Amanda is the only person I had ever shared it with. In the earliest days of my recovery from drug addiction, it was excruciatingly painful for me to drive by a golf course. It felt silly, even petty of me to let something as innocuous as a golf course affect my spirit so drastically, yet the pain was there nonetheless.
It had only been eight years prior to that when my ex-wife and I had found a home situated with a view of the twelfth hole of a private country club. No sooner had we moved into that home then we had joined the club. Something for which I held great expectations.
I could still recall the time when, during my childhood, Mom and Dad joined a country club. It was one of those pivotal points in my life, and in the life of our family. Many of their friends had already belonged when they joined. Soon, however, many more friends were part of my parents’ circle. To me, that place gave me a sense of belonging.
So, when we joined our club, I had great expectations for the role it would play in my life, as well as our life together as a couple. It seemed obvious to me that we would form deep, meaningful friendships as a result of our membership there. I could imagine myself showing up on a Saturday morning, and teeing off with three other men with whom I had become friends. In a nutshell, I expected to fit in and find acceptance among this new group of people. I expected that old feeling of belonging to return.
Over the course of the years that followed, reality fell quite short of those expectations. While as a couple we formed a good number of new friendships, the kind of male bonding and close companionship for which I had hoped, never quite materialized. Even after being elected to serve on the club’s governing board of directors, I felt like an outsider.
Looking back, the truth of the matter is that I have never been a very good golfer. I’ve always been the guy who held up the game, taking several more strokes per hole than most. Despite having seen how effective lessons from the club’s pro could be in helping my game, I failed to take advantage of his help. Instead, I languished in mediocrity, and wondered why so few people were interested in setting a tee time together.
When my addiction to meth became known, all of those expectations from the past quickly became resentments. Needless to say, being outed as a meth-head in that setting was brutal. The lines were drawn immediately, as people aligned themselves with my ex, and avoided even eye-contact with me.
So, last night as we drove to a meeting of our recovery home group, we passed a country club, and those old feelings returned. When they did, rather than wallowing in them, or trying to force the thoughts from my mind, I invested some time in examining why the mere sight of a country club would have such an impact on my spirit. Why was I still clinging to those old resentments, and the emotions that went with them?
Hope – that was the answer to my questions about those expectations turned resentments. I had placed my hope in that big house and the membership to that club. I had hoped that they would bring me the acceptance of others, and would make me feel better about myself. That hope had become an expectation. It had been such a driving force in my life that, when it failed to materialize, helped contribute to my desire to find escape in substance abuse. First alcohol, and then stronger drugs.
It was devastating to realize that I could not even buy my way into self-acceptance. So, I sought escape instead.
Putting my hope in drugs was the worst decision of my life. Sure, at first they worked. They provided the escape I thought I needed. When one stopped working, I simply moved on to a different one. With meth, I thought I had found the answer to all my problems. It quickly became to center of all my hope.
Soon, however, the hope I had placed in meth was dashed. It stopped working, and the expectations I had held of it quickly became resentments. However, addiction being what it is, I could not stop using meth no matter how deeply I resented it. It quickly morphed from escape, to necessity, and ultimately to my master. It permeated every area of my life, and had devastating effects on the lives of those around me.
One of the earliest lessons I learned in recovery was that I had a long-established record of having looked outside of myself in an attempt to feel good about being me. Whether it was that house, or a country club membership, or the drugs; nothing was going to be successful in helping me overcome the feelings of insecurity I had. Putting my hope in things always failed me in the end. Not only that, but it also hurt the people in my life.
Despite my bad experiences with it, hope remains one of the most positive influences in my life. Today, however, I no longer look to things outside of myself for self-acceptance. Placing my hope in things, in the end, only fed the insanity of my addiction. In working through Step Two with my sponsor, I came to the belief that God could restore me to sanity. Working Step Three brought me to the point of letting God restore sanity by turning my will and my life over to Him.
That turning over of my will and my life to God is not a one-time event. It is something I must do daily. My time in prayer and meditation/writing each morning is a key part of that turning over process. I’m fully convinced that it is what allowed me to understand the source of that anxiety I have felt when passing by a golf course. When I took a little time to ponder the true source of my angst, I realized that it was based on resentments formed when I was still placing my hope in things.
This morning, I am officially giving that old resentment over to God. He is fully capable of removing that resentment and the angst that comes with it. Because my hope is in God, I can live at peace with my past. I can let go of old resentments. I can recover.
Have a remarkable day!
Daily Spiritual Principle - one addict's thoughts 