Last year my Happy Mother's Day post was about my own mother and the importance of a mother's support and understanding for her child in their recovery.

This year I wanted to talk about how much my own role of a mother has improved now that I am further into my addiction recovery.

No food, no clean clothes, no order and basically no rules. This would be a pretty good description of the way my home was when I was in active addiction. Sad but very true.

Last Mother's Day came when I was about three months into my recovery. I had realized that my family's home life needed a lot of improvements and I vowed to make those improvements even though I really didn't have the first clue how to.

I mean, how do you get someone who hates cleaning, laundry, food shopping and cooking to just accept it as part of their lives? I didn't know but I was determined to find out.

My progress in this area was slow. Very s.. l.. o.. w. I was beginning to get the feeling that I was kind of a failure in this area of life. Sure I had at one time worked 40 hours a week, had a commute of 15 hours a week, and had a small child I was taking care of but all of that chaos was kind of used as an excuse for me not to do the very basic things that need to get done in a home.

This year I've been a stay at home mom who's main job in life was to take care of my child and run my home properly. There was nothing hiding the fact that I didn't possess the knowledge of how to do this.

This was actually the best thing in the world that could have happened to me. I was forced to deal with the fact that I had no clue how to run a home and I had to remedy the situation.

I am really proud to say that I have come a long way this year in the area of being a mom and running a home. I am doing the very best that I can each and every day and I feel safe saying that this year has left me with no regrets in my role as a mom.

In the five years that I have been celebrating Mother's Day I would say that this year more than any other I feel deserving of this special holiday.

Happy Mother's Day

Related posts:

1. Happy Mothers Day
2. Happy Fourth Of July
3. Pregnancy in Addiction Recovery

You know what is weird? In a professional sense I welcome change. I'm open to procedure changes and I stay positive and try to keep others positive. Why then, in my personal life do I sometimes get so sad about change?

This topic has come up in my head tonight because I was reading a post by The Junkie's Wife called Zombie Love which was talking about her missing some of the way things used to be. Me, already being down tonight (as seen in this The Write Thought Post called Feelings Suck Sometimes) was brought to tears over this post.

Sometimes I just get a little overwhelmed when I think about how much in my life has changed. I don't give into thinking about this often because it usually ends up with me feeling sad but tonight...it has gotten the best of me.

I figured the healthiest thing for me to do would be to write about this. Lucky you...you get to read about it.

I just long for the days that used to be so much easier. There was a time when my drug use wasn't so rampant as it was at the end of my addiction. There was a time when I was younger and more naive about the world. There was a time when there was not one thing in the world that could come between my husband and myself. There was a time when I didn't feel bad about my body. There was a time...

That's about all I'm going to allow myself right now on this because I do realize that nothing good will come from these thoughts.

Whatever days I'm pining away for...those days are long gone and I'm probably just remembering all of the good and ignoring the bad anyway.

Change is good right? It leads to new possibilities. I'm changing, you're changing, it's just the way things go. Here is to embracing change...hopefully I can truly learn how to do it.

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1. Just Roll With It – The Importance Of Being Open To Change
2. Fortune Teller or Fellow Recovering Addict?
3. Staying Positive in Addiction Recovery

The purpose of this step is supposed to be about openly acknowledging the positive while committing to work at rectifying your negatives. I do understand the purpose of it, I guess I'm just NO WHERE near being ready for this type of outward honesty. I'm not saying I'll never be there, just not right now.

It seems that I'm not alone in my unwillingness to admit my secrets to another human beings. I have found some sites recently who's main purpose is to let people anonymously admit their secrets...both good and bad.

I had never heard of these types of sites before until I had read a post on another blogger's site about confessing our secrets. It was in this post that the website Post Secrets was mentioned.

It didn't take long for me to be in tears while checking out some of the anonymous secrets that are posted on this site. I felt so horrible for some of these people, they have been carrying around these secrets for so long. They obviously needed to unburden themselves or they wouldn't thought it necessary to anonymously share their secrets on this site.

Then it dawned on me...I'm not sitting here judging these people for what they are sharing. I'm empathizing with them and identifying with them. Feeling bad for them that they found no means of unburdening themselves other than leaving an anonymous secret on a website.

So why is it that I feel that I would be judged harshly? Why do I feel like there are things that I've done that I could never say out loud to another human being? I'm not talking serial murder here, I'm talking just normal human being type actions that result from low self-esteem and possibly addictive thinking.

I don't have an explanation for this. I have no trouble admitting to myself my wrong doings. I also have no problem thinking about these things and trying to figure out what caused these actions. I know that it's not just the result of being a bad person.

I guess I'm looking for some feedback on this topic. Are there those people out there that don't feel like they have gotten to the point of being able to bare their sole to another human being yet? Am I holding my self back in terms of my recovery because I can't do this? Should I just wait until I feel ready? Will I ever feel ready?

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1. We’re Only As Sick As Our Secrets
2. Backsliding or Human Imperfection?
3. Putting It All Out There

Deny, Deny, Deny
I have seen it written in many places that diabetes has the highest denial rate of any disease in America. The reason for this denial is the fact that most times the person with diabetes is not feeling all that sick when they are diagnosed. If they don't jump into action when it comes to taking care of themselves they aren't really going to feel the negative effects any time soon. The effects are mainly to their long term health.

Well we all know that denial is a huge part of addiction. How many times have you heard stories of an addict or alcoholic with severe health problems as a result of their using? I'm sure that these problems were seen earlier on and the patient was warned about continuing their using and what negative effects it would have on their body. Denial makes up a huge part of the addiction disease.

So what let's a diabetes patient break through the denial? The same kind of thing that brings an addict to face the realities of their lives...rock bottom. Now I am in no way saying that these rock bottoms are in anyway alike. Usually with addiction the person has lost a lot of things in their lives and finally it clicks.

A diabetic doesn't necessarily have to have lost things, per say, but they still have that shocking moment that usually drives the severity of their disease home. For my husband it was the fact that a doctor sat him down and explained to him that if he did not take care of himself the way that was necessary to deal with his diabetes he would die. And he wouldn't just die in his sleep. He would slowly die. Starting at the toes and working it's way up to his organs, diabetes would slowly kill him.

It Works If You Work It
As addicts we know that you need to constantly stay on top of your disease. When I started out on my road to recovery I felt the need to live a very, very structured life. I needed to go to meetings, I needed to see my therapist once a week. I needed to get back in the habit of eating a nutritious diet. I needed to relearn how to fall asleep at night without the use of narcotics. It was so difficult to get through each and every twenty-four hours without using that I felt that every minute of every day I was struggling to stay clean.

When diagnosed with diabetes most people have got to change just about everything about the way they live. They definitely need to think about every piece of food that they are putting in their mouth. They need to make it mandatory for themselves to increase their activity level. Newly diagnosed diabetes patients usually have some sort of medication that they need to take daily, without fail. They need to check their blood sugar around 5 times per day.

Basically diabetics and addicts have to work day in and day out against becoming complacent. Complacency in either one of these diseases spells death. Death is usually not the instant result to complacency but it is inevitable in both cases. Diabetes patients and addicts need to work on staying in the moment and putting their disease as the top priority in their life each and every day.

And Then There Is The Relapse
I know, when you think relapse you don't really think diabetes. I can tell you from experience with my husband that diabetics relapse. Their relapse doesn't consist of using a mind altering substance but it involves them not working their program. The complacency has kicked in. With my husband it would start out with checking his blood levels. He would say "I've checked my levels everyday for the past week and everyday they are good...why keep checking?".

It is little slips like that in the routine that eventually lead to stumbles. Diabetics can go from not checking their levels to not scrutinizing everything they eat to not exercising. How does it happen? Just like it does with addicts. Everything is going good. You let your guard down, you slip back into addictive thinking...you relapse.

So although I know that there are diabetic patients out there that would be insulted by me comparing their disease to the disease of addiction, I think they have very similar.

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1. Addiction Recovery:A Bad Person Trying To Become Good Or A Sick Person Trying To Become Well?
2. The Four Symptoms Of Addiction…To Anything
3. Have You Ever Heard Of A Second-Round Addiction?

Walaaa...my first review of my site. Done by myself of course so it was a stellar review!

You guys don't see my stats but if you could you would see that my site has somehow turned into Cymbalta Central. Just about all of the search engine traffic that I'm receiving on my site daily is from people searching for Cymbalta.

If you haven't checked it out, look at my post on Cymbalta Withdrawal Symptoms Suck and see how many comments that I got from people all going through the same type of cymbalta withdrawal. The common theme is that none of the people were told up front that this drug causes this type of withdrawal symptoms. It's pretty freaky.

I guess that subject is pretty fitting for this site...but come on! Well, I'll take any kind of traffic I can get and I am glad that I'm helping people who are going through the same thing that I did.

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My post was about my current feeling of loneliness and the fact that I thought being disconnected from my higher power was the main factor behind this feeling. Scout explained that her connection to G-d also ebbs and flows. Just reading that made me start to feel better. I guess it was that whole "identifying" thing at play.

Reading some older posts on my site and also from reading fellow addicts sites I can see just how true this whole ebb and flow thing really is. It doesn't necessarily just have to do with my connection with G-d. It has more to do with my happiness and peace of mind within addiction recovery.

Sometimes I let myself get overwhelmed with the thought of spending the rest of my life trying not to relapse and thinking about all the work that goes into living a good life and being a good person. I feel blah and kind of boring. I feel that the pink cloud I originally walked around in has dropped me in the land of the gray. I examine my thoughts and behaviors and instead of accepting imperfections I think of myself as weird...this is when my addiction recovery ebbs.

Other times I am connected to my higher power, I'm able to take things Twenty-four hours a day without struggling to do so. I have peace of mind which to me equals happiness. I can laugh and have a good time. I'm not walking around in a pink cloud but I'm seeing life with all of it's vivid colors. I seem to be right where I need to be on my road to recovery...this is when my addiction recovery flows.

What Have I Learned From All This?

And so realizing this, what have I learned? Well I will tell you. I have learned what countless other addicts and alcoholics have already learned. They have even tried to pass on their wisdom about this subject in the form of a catchy saying (we all know how much I love to spew out these addiction recovery sayings) "This too shall pass".

Boom! It seems so simple and kind of common sense. I have said it to other people before, why didn't it dawn on me to apply this to myself? Do I have to learn every single thing in life the hard way? It's really starting to look that way.

Just in case you have not noticed from my writing...my addiction recovery is once again flowing. I got over the hump and did so in a way that allows me to feel good about myself. I didn't allow myself to use...I hung on by the skin of my teeth and I made it through. I guess it's at the toughest times when you really see how far along the road of recovery you have really come.

Related posts:

1. Hello Higher Power, Nice Talking To You
2. Who is My Higher Power
3. Learning To Hang In There

Going by the name of my site, What Winners Do, one might get the impression that I am someone with answers...I'm not. I don't think there are too many answers in addiction recovery, mainly there are questions.

In addiction recovery there are certain things that would define What Winners Do:

• Keep sobriety their top priority
• Constantly work on their recovery
• Stay honest with themselves

The reason why that list is not more specific is because there are no rules to addiction recovery. What is right for one person may be very wrong for another. But as long as your recovery is centered around meeting the 3 criteria listed above...you are doing what the winners do.

In the beginning of my own recovery I felt like I had to put on a front for others. "Oh, everything is going great", "No, I don't have any cravings...I'm doing fine". But I soon realized that I'm not in competition with anyone except my own addiction. I don't need to put on any facade for anyone.

I guess I was just really used to showing people what they wanted to see instead of what was really going on. I feel like as soon as I was able to recognize that in myself I was able to really start working on my recovery.

To me, my recovery is about way more than just my addictions. There is a whole addictive thought process and set of bad beliefs that I'm working towards changing completely.

Who knows if I will ever really be able to modify my bad behaviors (see, no answers just more questions) but I can sense that I am already better for trying.

So to answer the original question of "Do you consider yourself one of the winners?", I would have to answer no. I'm just another person in recovery trying to do with the winners do.

Related posts:

1. My New Addiction: Yahoo Answers
2. Are You Self Aware?
3. Examining Yourself In Addiction Recovery

Recently I experienced flying for the first time without the help of tranquilizers. You want to know what - I'm not afraid of flying. Sure I get a little nervous as I assume most people do at times, but I am able to calm myself down without the use of a mood altering substance. So why is it that I believed I was afraid of flying?

I believed I was afraid of flying because at one time I saw it as just another reason that my drug use was justified. It was yet another scenario that I built in my head which pointed to the fact that it was ok to abuse drugs. I had one slightly bad flight one time and I used that experience to judge how every experience on an airplane would be.

It was another time that an addict doesn't stay in the here in now, they are preoccupied with the past or worry about the future. Instead of just experiencing an airplane flight for what it is, I used my experience from the past to tell me that it was a horrible and scary thing for which I needed to be sedated. So what changed?

Well one thing that changed is that obviously I no longer use drugs. So with that not being a viable option I had to figure out some other way of getting me through this "horrible and scary" plane ride. This goes for anything in your life that you were hesitant to do without the use of mood altering substances because that is the only way you had gotten through them before. I'm just using my airplane ride as an example of one of these things.

Be Conscious Of Your Thoughts

This means that while you are preparing for whatever it is you are trying to accomplish that you be very aware of what thoughts you are allowing to float around that brain of yours. For me, I had to be very, very careful about thinking of the bad flight that I had in the past. If I caught myself thinking about that past experience I would make a conscious effort to change what it was I was thinking of. After all, feelings and emotions like being scared and having anxiety all start with a single thought.

It also helps to keep your mind busy on something such as reading or watching a movie. I did both during my flight (not at the same time) and it really helped me to focus on something other than the fact that I'm on an airplane. There is just one thing, as we all know sometimes your mind can wander while you are reading or watching TV. It's pretty unavoidable. So once you catch your thoughts wondering to places other than what you are currently doing you just need to rein them back in.

Be Proud Of Yourself

When I got up to cruising altitude on the airplane and I realized that I didn't "freak out" like I thought I would do without any drugs, a smile came across my face. I got a confident feeling about myself because I realized that I can do this. I was afraid but I got through it on my own without my "crutch". Sure, other people do this all the time without drugs but that isn't what mattered. What mattered was that at one time I thought that I could not...now I know I can.

So do I think that I overcame a fear of flying? No. I don't think I ever really had a fear of flying. What I think I was afraid of was experiencing something without being messed up on drugs. What I overcame was a bad belief that my addiction had enforced. Now that I'm no longer actively addicted I see that the fear was never based on the act of flying at all it was based on experiencing something while being sober. I overcame that fear and I'm proud of myself.

Like I said, this scenario can fit any situation that one faces in recovery. Maybe it is being around people that frightens you. Maybe you have a slight case of social anxiety and you feel uncomfortable around a group of people. My advice? Make yourself experience this without your normal aid of drugs or alcohol.

What you will most likely find is that you just need to figure out some other coping skills that can be used in these situations. Once you have figured that out, you'll find that it's a lot less frightening than you thought it would be. You will start gaining some confidence about what you can really do in your new sober life.

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1. Addiction Recovery: Sickness or Backsliding?
2. Dealing With the Consequences of Addiction
3. Addictive Thinking: Preoccupied With Past Thoughts

As my addiction recovery has chugged along, I have found it easier and easier to take a good look at myself. Not only is it easier, I feel that I couldn't live without doing this.

Instead of cowering from self examination I now seek it out. I am always looking for ways to look a little deeper inside so I can see what is going on with me. But it's not always easy.

This is where it gets kind of dorky. Have you ever come across any sites on line that offer certain multiple choice tests pertaining to certain aspects of yourself? Like personality, emotional stability...stuff like that. I can't get enough of this type of thing.

Don't get me wrong. I realize that these tests are pretty general and aren't giving an exact picture of who or what I am but when you take the time to really analyze yourself based on the questions that you are asked and you answer them completely honestly your results can kind of give you a sense of what is going on in there.

When you take these tests you are given a little blurb about what your answers indicate in relation to the topic of the test. Then you can pay to have an in depth report sent to you I DO NOT PA Y FOR THIS. Don't think I've gone off the deep end and have started paying money for this type of thing.

I wait until free tests are offered through sites like Tickle. You can sign up for email offers of tests that come with free reports. These are the ones I go for. Although you have to weed your way through about 5 pages of "offers" before the test begins.

Once you have completed the test you are giving a full report of your answers, what they mean in correlation with the test, what areas of yourself you may want to focus on...stuff like that. Believe it or not, the reports are pretty thorough and I think they are helpful.

What is freaky is sometimes I catch myself answering questions dishonestly because I don't want to appear weird...to who? Myself? What is that about? How often do I do this in day to day life? Interesting.

See? That is an example of self examination. Without taking a good look at myself I wouldn't have realized that this was something I do. Realization of something doesn't make it go away but it sure is a step in the right direction.

Self examination is not all about finding the bad qualities in yourself. It's also about recognizing what is good about yourself. It's about identifying your strengths as well as your weaknesses. Basically it's about getting a truer sense of who you are.

Maybe in time I won't find it necessary to use outside sources such as these online tests as a way of examining myself. Possibly in time it will become easier for me to do this on my own. But for now, I guess I need the feedback.

Related posts:

1. My New Addiction: Yahoo Answers
2. In Addiction Recovery, What Do The Winners Do?
3. Why Do You Tempt Me?

By paying attention to these four areas of our being we are making sure that are very basic needs are being met. When we make sure that our basic needs are being met, we are less likely to turn to drugs or alcohol to solve any unmet basic needs.

But, things happen. Sleepless nights, skipped meals, solitude, and even the occasional angry outburst. It is really important to make sure that you realize that any of these basic needs left unmet can leave you searching for ways to artificially change the way you are feeling.

As time goes by it can be easy to forget the basics in recovery. Today I am having a particularly awful day. I had almost zero sleep last night and it has left me with these thoughts of either finding a way to stimulate myself artificially OR finding a way to knock myself out and sleep the day away.

I have thankfully taken a few steps back to examine what is causing these thoughts. I eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't paying attention to the age old wisdom of H.A.L.T.

Once I realized what the culprit was, I was better able to handle these weird twinges of wanting to use a mood altering substance to change the way I was feeling. I realized that these thoughts can be par for the course and I actually got a chuckle out of the whole thing.

I say to my addiction... "tricky, tricky". "You almost got me". Even on little to no sleep I was able to identify that "stinking thinking". I'm glad I can now take a second and look at what is really going on.

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