Writing Prompt: Reflection on the Third Step Prayer

Prompt: Look at the AA Third Step Prayer. Pick out a sentence and write about what it means to you. 

Third Step Prayer: God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always! 

At first, I wanted to dodge this prompt, feeling resistant to do any AA work whatsoever. I’ve been wrapped up in me, me, me lately, my anxiety about things I can’t control, and my fears about catastrophic future scenarios that never come to pass. But then today, Friday, I thought to myself: maybe doing this Third Step Prayer prompt might actually help me with my difficulties. How about that? So here we go.

The sentence from this prayer I choose to ponder is, “Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.” You probably know this about me, but if not, let me admit up front that I am an extremely self-centered person. I’m neurotic, constantly analyzing my anxious self, spending hours in my recliner worrying and fretting about things. I also try to control outcomes for my benefit; often unsuccessfully, particularly if it involves my husband.

This all started about 8 years ago when I gave up liquor and weed, got weaned off Ativan, a benzodiazepine, entered menopause, and my husband retired early from his job. About 4 years ago, I grew tired of being a dry drunk so I returned to AA—for the third time—and got serious about getting a sponsor and doing the Steps. 

When Sponsor Shawn and I first read over the Third Step Prayer, I loudly exclaimed, “Relieve me of the bondage of self!” For being self-centered is such a burden, it gets tiresome, it’s honestly no way to go through life, particularly if you want to be of service to others. My obsessive worrying is also just a big waste of time, honestly I hate that I devote hours and hours indulging anxious thoughts instead of doing something productive. What bondage!

So how to stop this? Well, let’s look at that sentence again: Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. It sounds like in lieu of self-centered worrying, I need to be focused on what I can do to align myself with God’s will. I start getting tripped up though when I try to decipher God’s will. Love thy neighbor? Obviously. Service work? Yes. AA always talks about God’s will lying in faith, fellowship and service. Importantly, maybe it’s also as simple as me staying sane, sober and healthy.

I feel like I’ve got a good start on the fellowship bit, and I do service to the writing group, and make cash donations to the Sunday night German Village AA meeting. I can obviously do more though. But what I really need to strengthen is my faith in God, my trust in him. I make progress then end up backpedaling. I mentioned this to Shawn and he said, “It’s progress, not perfection.” I guess we all struggle with faith. Do you?

I hope we can discuss what you think God’s will is. And also I ask, Do you struggle with the bondage of self? Mine is mostly self-centered worrying. What’s yours?

Writing Prompt: Self-Care in Sobriety

 Prompt: What do you regularly do to stay healthy, now that you’re sober?

Self-Care in Sobriety 

Ah yes, it’s true, when I was in the grips of my alcohol and marijuana addictions I didn’t take good care of my body. But now that I’m sober—and also soon approaching age 60, yikes!—I’m really in tune with what I need to eat and drink to stay healthy, as well as what exercise I need to do to keep moving and not get rusty. There are also additional things I do to try and be my best. Good health involves taking care of the physical and mental. Here’s a list of my current practices to stay healthy:

1. Try to eat three meals a day, particularly something for breakfast to give me energy to start the day. Drink water during the day and night. Staying hydrated is important.

2. Try to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night, in order to keep my mood stable and feel well-rested to take on the day’s activities.

3. Do 1-hour pool exercise class at least twice a week, to help bust through morning anxiety and feel better all over. If possible, add in a fitness class at the Rec Center once or twice a week. The goal is to get up and out in the morning and exercising to feel better. I must fight back against the sedating aspects of my medication. 

4. Do not isolate at home. Keep up social connections with friends. Nurture relationships with family members, friends, those in the AA fellowship, and women from pool. Have coffee dates, dinners out, and participate in Zooms and text groups. 

5. Continue weekly sessions with talk therapist and meetings with sponsor Shawn.

6. Keep mental health optimal by taking my medication religiously, every day, as prescribed. I’m working on acceptance of the side effects and focusing on things I can do. 

7. I also work on keeping my stress manageable to keep the possibility of a destabilizing bipolar manic episode at bay. I’m extremely grateful that I was able to retire early, though having more free time has led to increased anxiety. 

8. Have regular appointments with my psychiatrist, my endocrinologist, my ob/gyn, my eye doctor, and my family doctor. I have an excellent treatment team watching over me. 

9. And lastly, nurture my relationship with my main support person (and love of my life), my husband Michael. I care for him and he cares for me. We keep each other healthy.

Back to a Routine

 So I’m slowly working my way back to a routine, after being majorly disrupted last month with an ankle injury and increase in thyroid medication that set my anxiety off. I got back to the pool for exercise class yesterday and it was great! People actually missed me, and said how happy they were that I was back. I told them I was so glad to be back.

Saw Matt today, after three weeks of no appointments in January. When I don’t have my therapy I’m a mess! We had a very telling discussion of how I perceive myself as abnormal when in actuality I’m normal like everyone else. I think because I have bipolar I feel less than, and disabled, and freakish due to the manic psychosis I have experienced. But today I’m sane, and taking my medication religiously, and I’m fine. I need to work on trusting this steady state more.

I’m having coffee with friend Julie next week. I have dinner plans this weekend with mom, my sister and my niece. For Valentine’s Day, Michael and I are going to a new French restaurant downtown. I’m going to the hair salon beforehand for a cut and color. I want to do something different, like get a shag haircut or something wild. I’m approaching 60 and it’s time for something different.

On the AA front, I’m keeping up with my writing group and attending meeting Zooms on Sunday and Monday. I haven’t been seeing sponsor Shawn as regularly as we used to. I hope we can get back in the groove of meeting once a week. Perhaps if I were more focused on my Step work we would have a more regular meeting schedule? 

I must admit it is the dead of winter, and hibernating inside does feel appealing. But I will continue to try and stay active. It’s good for my mood and to keep anxiety controlled. Having a routine of activities is so important for me. When I don’t have things going on I get squirrely and extremely uncomfortable. I’m glad I’m moving in the direction of getting a routine reestablished. Things got dicey in January. Glad that’s over!

Getting Back on Track

 Ok, so my situation is as follows: I have three things that need to be controlled. Bipolar disorder. Anxiety disorder. And Graves’ disease (thyroid disorder). I believe, fingers crossed, that all three are under control right now. The medications I’m on and the dosages seem to be working well right now. What I now need to be turning my attention to is working on this isolation and loneliness I feel by getting out of the house and interacting with people more.

I plan to go back to the pool on Tuesday and rejoin my exercise class that I love so much. I’ve been away from the pool for a very long time, what with winter maintenance that closed the pool for a month, and then me falling on the ice and severely twisting my ankle in January. But the pool is open now, and my ankle is finally healed so back to class I go!

Next, Julie has invited me to her place for coffee, I definitely need to go visit with my dear friend. I need more friends my own age to spend time with. I do have the AA fellowship, but I kinda keep people at arms length, I guess I’m afraid of people’s instability. I need to talk to sponsor Shawn about that one. Maybe what I do is ask Julie to connect me with more women, perhaps help facilitate some lunch dates in the future.

I have a dinner planned with mom and my sister Tracey and niece Alexa in a week. I’m so very lucky to have strong family support. Michael talks about uprooting and moving to Florida, but I don’t want to leave my friends and family. I need their support! I will keep insisting we stay in Ohio. 

I will slowly work on getting out more. I know I will feel better with more interaction with people. Guess I go back to the One Day At A Time mantra. Rebuild connections in time. Keep feeling positive, Melissa. Good things are coming your way.

Relief!

 Started the new dosing of the Gabapentin for my recent anxiety struggles and I’m noticing an immediate improvement! My morning anxiety was basically knocked out and I’m feeling positive and resilient. Haven’t felt this way in months, I’m so pleased. There is a little sedation but I’m also feeling some energy too; I think I’m finally able to feel some of the benefits of the increased levothyroxine. I am feeling an urge to go walk somewhere but I’m gonna take it easy to see if I experience any negative side effects from the gabapentin increase.

I slept well last night, the Simply Sleep worked to put me asleep around 9:30 last night. I think I can go without it tonight, as long as the anxiety stays in check. I do have some worry about being on such a high dose of Gabapentin—4,800 mg/day—but Dr. Levy assures me this is safe and fine and it’s working so I’ll stay the course.

If we can just get this anxiety under control I will be doing well on all fronts. I remain cautiously optimistic that this new Gabapentin dosage will do the trick. Hopefully we can back down the dose at some point down the road, when things are settled with my thyroid. We shall see how I’m doing in a few months. Gratefully, my bipolar is under control; I was worried the recent spike in anxiety might trigger something, but no, I’m fine. 

Basically I’m feeling positive right now, which is nice. Anxiety, you’re a bitch to deal with. I’m so glad you’ve been quieted down. I’m relieved.

High Anxiety, Again

 So the 137 mcg levothyroxine dose didn’t work out, I got jittery and extremely anxious and called Dr. Larrimer, who told me to drop down to the 125 mcg dose. I’ve been at that level for a week and still going through crippling anxiety, obsessed with monitoring med side effects. Last night my sleep was majorly disrupted, I couldn’t fall asleep until after 3:00 am. Started panicking that I was going to go into a manic episode.

Fortunately I had a FaceTime appointment with Dr. Levy this morning. He told me to increase my Gabapentin dose by 800 mg, adding an extra 400 mg in the morning when I wake up, and another extra 400 mg at my noontime dose. He said I should be getting relief soon from the health anxiety over my increased levothyroxine dose. We have an appointment to see where things are in two weeks.

So it’s been a very stressful past month, what with my thyroid imbalance, med change, twisted ankle preventing me from getting exercise, isolating at home, my husband going through tooth pain and needing a root canal, and me just generally being plagued by crippling anxiety, fear, worry, obsessive thoughts, etc. Really hoping to get relief soon and get back to some semblance of a routine.

Here’s hoping I can get my sleep sorted out, I’ll be taking Simply Sleep again tonight. Guess I just need to be patient and see how things progress. I’ll keep doing my box breathing and listening to meditations, that seems to help sometimes. Hope to get back to the pool next week? We shall see.

Writing Prompt: Attitude Adjustment

 Prompt: Write about how you purposely change your attitude. 

Attitude Adjustment 

I’m amazed at the plethora of things I’ve come to embrace in sobriety when I’m looking for an attitude adjustment, to architect a change from a negative mindset to a positive one. Whereas it used to be I’d reach for a substance to numb or elate me (albeit temporarily), I now utilize several different practices to keep my attitude right.

The first thing I have recently been practicing in the morning is meditation, and coming back to the present moment through mindfulness. I was referred to a meditation app called Insight Timer, and I’m finding it particularly helpful for addressing my worry, fear and general anxiety in the morning. There is guided meditation, talks, even soothing music to listen to. I recommend this app to everyone!

The next thing I like to do to shift certain attitudes is to talk things out with another person. I have a phone conversation with my mom every morning. This is particularly helpful when I have excessive anxiety, fear and worry. Mom’s soothing words help me feel safe. So does talking to my husband Michael. I also credit weekly talks with my sponsor Shawn as being instrumental in helping me see possibilities for a healthier, spiritual way of living. 

Challenging talks with my therapist Matt and psychiatrist led me to embrace a new physical exercise regimen as a way to improve my attitude, my mental and physical health, and my overall wellbeing. I’m taking a fitness class at the Schiller Park Rec Center and a pool exercise class at a health facility in Arlington. I had become very sedentary and really needed to just get moving. I’m proud of myself for taking the initiative to sign up for these classes. 

Journaling and doing things like writing down my catastrophic fears of the future, then listing all the facts of where I am in the here and now, really help me shift from an attitude of crippling anxiety into serenity and calm. I have always loved expressing myself in the written word and I find it to be a most therapeutic exercise. I treasure our writing prompts in our writing group that we have each week, to spur us on to think and create something meaningful made up of words. The exercise is cathartic for me and feels good. 

The fellowship I get from our writing group, from Shawn’s Monday Zoom group, and other AA meetings I attend also helps bring about a meaningful shift in my attitude and actions. Before AA, I leaned towards being isolated and lonely, but it’s not that way today. I have such an attitude of gratitude for my sober fellows I’ve met who are on this journey with me. I hope that my experience, strength and hope I’ve shared with them has helped somebody. Lord knows I’ve gotten a lot of help from them over the years.