Don't pick up, go to meetings, and ask for help.
For the fourth week in a row, the views of Life Sucks Better Clean from Russia
top the numbers from everywhere else, including the United States. Again this
makes me wonder how the Google translation gadget works. When I use the
translation device on Facebook to understand what my Spanish-speaking friends
are saying (and I took Spanish for four years) frequently the result is the
kind of gibberish that would cause me to call the paramedics had I heard
something similar from an English-speaking friend.
Please let me know if you have used the translation gadget at the top of the
page, and if so, does it work well?
Which brings me to slang, slogans, and meaning. If you attend English-speaking
NA meetings, or read this blog, you will have heard the expression "Don't
pick up (or use), go to meetings, and ask for help." From some comments
I've gotten, this doesn't make it through the translator very well.
DON'T PICK UP.
Don't pick up or use a mood altering drug, which includes, of course, alcohol.
For me it also includes not engaging in any of my other addictions, such as
compulsive overeating and gambling. To be in recovery begins by stopping the
addictive behavior.
Just for today, don't pick up or use.
GO TO MEETINGS.
This means Twelve Step meetings, such as Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics
Anonymous, and so on. At first, hit as many meetings as you can. The old rule
is ninety meetings in ninety days. Those who regularly attend these meetings
get and stay clean. They also learn to become fully functioning human beings.
That's what we call "recovery."
No meetings in your area? Start one. Get in touch with the world services (See
the Learn More links on the right side of this page), find the "Start a
meeting" link, and get ready to commit to a couple of years of work
keeping the meeting going. Invite speakers from established meetings, leave
your meeting information with doctors, hospitals, treatment centers, mental
health hospitals, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, jails, prisons,
courts, and law enforcement units. Recovering addicts need other recovering
addicts. That's how it works, why it works, and why the meetings are so
important.
Time passes, you've heard it all before, and the meetings get boring? Make sure
to keep going to the meetings. Why? (1) You are never cured or recovered from
addiction. (2) And your disease will try to get you to stop doing the things
that keep you in recovery, like going to meetings. (3) There is probably
someone at that meeting who is in need of just the kind of help your own
recovery can provide if shared.
Just for today, find a meeting and give it a try.
ASK FOR HELP
"What do I do to get clean and stay clean?" That's one way to ask for
help.
"Will you be my sponsor?" is another.
"Can anyone help me deal with . . . [Fill in the horror of the
moment]." Family problems, financial problems, legal problems,
homelessness, unemployment, jail time to serve, resentments, Higher Power
problems—whatever. There is someone at the meeting, your sponsor, perhaps
another program member you call on the phone who can tell you what they did in
similar circumstances.
Just for today, reach out and ask for the help you need.
Don't
pick up, go to meetings, and ask for help. It is a very simple program for very
complicated people—and it works.
Common Era (Christian) New Year is making its way around the globe as I'm
writing this. For many in the world, 2015 was a hardship or horror. As always,
the next year is looked upon with hope and promise. Some things we can count
on: The days in 2016 will be 24 hours long, the disease of addiction will not
go away, and recovering addicts who work their programs will still be clean
this time next year.
Take care and be good to yourself. A happy, clean, and sane New Year for
everyone willing to work for it.
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