Sometimes when we are frustrated it takes an effort to back away from the person, place, or thing which seems to be the source of our frustration long enough to re-gain our balance.  We cannot control those things outside ourselves–and so often we don’t do so well at controlling what goes on within ourselves.  This is the moment to ask for help from our Higher Power.  This is the time to pray to be restored to sanity.  This is the moment to take a deep breath, ask only for God’s will--and wait for a moment to hear what the God of our understanding may have to send us as guidance.

We can’t change what we can’t admit. It can be tough to start looking at our lives. We can be tempted to focus on either all the good, or conversely, only on the devastation and chaos. A searching and moral inventory can be a pretty foreign concept. It is made easier if we start, one-day-at-a-time, to take stock of our daily efforts towards change.

Yet, here at the end of the year, is an ideal time to focus on what we have accomplished in the past year, as well as where we fell short of our New Year’s goals.

This poor, neglected blog is just one example of how goals can get easily side-tracked by daily living. Still, it was begun this past year, so here we are with some material that does not need to be recreated. We just spend some time reviewing the previous effort and considering how well it fits into our current vision for future action.

Our members have been busy at work on our second edition of AM101 Anonymous: Give Us This Day. You’ll see excerpts of it posted in this blog in the coming year.

Step One is grace. We are given an honest glimpse, a conscious awareness, of the power that our cravings have over us and their impact on our lives. In Step Two we open our minds to the idea that outside ourselves there is a Power greater than us that can help us, guide us, and even show us a sane solution for our insane behaviors. Step Three turns faith into action. We become willing to seek out and subject ourselves to the will of God as we understand Him.

All of us who have been on the threshold of this step can agree that it is scary. To break the cycle of cravings we had to reach out and embrace uncertainty and change. January 2001, a few 12-Step veterans joined for breakfast. Coming from various 12-Step paths, the discussion was around what had allowed each of us to maintain long-term, quality recovery. As each shared their story, we marveled anew at how much more similar than disparate our journeys had been.

Regardless of the substance or behavior which had brought us to the 12-Step path, regardless of the particular Higher Power we each knew, it was here at Step Three that we truly met as one. It was here that we each had stood before the God of our understanding and expressed our desire to live differently, to submit our will to a Higher Will.

For each of us, our successful recovery began with the desire to abstain from alcohol. We made a decision to act on our faith. AM101 celebrates continuous sobriety. This is the cornerstone of our shared victory over the full spectrum of cravings.

]]> http://am101anonymous.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/step-3-act-of-faith/feed/ 0 am101anonymous http://am101anonymous.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/cravings-the-brain/ http://am101anonymous.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/cravings-the-brain/#comments Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:52:04 +0000 am101anonymous http://am101anonymous.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/cravings-the-brain/ ]]> Cravings ruin good intentions in short order. Cravings can be the precursor to addiction. A current commercial calls addiction a brain disease, and rightly so. Cravings are created by an imbalance of brain chemicals in what are known as the reward pathways of the brain. The brain has needs. One of its primary needs is to create a state of calm alertness within us so that we can function optimally. Because the brain is its own chemical factory, it can create less-than-perfect, almost-right chemicals when what it needs is not available.

AM101 members have found that the more we can give the brain what it really needs, the less it will send craving signals for the substitutes that are readily identified as commonly addictive substances and behaviors, including but not limited to:

• Substances:
  • Alcohol
  • Tobacco
  • Cocaine
  • Opiates
  • Marijuana
  • Amphetamines
  • Barbituates
  • Benzodiazepines
• Behaviors
  • Gambling
  • Shopping
  • Compulsive sex
  • Eating disorders
  • Extreme sports
  • Excessive exercise
  • Working
  • Lying
  • Self-mutilation

AM101 uses current scientific understandings of the roles of food, friendship, fitness, and faith within the successful 12-Step and 12-Tradition approach to overcome cravings. We learn to “rewire” our brain, heal our cravings, and live life on life’s terms.

With this admission we are well on our way to healing the cravings which have controlled our lives. AM101 offers a program of positive, pro-active transformation.

Cravings are our physiological response to life’s conditions. They are a signal that the brain is demanding either greater alertness or more calmness to deal with the current situation. Life on life’s terms is challenging.

Cravings are powerful so we will pay attention to them. They are cunning, always tempting us to go for the quick fix–that destructive behavior that is automatic when we are under stress or distress. They are baffling in their ability to take many forms, even alternating between substances and/or behaviors.

How many times have we tried to overcome our cravings that control us? How many failures fill our minds with thoughts of futility? Why would AM101 work when all else has failed? What makes this 12-Step approach more than all the others?

These are fair questions with answers that unfold slowly as the process of change begins. We don’t do it all at once anymore than we do it all alone. By becoming willing to believe we begin a new journey that changes us at the cellular level of our beings. Science supports us along the way as we learn more about how our brains use food, friendship, fitness and faith to create chemical balance that affects us on all levels of living: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and social.

                                                                                                                                               –Pam Farrell

There is a reason we have more than one step in our 12-Step recovery arsenal.  Success requires that we keep moving forward, even when the final outcome is not guaranteed.  We are responsible for doing the right thing for the right reason.  We cannot demand success.  We can only prepare ourselves for the day when we look in our mirrors and see that we have become new from the inside out.

There are no guarantees in life is the old saying. But failure is guaranteed for us when we never attempt to change. It’s true that New Year’s resolutions seldom last more than a day or two–or maybe a few weeks. The fact that each year we continue to make them anyway says we believe in hope. We believe change is possible. Maybe it takes a little longer for some changes than others, but then aren’t those the more rewarding efforts?

Today is the first day of this blog for AM101. Join us as we grow into ourselves. Faith trumps doubt every day, every year. Let us chose faith.