learn how to be happy in life and now it seems that time is moving faster each day. I do realize of course that time went by just as quickly when I was drinking and not so happy, but I think the reason for the sadness I felt came from realizing I only have so many years left here on Earth. The good news is that one of the ways I have learned to be happy is to turn my sadness around and try to make each day the best I can. I have also learned not to let the little things, or for that matter the big things bother me as much.  Time may seem to be passing by much more quickly now that I’m happy and older, but it’s a good feeling to know that my time isn’t being wasted like it was back in my drinking days. Instead, it’s being used to help others realize just how precious life is, and that we really can create our own happiness while we’re here.

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Tags: alcoholism, drinking, Happiness, high school, memories

My life has shown me that growing both spiritually and as a person helps us find greater happiness in life, and with ourselves.  A combination of growth that when continued, keeps leading us to greater and greater levels of happiness.  However, this true happiness does require faith on our part, and in some cases like with myself at times, work.  Sometimes when I’m feeling down or troubled, I have to try harder to believe in more than just this world and in myself to get through the doubts and fears that are at the heart of how I’m feeling.  I eventually do though, and on the days when my belief in a creator I call God and myself are at their strongest, I feel a joy like no other happiness I have ever experienced. This joy is what I call true happiness, and even a glimpse of it can make us want to experience it more and more.

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Tags: believing in ourselves, over coming doubts and fears, personal and spiritual growth, self-confidence, true happiness