Out of Touch

It dawned on me a few weeks agos that I have not written a blog post in the longest time. In July, I agreed to start taking call again for my nursing job which is 48-72 hours of straight on call. I only planned on doing one weekend. It was really fun to be back and when the opportunity came for additional hours, I took them up on it. In addition to those hours, I still have my 40 hour a week job. In January, I will be celebrating a year there. I can hardly believe it. There were times when the days moved slowly, however, now the months are flying by so quickly. 

Many things have changed in my primary job as a counselor over the past several months. For the most part, those changes have been really positive. The process of adjusting to the change was probably the hardest thing. One thing I learned early in my recovery is that I don't really care much for change. The irony being that all of the good things that have come into my life in the past five years has been because of change. Additionally, when I interviewed for this job, my now administrative supervisor told me "if you don't like change, this job is not for you...." The change isn't so bad, it is just about doing something that I have never done before and not having a ton of confidence in what I am doing. I was just starting to get in the groove of groups, counseling and prevention work and starting get to get somewhat comfortable. Then, I was offered some really tremendous opportunities to participate in training for a new type of group facilitation that works on dealing with criminal thinking and addiction. I was given a new group to facilitate and a new assignment in the court systems. Now that I have had the opportunity to get into the groove of things, I love it. The beginning was not very smooth and my transition into these positions were complicated by some other issues outside of my department. 

I went to church a few weeks ago. I found myself furiously scribbling notes down. I was feeling very inspired to write something about the topic which is pretty typical of my church going experience. Church is something that feeds my spiritual part of my recovery. The other thing that really feeds my recovery is the volunteer work. It's a little bit of a bummer that I missed so many weeks of church because the series was called "This is how we change the world". The two areas of my spiritual recovery were really coming together in a powerful way and I missed most of the weeks of sermons about the topic!!

I ran into an individual that brings an AA meeting into the local jail. We were talking about recovery stuff as I tend to do when I meet AA folks. For some reason, I felt compelled to tell him that my professional choices for a career were not the same as my recovery work. In my previous blog entry, I talked quite a bit about the need to separate my professional life and personal recovery. The more that I am growing professionally, the more I feel the need to get my personal recovery out of the way. I can talk fairly well about many different ways to get into recovery. Several years ago, I wrote about how I do not believe that everyone needs AA to get into recovery. Likewise, DBT was huge for me, but may mean nothing to you. I think it is one of the challenges that I like in my job is when people want or need something different than AA. I get kind of excited about searching out alternative that can be helpful. However, it makes me feel like I am cheating on my own recovery since AA has been such a huge part of why I am five years sober today. 

On August 10th, 2015, I hit my five year anniversary. What I am finding to be important to my recovery today is the service work piece. I feel happy with my spiritual place. I feel good about my thinking and decisions. I have been just feeling very restless about my service work. So, when I was at church and they were talking about ways to change the world, I was feeling a little squirrely. The pastor was talking about not being overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems in the world, just do for another person that you want for the world at large. There are little things that can be done that make a huge difference. So, I am searching right now. For the time being, I have been collecting items for the local shelter. I love shopping and deal hunting. It is a little thing I can do for the time being until I can find something that makes a difference in a way that I want it to. 

When I first graduated some school, I had this gut feeling about changing the world with regards to addiction. I was always thinking really big. Maybe that day will come, but not right now. I really feel like I am making a difference in my job with regards to addiction. I will have the opportunity in the coming years to get on a more public stage to do what I have felt I wanted to do in the field. I want to leave the addiction changes to my professional life. In my personal life/recovery life, I would like to do something that I feel really passionate about. If I make my personal journey only about recovery, I am going to get burned out. There are other things that I have always wanted to get involved with and I can now because I am in recovery. Of benefit, it will also support my recovery. 

Recovery is such an interesting process. In the beginning, I was just trying not to pick up a drink. After a few years, I wanted a quality of life that I hadn't had in a long time. Now, I am growing to a more spiritual stage of recovery. Last year, I worked to reconnect with my spiritual self. I have learned a lot about what I am seeking in my life. For the past 10 months, I have really been focused on getting myself more confident on a professional basis. I have been devoting almost all of my energy and time getting myself professionally on track. Now, as my 2nd job is settling down and my primary job is "stable", I feel like it is time to turn my attention back to my personal recovery and get this volunteer thing started. I am feeling very focused and intense on doing so 

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