The gift I was given

[Chester]

I was given the gift of massive addiction to alcohol and drugs. One that I had discovered I had received in my early teens.

It is only now, after a few years of not just sobriety, but awakening that I realized this gift was nothing more than my ego's last stand. Something had to give and fortunately it did.

If it were not for this lifetime's futile attempts to bury myself in anesthetics, I may never have figured out all my pain was simply self generated and all done so to protect my own, false belief in my "identity."

My pain... all and only the result of trying to fit a big, fat lie into an ocean of truth.

[markpierre]

Brilliant!!! That so needed to be said. Everyone out there who has any potential has something that haunts them and handicaps them
from being completely mindless and absorbed into the death of mundane human existence. It lets you know there's a real you
that's reacting to the impulse to grow and expand and create. A well adjusted human has adjusted to insanity.

The term you can apply is 'exaltation'. Beautiful word. Taking what appears to be a failing and converting it to triumph.
Don't you feel sometimes in groups of 'recovering' people that you've been miraculously dropped into a room full of heroes?
And do you include yourself when that happens or just feel privileged? Both are justified and appropriate.

The cool thing is that you'll go around and share that understanding everywhere you get the opportunity,
and you'll inspire the hell out of a lot of people. And you can't know who they'll inspire.

Thanks for the leg-up, on behalf of everyone who hears you.

[grapevine]

Wow - what an empowering and wonderous post. I see you and feel you justoneman x

[Calz]

I was given the gift of massive addiction to alcohol and drugs.



Thank you for sharing that ... a new neural pathway has entered my brain ...

[greybeard]

Thats telling it as it is.
A Just-one Man!!
Just 12 steps from that to this.
Every recovery a miracle.
Chris.

[Milneman]

Just remember bro...it's not a graduation. ;)

[chocolate]

I was given the gift of massive addiction to alcohol and drugs. One that I had discovered I had received in my early teens.

It is only now, after a few years of not just sobriety, but awakening that I realized this gift was nothing more than my ego's last stand. Something had to give and fortunately it did.

If it were not for this lifetime's futile attempts to bury myself in anesthetics, I may never have figured out all my pain was simply self generated and all done so to protect my own, false belief in my "identity."

My pain... all and only the result of trying to fit a big, fat lie into an ocean of truth.

Clear words can only come from a clear state of mind. [I am having similar realizations for sometime. We have to admit it feels great, that 'exaltation'.]

[markpierre]

Just remember bro...it's not a graduation. ;)

That's a great reply. The gift that keeps on giving.

I relapsed after 15 years of sobriety, and I think it was because the first time I was struck sober in a meeting with God.
I never had to 'recover', I just couldn't find an impulse or reason to drink again and so I didn't.

Strangely I'd had a lucid dream a week before of the agony of withdrawal, a very long painful 8 hours on my elbows and knees,
sweating and shivering and tended by my wife, while both of us slept peacefully cuddled up together. Our bodies oblivious to it all.
I woke up thinking WTF??? I had no idea what was to come.

The second time.... recovery began with the very first beer. Lucid drinking. After making the common mistake of determining 'healing' to mean I was
okay to drink responsibly. Nope. 15 years for godsake! It is possible and actually very easy to grow dumber as you get older, instead of wiser.
I'll never thank mySelf enough for the opportunity to physically detox and recover properly and do the work. Then I was firmly one of my own heroes.

Welcome to my table Chester, Milneman, Chris, everyone. Your presence is greatly appreciated.

[Flash]

I was given the gift of massive addiction to alcohol and drugs. One that I had discovered I had received in my early teens.

It is only now, after a few years of not just sobriety, but awakening that I realized this gift was nothing more than my ego's last stand. Something had to give and fortunately it did.

If it were not for this lifetime's futile attempts to bury myself in anesthetics, I may never have figured out all my pain was simply self generated and all done so to protect my own, false belief in my "identity."

My pain... all and only the result of trying to fit a big, fat lie into an ocean of truth.

What a beautiful post truly As beautiful as its writer beingness.

[Chester]

I had 7 years when back in early 1997, sitting with several business associates on a hilltop restaurant on a beautiful island in the Caribbean, "the voice" said, "Surely a half glass of white wine won't hurt anything."

It took 4.5 years.

Lost my wife,
Lost the business I created,
Lost the job as CEO,
Lost my beachfront home,
Lost my Dutch business partners,
Lost all my friends,
and my three sons were placed into the custody of a foreign government.

Life moved on.

Motivated to earn my children back, I sobered up again. Somehow met and married my current, lovely wife and gained the daughter I never thought I would have...

But by now, the darkness was too well entrenched and had plenty more work to do. Many of you know how that ended up a few years back and how I landed here on Avalon.

I am recovering. I will never be cured... at least not in this lifetime.
That was the lesson this last time.

I doubt there will be a third chance. I don't plan on needing it.

[Dorjezigzag]

It is interesting how many strong voices on Avalon have been to hell with addiction

The works of William Blake have some resonance

In the most famous part of the book, The marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake reveals the Proverbs of Hell.

These display a very different kind of wisdom from the Biblical Book of Proverbs. The diabolical proverbs are provocative and paradoxical. Their purpose is to energise thought. Several of Blake's proverbs have become famous:

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction."

Blake explains that,
"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marriage_of_Heaven_and_Hell

[gripreaper]

Lost my wife,
Lost the business I created,
Lost the job as CEO,
Lost my beachfront home,
Lost my Dutch business partners,
Lost all my friends,
and my three sons were placed into the custody of a foreign government..

So, when you were sitting there with no attachments and no identity, in the dark night of the soul, and you were nothing but your pure essence, what did you decide?

[greybeard]

The withdrawal symptoms I would not wish on anyone.
About 40 years ago-- going through a really bad delirium tremor withdrawal --I asked God for help--a rare event.
Within a few days "coincidences " happened and I ended up in hospital--then to AA as an in patient of the Mental institution I was in.
I had a stay of 9 month in the hospital---I was really F####d up. It was everybody’s fault but mine. AA got me over that.
I did not get it first time and had a brief relapse a few days after getting out of hospital---the mind a great con artist.
I went to an AA meeting drunk and that finally was it.
Its recovery im still an alcoholic and I know it.
The serenity prayer works for me

"God grant me the serenity
To accept the the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference"


Like Chester I lost everything--the works-- but all came right.
Humility was essential--I tried to sort my life through will power which I had plenty of, that did not work.
I had to accept total defeat and ask for help.
I got that through AA and got pointed strongly to my Higher Power, God as I understand Him.
That started the spiritual journey.

Thanks Chester for your sharing.
Your brother in sobriety--one day at a time.
Chris

[chocolate]

I sometimes remember the saying that the greatest challenges are given to those who can handle them.
But I also remember that this life is just like a maze, a labyrinth where the path that leads out doesn't necessarily seem the simplest or the most logical.

In my view some of us, especially those who have been through a lot of personal challenges, we are quite hard on ourselves. But in a world so much off balance right now, normality is just a matter of degrees. Just as success and happiness are a matter of perception.

We have a saying here that goes something like that:
"When you win/gain something you don't really know what you loose, and when you loose you don't really know what you gain".

May your journey be peaceful, and easier, from now on. And be kind on yourself. :wizard:

[Zampano]

Yep chesterman! I can relate to that!
Fortunately I realised my addictive personality, before I crashed. The last 6 years were a struggle on the edge. Gambling, smoking, alcohol.
At one point last year I kind of asked myself: How long do I have to do this? Answer: As long as you need it.
And now I see it as a gift too.

Before it was to numb myself and keep me away from my true self. Ego's last stand!
And beginning to see my real nature/our real nature...the real nature of: what is
everything goes without effort in such peace and presence!

The real tipping point for me recently was, when I asked: What/Who am I?

PS.: Big props to greybeard, markpierre, tim, another bob, jency, wind, chester, Ramana Maharshi and Yogananda ;-)

[Chester]

Lost my wife,
Lost the business I created,
Lost the job as CEO,
Lost my beachfront home,
Lost my Dutch business partners,
Lost all my friends,
and my three sons were placed into the custody of a foreign government..

So, when you were sitting there with no attachments and no identity, in the dark night of the soul, and you were nothing but your pure essence, what did you decide?

Note: That it was 2001 and the darkness was not finished with me. I stopped drinking/drugging because I was motivated to ensure my sons did not fall custody to my ex-wife or her family. Even for them... it didn't last as the darkness was still alive and well and wanted all it could get.

It was in 2012 that I reached the worst state I could ever imagine. It was so bad because of that fact I didn't even have the courage to kill myself. It is indescribable how depressed I was.

It was my discovery of Houman's Horus-Ra thread and the realization that the entity described in the OP was the exact type of dark construct (it had told me its name in fact - Horus) that was at the root of the voices in my head, was the progenitor of my perceptions of miraculous events I had experienced and not voices of "God" nor reality tricks manifested by "God."

Of course, it then took me up until a few months ago for me to realize "these demons" are not "out there" but deep within my subconscious and so on the day I "realized" and began to employ the viewpoint I now describe by the words... "It is all within" is when everything changed. That is the day I discovered that still place was real, was there, was always underlying all and that this was the only place that was actually real.

I saw the likelihood this may be true for all of us, but immediately came upon the acceptance that, just like in my case, we all have to come upon this on our own and this added an extra layer of peace.

A true, massive shift in foundational perception.

No longer does the world "happen to me." It reflects back to me what I truly desire from the depths of my soul - a soul that, for now, has changed its mind... no no - has dropped its mind as to what it wants to experience.

[Agape]

I was given the gift of massive addiction to alcohol and drugs. One that I had discovered I had received in my early teens.

It is only now, after a few years of not just sobriety, but awakening that I realized this gift was nothing more than my ego's last stand. Something had to give and fortunately it did.

If it were not for this lifetime's futile attempts to bury myself in anesthetics, I may never have figured out all my pain was simply self generated and all done so to protect my own, false belief in my "identity."

My pain... all and only the result of trying to fit a big, fat lie into an ocean of truth.



I've seen so many people who went down that road and never came back. I'd say ..you were given the gift of awareness .

We all fall down under the gravity of circumstances and what others throw on us, both positive and negative. Some of their 'good gifts' have a side to them,
as if someone knew you won't be able to manage ,
they take you down .

It has little to do with drugs and alcohol but more with depression of the society . There seems to be plenty of clandestine negativity in people, hard to recognise in fact, without years of experience and lessons to see 'what are all the good people about' .

Some keep giving you 'advices' , others medicines or 'never-ending love and 'unceasing support' and making you feel in-debt and thankful for the conditioned state of happiness ,
as if their shoulders were twice the bigger than yours and so much better characters .
But when it comes to reality , you're always on your own .

Thus we keep falling and lifting up , and falling and lifting up not because it's easy but because it's natural . Recall yourself , your true gifts, the true man in you is important .
You're free to forget the weak part of you as a bad dream and say it's not truly happened . I don't mean superficial denial of what had happened but be more conscious of the true yourself , pure , healthy and happy being who never fell for the delusional offer .
And try to survive and fight the horrid state of this depressive society . Don't believe all those happy faces up and anywhere . The sneaky clever eyes and broad smiles .

Believe your heart is better than theirs when you see right from wrong . You can win . If you realise how powerful they were in their desperate act to take you down with them . They're unnamed and many and were they 'just for you' .



:hug: