January 14, 2021

Complacency in Recovery (and How to Avoid It)

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
avoiding complacency

Everybody loves to feel enthusiastic and excited about things. However, as alcoholics and addicts, we are warned to avoid overexposure to enthusiasm and excitement. We are told not to chase after these feelings because we can get hooked on intense feelings like those we got used to in our active disease. It can lead us to jeopardy when we overvalue the extreme up-and-down feelings. Extreme feelings are a topic all their own. But what about their opposite? Sometimes we can grow numb to feelings or get trapped in monotony. Or even worse, we can become complacent about our lives and lose any feelings for the beautiful life we have. Being complacent and feeling numb can be just as dangerous and detrimental as extreme feelings. Complacency often signals more than a few alarming things. It can mean we’ve lost our gratitude or lost sight of how far we’ve come from the…

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January 8, 2021

Navigating Changes in Recovery

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
navigating change

Life can sometimes seem static. Maybe we’ve gotten ourselves into a rut. But for the most part, life is an ever-changing thing. It has waves and rhythms, but it’s always moving. It’s a fact of nature — change is the only constant. Things are living and growing, or they are getting stagnant and dying. Perhaps in our active disease, before we found the 12-Steps, we may well have been stagnant and dying. Luckily for alcoholics and addicts like us, now gratefully in recovery, we are on the path of constant growth. Our inner life, spirituality, and recovery must always be worked on and must always be growing to remain vital. That is why working the 12-Steps never ends. The program of recovery grows with us and should always be the focal point of our paths forward in this beautiful life. Though we always have the program of recovery to guide…

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December 29, 2020

Staying in Gratitude

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
gratitude

Just the fact that we’re here and reading this right now is reason enough to be grateful. Maybe you’re here because you’re new to recovery, or contemplating sobriety, or you’ve been in recovery awhile and you’re just struggling. Whatever brought you here doesn’t matter as much as acknowledging your gratitude for getting to be here. Every day that we wake up and are still breathing is a day full of beautiful opportunities, whether it’s easy to see things that way or not. In general, whatever your spiritual beliefs may be, the astronomical odds of even being alive are pretty miraculous. We are made up of millions and millions of microscopic events that had to go just right for us to be here. Yet, here we are. Maybe we are looking for help or just an emotional boost, and we found this article. What are the odds? Hopefully we can do…

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December 21, 2020

Staying Current With 12-Step Work

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
sobriety

Those of us who have experienced living with the disease of alcoholism and addiction remember how desperately we sought escape and freedom. We also remember the hope and relief that we felt we finally found the program of recovery. Maybe it didn’t look exactly how we imagined it, but we sure were happy to find a solution to our deadly disease, finally. The sheer joy of seeing people who had alcoholism and addiction just like we did, but were now living happy and free lives in recovery, was incredible. Our time spent losing our lives trapped inside our disease could finally be over. We heard these recovering alcoholics and addicts talk about participating in the program of recovery. They spoke about attending meetings, being of service, and getting familiar with the concept of fellowship. They also spoke often about taking the 12-Steps. They called all of this “working a program”…

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December 13, 2020

Applying the Principles in All Our Affairs

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
spiritual

For those of us who are alcoholics or addicts and new to recovery, we may not be aware of the spiritual principles behind the 12-Steps. Hopefully, we have seen how effective the 12-Steps are for people just like us, and we know the life-saving value that they offer. For those of us who are familiar with recovery, we likely know how much the 12-Steps can do for us. But even then, we may not have familiarized ourselves with the underlying principles of spirituality that are embodied in each of the 12-Steps and the program of recovery as a whole.  As we practice and work each of the 12-Steps with our sponsor, we are learning a new perspective, a new life skill, and adding a new tool to our spiritual toolbox — all of which better equips us to handle life with lovingness, serenity, and effectiveness. There are spiritual principles that…

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November 29, 2020

Scheduling Recovery

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni, Recovery
recovery

It doesn’t take much for life to get busy, even for those of us who are new in recovery. It can happen so quickly that we forget the fear and terror of our previous lives in alcoholism and addiction. Initially, we were so relieved and so grateful for sobriety and recovery. Being returned to life and mostly free from our disease, we often forget the things that got us here and begin letting our lives get busy. We have jobs, friends, family obligations, exercise, errands to run, meals to cook, and naps to take. It’s okay if we miss a couple of meetings here and there, right? Maybe, but most likely not. Think of how unknowingly we lost ourselves to our disease over time. It likely happened little by little, one thing at a time. We just had a drink in the morning on weekends, but soon we were drinking…

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November 21, 2020

Letting Go of the Old

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
fresh start

For those who are alcoholics or addicts, it can be overwhelming to experience the newness of life in recovery. From our daily habits, to how we feel and think, to who we spend time with, to where we spend our time, everything about our lives becomes new. Even the familiar things seem fresher when we experience them from a new, sober perspective. Just waking up sober in recovery is new enough to take some getting used to. It can be even more overwhelming when we understand the vital necessity of all this unfamiliar, brand-new territory. Our lives in active alcoholism and addiction were not working — in fact, they were killing us. The good things that were in our lives were likely put at risk by our disease. If we’re lucky, we don’t need a new job or new family when we get into recovery, but it’s very likely that…

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November 13, 2020

Character Building as a Way of Life

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
happy

Character building may be a vague or unfamiliar concept to many people, especially alcoholics and addicts. Those of us who have the disease usually found ourselves with little time to do anything other than what our alcoholism or addiction demanded. We had to feed the beast, no matter the cost — though the cost was usually everything. We didn’t have the time or strength to learn how to become the people we wanted to be.  Once we find the program of recovery and work the 12-Steps, we discover freedom from our disease. Now that we have the time to live the life of our dreams, we may find ourselves unequipped to do so. There was much time when we could have been learning, growing, and improving, but we were trapped by our addiction and alcoholism. This realization can leave us feeling like people left behind like it’s too little too…

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November 5, 2020

Men’s Issues: Being a Wet Blanket

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
sober

Alcoholism and addiction can affect anyone, regardless of age, wealth, gender, race, or religion. The disease affects us all the same, though our individual symptoms may be unique. Luckily, the solution for alcoholism and addiction is the same for all of us as well —  the 12-Steps of recovery. They can help any person suffering from alcoholism and addiction if they are taken.  Our common disease and common solution unite us, for at the end of the day we are all one, and we have more similarities than we have differences. However, at Jaywalker Lodge, we treat male alcoholics and addicts. Over time, we have noticed specific issues that seem to impact men. This month, we are addressing the fear of being a wet blanket once we are sober, and how we can combat this issue in our recovery. Taking an Honest Look at Our Past A lot of us…

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October 30, 2020

We Believe: 4. Cleanliness and Order Help Create an Environment of Safety and Trust

Posted by Jaywalker in Alumni
Cleanliness and Order

At Jaywalker Lodge, we are guided by our core values every day, in everything we do. Our entire program and every aspect of our day-to-day life is built upon the heart of our beliefs. We do things a little differently here at Jaywalker Lodge — and our values and beliefs are the reasons why. We have a strong foundation rooted in the 12-Steps, and that has inspired us to summarize our heart in 12 beliefs. These are the 12 things we believe in most strongly — the things that mold and motivate our every action, interaction, and decision. We believe in you getting to know us better, so we want to share with you the meaning behind what “We Believe.” This week, we are discussing our fourth belief: We believe that cleanliness and immaculate order create an environment of safety, trust, and other-centered consciousness. Jaywalker Lodge is big on environment….

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