Answer Addiction

Tag: Kiki Baxter

  • How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions, Ten Minutes at a Time

    How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions, Ten Minutes at a Time

    You can keep your New Year’s resolutions just by devoting ten minutes to certain simple daily tasks. I’ve seen people build websites in 10-minute increments, write screenplays, do taxes, and even date!

    I want to work out more. I want to lose five pounds. I want to drink less. Have better relationships. I used to love making New Year’s resolutions. I would write my list, check it twice, and write another one, and another, and another. I loved writing lists. It made me feel productive, organized, on top of things; in control. I can’t tell you how many lists I wrote that had “drink less” on it. Or “save money.” “Get in better shape.” I wanted to be perfect because I thought that would get rid of the anxiety and the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

    The only thing that worked for me was recovery. AA, DA, SLAA, and Alanon have become my cocktail of choice. But as they say, “program” is not self-improvement, it’s self-acceptance and, of course, surrender.

    I was talking to a friend yesterday who was chowing down the candy at a SLAA holiday potluck. She laughingly said she was out of control. She’s in a few programs and goes to OA occasionally; she’s not sure she really identifies.

    “I really want to lose some weight this year,” she said. I asked if she tried Weight Watchers because it seemed to work for some people.

    “I’ve tried everything. The only thing that works for me is self-will. It may not sound program to say that, but it’s true. I just set my mind to it and I can control my food and lose weight. All on the strength of will.” She helps herself to another cookie.

    “Is it sustainable?” I ask.

    She looks at me then sighs. “No. It works for a time – even a long time, but then eventually I give up.”

    I understood. I tried to quit drinking or “drink responsibly” so many times and then, like my friend, eventually gave up and went back. I could not do it on my own will. Some people can. And based on un-scientific observation, a few of them are sorta happy and not complete assholes. I have a friend who quit drinking without any program in his 20’s and never looked back. He may be a little workaholic-y (not like I’m taking his inventory or anything) but he seems pretty happy, and not, as they say, “dry.”

    I can’t speak for other people’s process, but I can say that now that I’ve found recovery, I don’t drink (aka I’m sober), I have an IRA, and I don’t use unsecured debt. In terms of SLAA, I don’t have sex outside of a committed relationship. I also meditate regularly and exercise maybe three times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less.

    I still do love the illusion of being “perfect” but I have to admit that as I get older, or perhaps accumulate more time in recovery, it compels me less. When I first got sober, I would think of myself conceptually, like I was a conceptual art piece. It wasn’t conscious and it was only in retrospect that I noticed it. It was like I was outside my body and I looked at myself like a piece of clay that I wanted to mold. It was an idea of me. Just like I had an idea of who my boyfriend was, or what our relationship was going to be or “should” be. Or just like I had an idea of who my dad was supposed to be. Or what life should be like. They were all concepts. Ideas. Fantasies. And they all were outside of me. From me, but looking in from the outside.

    I am learning to trust myself more. I think that’s hard for an addict. That still small voice – is it safe to trust her? But as I get to know the lay of the land of my dis-ease and recovery, and I do it within a community, I find that, yeah, I can trust her and wow, I can maybe even trust life. And if I want to make sure that life doesn’t get dry and brittle, I’d better start listening to that inner voice because that voice is deeply connected to my higher power. And that higher power is intrinsically linked to the life around me.

    And to that end (here come the lists!):

    I want to be more present
    Find work that is more rewarding
    Reconnect to my creativity
    Date in a fun and juicy way
    Furnish my new apartment
    Continue to expand my community
    Volunteer

    So how do I do it?

    In my local Debtors Anonymous, a guy named Chris created the DA Tools Game. It is brilliant. Everyone gets into teams of about four and you play for four weeks against the other teams. The team with the most points wins. You gain points by taking four daily actions. And each action you do for exactly ten minutes, not more, not less.

    The first action is making an outreach call to one of your team members to check in. The second action is spiritual/financial (which is usually recording what you spent your money on or opening your bills, etc.) The third action is self-care (stretching, taking a walk, listening to music). The fourth action is income expansion so that can be sending out a résumé, following up on a lead, or updating your website. Once you choose what your action is going to be, you have to commit to it for the whole month otherwise you lose points. This is to avoid the monkey mind that wants to switch things up all the time – especially when things feel uncomfortable. So if you choose taking a short walk as your self-care action, you can’t, after week one, switch it to yoga – unless you check in with your team first. And the consequence is losing 100 points (ouch!).

    The brilliance of this game is that you get to see how much can be accomplished in ten-minute segments each day. Some people will have decluttering as their self-care action and will spend the ten minutes every day that month decluttering their home office and then, lo and behold, they find themselves in a new relationship, or career path, or, at the very least, a clean office! The phone calls keep us accountable and provide support. I’ve seen people build a website in ten-minute increments, write a screenplay, do their taxes, and even date!

    Every action gets 25 points so if you do all your actions in a day, you get 100 points and the team with the most points at the end of the month wins. It’s a great way to accelerate one’s recovery: “Just for today, I will do my numbers for ten minutes. Just for today, I will work on my résumé…for ten minutes. Just for today, I will listen to music. Just for today, I will make a phone call to a fellow.” It cuts right through the obsession of perfection, the obsession of self-will, procrastination, and isolation.

    Granted, there are those who are able, through the sheer force of their own will, to change their lives. There are a ton of YouTubers talking all about that. I think that’s awesome. But that has never worked for me. And when it did (for a time), I was not a very fun person to be around. There wasn’t much room for intimacy when I was like that.

    But just for today… I will not drink. I will not debt. I will not act out. I will call a fellow. I will meditate. I will take actions to increase my earnings. And other “top line” behaviors (as they say in SLAA) would be: having fun, dancing, singing, going to yoga, cooking, sponsoring, being sponsored, doing the steps, reading literature, and practicing gratitude. A lot of those actions were on previous New Year’s resolution lists but, prior to recovery, the chance that they would become a part of my life was close to zero. 

    Let me know your thoughts on how your life has changed and what resolutions you’ve made in the past or want to make today. I would love to hear your experiences with this stuff because there are as many approaches as there are people. Let me know in the comments.

    And Happy New Year! Happy New Day.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dating While (Newly) Sober

    Dating While (Newly) Sober

    When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker.”

    I thought that when I got sober, I’d get into the best shape of my life, start going to the gym all the time, train for a triathlon, become super successful and meet the man of my dreams. Basically, my version of what advertising says is the perfect life. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of what some people say: the gift of sobriety IS sobriety. Boring. I mean, I was and I wasn’t; I mostly just wanted to stop being miserable. I did a 90 and 90, got a sponsor, joined a gym, took a class in my career of choice, slept a lot, and met a guy.

    When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker,” and “I can get sober and date at the same time.” Luckily for me, she didn’t say it was a rule, because there are no rules in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say: “no dating allowed in the first year.” It just talked about some people prefer a little more pepper in their sex life or whatever (page 69) and who are we to tell people what spices to proverbially cook with?

    So thank god for that because in my first 90 days, I met a guy. He was a friend of a friend and when we met, he told me that he was going through a big transition in his life.

    “What kind of a transition?” I asked, while thinking Oh my God! We have so much in common! We’re both going through transitions! As if a relationship could be built on that alone. Or even a marriage, because I thought that now that I had opened the book of sobriety, everything would change in the blink of an eye. It would be like I just woke up to a new life. That’s how it happens, right? I mean, don’t you kinda hear that all the time? The person’s life was shit and then they got sober and now they’re in this awesome marriage/job/house/car/babies and it all like happened in a year or maybe two? I’m smart and attractive. That shit should happen for me too! I can make that happen. I. CAN. MAKE. THAT. HAPPEN. Higher power who?

    So, when I asked the guy what kind of transition, he said poetically, “It’s like my house was taken away so now I have no house, but at least I can see the moon.” And I was like “Wow, coooooool. I totally love the moon.”

    For our first date, we went on a bike ride along the river, had lunch where I did not order a glass of wine (the first time that has ever happened) and ordered a coffee instead. I didn’t tell him that I was newly sober. I just told him I didn’t drink, and he said that was cool and he’s thought that maybe he should quite drinking too (uh oh); that he meditates and when he meditates, he feels super clear and drinking gets in the way of that (uh yeah). Then he walked me home and I remember feeling very sensitive and insecure. It was like I was eight years old again with a crush on a boy at school and I forgot how to walk my bike. Or talk. I felt awkward. Which is why, at 16, drinking and boys went hand in hand. Less feeling. More yay.

    When I got home, I realized there was no way I could date right now. I knew that if I was rejected or even felt rejected, it would probably cause me to drink. I didn’t have the emotional tools. I talked to my sponsor about it and then called him up and said, “I really like you, but I’m going through something right now where I need to take a year off of dating. I hope you understand.” And he said, “Wow. I should probably do that, too.” Turns out he was going through a divorce and was in no place to be in a relationship or be the man of my dreams/dysfunction right now.

    For the rest of the year, I concentrated on going to meetings, fellowship, making new AA friends, eating cookies and milk, binge watching Netflix at night, and it was the most awesome/horrible year of my life. I highly recommend it. I gained 10 or 20 pounds which was weird. Dudes can go through a rough time and get fat and grow a beard and still be considered likeable — but as a woman, it’s harder to hide behind a beard and 50 pounds and be cool. But a girl can dream.

    So, a year later, guess who I ran into? No-house-moon dude. And yay! I was like a year sober so totally awesome and fixed, right? It. Was. On. We went on a few dates, and I honestly can’t remember if we had sex. It was only seven years ago and I know we did sexy things but I cannot for the life of me remember. I don’t think we did, because we would have needed to have the talk and well, let’s just say that the time I chose to have the talk was not a good time to have it. Take it from me when I say DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE TALK WHEN HIS HEAD IS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. That should be in the Big Book. It’s a real buzz kill for one and all. And our relationship (if you can call it that) ended shortly thereafter which was okay because he was seriously still mourning the loss of his ten-year marriage.

    So that’s my take on dating in the first year. I do know a couple people who hooked up in their first year of sobriety and 30 years later are still married. That might happen to you. I knew that wasn’t going to happen for me. It wasn’t until year two that I met the man of my dreams AKA qualifier who really brought me to my knees (not in a good way) and into Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous which is like the nicest thing a guy can do. Kidding. But not in a way because Girrrrrrrl, I needed some of that SLAA in my life. Since then, I’ve moved to a place that I am happy to call home, am “healthy” dating and more will be revealed. But the best thing is that I like myself – dare I say love myself? I love my friends, my career, and my life and I don’t expect a man or any person or thing to save me. Because I don’t need saving any more. Thank god. Thank HP. Thank program. And thank you.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Blessings of Going Back

    The Blessings of Going Back

    “Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

    It can be a scary thing to go back to the place you hit your “bottom.” It can also be extremely rewarding with unexpected miracles and blessings. I hit my bottom in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I highly recommend it as a destination location as far as bottoms go. I don’t think that’s a “thing” but perhaps some travel site can advertise that: “Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

    I’m not trying to make light of it. It’s awful hitting a bottom but if I had to choose between Jackson and somewhere else, I’d probably choose Jackson. Not that I was miserable – at first. Geographics are great at first. The despair takes a nap. New places, new faces – no problems. I picked up some hobbies, some new friends and a couple guys. One of the guys was a ski instructor at the resort. He was maybe 10 or 20 years older than me which was fine because I was also “dating” someone 10 to 20 years younger than me. Age is just a construct, anyhow, and more is better and pass the bottle.

    We hit the slopes in the morning and then took a break for lunch at the Four Seasons where I ordered a glass of wine, of course. He paused, considered for a moment and then ordered one for himself. After lunch, we went back to skiing which is kind of amazing for an alcoholic but after a few hours, we celebrated a terrific day by returning to the Four Seasons for “Apres Ski” and had a few more glasses. That was the last I saw of him.

    Nine months later, I moved back to New York and ended up in “the rooms.” Then, when I was about a year sober, I had to go back to Jackson for some work. I was scared because I had drunk so much and that was how I did Jackson. That’s how Jackson worked. Could I do it differently? Most of my friendships were based around drinking and so were most of my activities. Why go river rafting, if you’re not going to party? It was all about the beer, the booze, the alcohol. 

    My sponsor and fellows in the program told me that it would be okay to go back and that what I would do is go to meetings, make phone calls, and take it one day at a time. So that’s what I did. There was a daily meeting in town square and, though nervous, I showed up and said I’m visiting. There were a lot of other people visiting, as well as locals, and it was a very welcoming environment. After the meeting, someone tapped my shoulder. It was the ski instructor. I was happy to see him, not because I was attracted to him or wanted to be with him, but because it was nice to see someone who had been out there with me now in the rooms taking the same journey. He told me he had been sober for a while and it was on our date at the Four Seasons that he’d slipped. He stayed out for a few months and came back about the same time that I started coming to meetings. It felt like such a blessing to run into him there. I was so glad he was healthy and sober. So glad that I was, as well, and that we didn’t get lost down that tragic highway.

    Another hidden blessing was that one of my coworkers was also trying to get sober. He didn’t have the gift of desperation, as they say, he had the gift of a DWI and a court mandating him to go. He was super talented and super likeable and had the common alcoholic tendency to turn into a total asshole and then go MIA when he drank which would be really bad for the project we were working on together. Selfishly, I needed him to stay sober. He was on the fence as to whether he was an alcoholic or not, but we went to a meeting together and when we had to go to Salt Lake City for work, I brought him to a meeting there too. He stayed sober through the job and guess what? So. Did. I. If I hadn’t been so focused on his sobriety, would I have stayed sober? Would I have searched out a meeting just for myself? Can’t say for sure. But what I can say is that he was another unexpected angel on that trip and from what I understand, he’s still sober.

    Seeing Jackson through newly sober eyes was like putting on a “new pair of glasses” as Chuck C. says in his book by the same name. When I was there before, it was all about me, me, me. What can I get? I need that! And what’s in it for me? For instance, whenever I went to the brew pub, I was not present with the people I was with; my focus was on drinking and looking for guys and male attention. It was all about trying to fill that “God-shaped hole.” But sober, I was a worker among workers drinking my Arnold Palmer, enjoying my colleagues’ company, enjoying the moment and enjoying just BEING SOBER. That was the biggest gift of all.

    It’s eight years later and I’m still sober and, as I write this, I realize that I miss that time in my life. I miss the humility and gratitude of early sobriety. I’m back to thinking a lot about myself and my plans. And what I can get. And I’m feeling kinda not awesome. I’ve also heard that around eight years is when people go out again, or slip. They get busy and stop going to meetings. I can definitely be too busy. Busy with I want, I want, I want. I think I get high on trying to make things happen. It’s my ego. But I know that when I have the gift of surrender and humility, IT FEELS SO GOOD. But I can’t seem to will the surrender. I can just be willing, and show up to meetings, do service, and deepen my understanding of my higher power regardless of how I feel. And as I reach out to the newcomer, I am re-acquainted with the early blessings, the blessings they give me and the ones I get to share in return. And for that I am grateful.

    View the original article at thefix.com