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I was never totally scum. Not before I started drinking and during my pre-recovery years. I was also not struck wonderful when I found recovery. However, when I share my story you might think that I was perfectly bad in my “before days” and steadily better on the road of “progress” with occasional bouts of perfection now. That is not the case. Not completely bad then, not thoroughly good now.

The seeds of my true self were always there before I used, while I use and now, after I have stopped using. The little sprouts of my spiritual being popped up from  time to time in my youth and even in my using “career”. I was not totally one way or another, then or now.

Reading the Big Book might give one the impression that we alcoholics are seething pots of self centeredness, self will; filled with self pity.  This is not entirely the case. I surely have attacks of self will and pity; times when despair and unhappiness coming from things not going “my way” overwhelm me. And in recovery I still have them, but these phases are not as prolonged, as obvious, or even visible. That is being human. Now they tend more and more to be an inner torment.

Before recovery, I had bouts of compassion for others, concern for mankind, empathy, sympathy, even right action, honesty and humanity. I was not consistently and persistently self absorbed. I wasn’t that good at being bad.

This is what I have learned. Nothing is always. There are very few absolutes in life and me being perfectly awful is one of those absolutes that were not true. I was undependable, I was inconsistent, I was mean, and selfish and all those characteristics that are mentioned in AA literature, but I was not consistently any of them.

In my recovery and yoga practices of embodying my  feelings, my memories, and my self awareness I have also been able to discover, identify and own my goodness. I have become willing to see the “long ago” good in myself. I have become able to embrace these attributes as useful parts of my being. I have found and claimed the seeds of my spirit.

Remembering my past, particularly memories from being a child, are rare and ephemeral. I have memory snapshots but few movies. I also have a broken sense of time, I am not certain for sure where and when the mental pictures I have were taken. This had made me feel disconnected from them. I have since come to peace with that and am able to claim them. This problem exists; I no longer crave it to be different. (This is huge progress where I have ceased condemning myself for “poor memory” and just allowing the recollections to float up as they occur.) Some of the memories I have are sweet, the memory of giving my stuffed animals a place in my bed, equally arranged so that no feelings would be hurt. Some are memories of injustice as I felt angry over the unequal treatment of my classmates due to unfair rules and ungrounded suspicion. I marched as a teenager for the end of the Vietnam War and the reduction of the voting age. I was part of the walkout in my high school to protest the fact that girls had to wear dresses; regardless of the weather, the suitability for intramural activities and for the fact that it made no sense. I had a conscience at the same time I was using drug and alcohol. These were not mutually exclusive activities.

In my twenties I was a full on drug user (hype) and drunk. I wanted to go to school and I muscled my way through- the challenge of keeping up with my classes, being a single mom, and using drugs with abandon was eased by the drugs I chose. “Speed” got me through school. While I was doing all of that I also protested for and won the right to open a childcare center on campus to help re-entry women (people) resume their educational careers with a little more ease. I was not all bad and I was not all good.

The seeds were there. Yes, in early recovery I had to be careful not to slip into a justification process, or a way of white washing the pain and destruction of my drinking and using. I had to look at my past in a pragmatic way and learn to winnow out the criminal, un-useful, and harmful behaviors. But in that process I could not TRASH my whole self. In my later recovery I have been reaching back into my past, no longer to mine for the behaviors and characteristic that I need to work my sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth steps on, but to find the morsels of good.

I need to integrate all of myself. I atone for the faulty and unhealthy and I nurture the good and useful. I nurture the willingness of myself to be generous, to be helpful, to be a good citizen (even when doing so is not easy and requires me to stand up for my rights and the rights of others.) I have those seeds of a beautiful spirit. I don’t want to forget that, either.

Author

Kyczy Hawk; author and E-RYT 500 Kyczy has been teaching recovery focused yoga classes since 2008. She is also an author having published several books combining the philosophy of yoga with recovery principles. Her most recent books are “Yogic Tools For Recovery; A Guide To Working The Steps” and its companion workbook. She is also the author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” , “Life in Bite-Sized Morsels” , and “From Burnout to Balance” as well as five recovery oriented word puzzle books.You can also join Kyczy and a host of other people in recovery every Sunday morning at 8am PT (11 am ET) on In The Rooms at the Yoga Recovery meeting. She currently holds online Y12SR meetings combining a full 45 minutes of all paths recovery meeting and 45 minutes of all levels yoga.It meets Sundays 4pm PDT (register at wllowglenyoga.com .) Kyczy is very proud of her family; husband, kids, and grandkids, all who amaze her in unique and wonderful ways. Join her mailing list for other information and links to free classes at www.yogarecovery.com.

6 Comments

  1. It’s been two years since I’ve been ITR. Today’s ITR email was essentially timely. You know, when it’s exactly the words/emotions you need to hear…I’m doing ‘meh’…and this share has opened up something significant. Thank you Kyczy ️

  2. Susan (Suofsugar) Reply

    It’s been two years since I’ve been ITR. Today’s ITR email was essentially timely. You know, when it’s exactly the words/emotions you need to hear…I’m doing ‘meh’…and this share has opened up something significant. Thank you Kyczy ️

    • You are most welcome Susan. Neutral is a state of being, too. Just noticing helps me wake up! Be well

  3. This speaks to me! After initial treatment and some good community, I didn’t need to drink or use for 15 years. Then my marriage changed, my da died, I put my dog down and had surgery that left me unable to have a child. Yoga, Belly Dance, Acupuncture – even study of my childhood faith and confirmation – all were in my life. I was HAPPY and at peace. Then I stopped to breath. And had a drink. The wash of shame, rooted in my 12-step indoctrinated mind, led me into a spiral; the core of which was an undying feeling that I was not worthy (or so I’d been told in treatment). So I drank more as I seemed to be in a double-bind.

    Either accept that I am hopeless and must relinquish my volition OR choose to live by my values and believe that I am not a lost case. Within a week of my expressing this, my 12-step sponsor told me that I was being ‘willful’

    Nope, never, no more

    And again – yoga, dance and meditation fulfill me, nourish me, calm me. I don’t use because I have so many wonderful sights to see and choose to see them.

    Thanks,
    K

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