Hello my name is Kara and I am addicted to self-will!

Page 62 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous states “So our troubles, we think , are basically of our own making.  They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot”…..um….bummer!  I don’t know about you but I have never lived in peace and riot at the same time.  Of course, I have given it one heck of an effort, but the 2 don’t mesh.  Ultimately, through experiencing both peace and unrest, I decided I would like to choose peace.  It’s one or the other. And I like peace!

Broken trust.  It’s the primary issue that family members talk about when they discuss what’s been the most difficult for them when they’ve been impacted by the disease of addiction.  They want to trust their loved ones again.  Their loved ones want to be trusted.  How do we heal something that’s become so damaged?

I’m a big fan of the word grace.  Not just because it’s a pretty and hopeful word, but because of the significance it holds in recovery and in life in general.

Growing up, I wanted people to like me. I considered it a personal challenge to win people over. And I wanted to feel connected to those people. I was intrigued by spirituality, and how it might make me feel connected, so I would “meditate.”  But really I was just getting high, contemplating not my place in the vast continuum, but rather how a fish might have a swordfight with a bee.

Sobriety makes everything different, but it takes more than just the passage of sober days to bring about change. The idea behind my book, “Being Sober and Becoming Happy” is that first we take the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to get our drinking to stop. Then, if we keep taking those same Twelve Steps, in sobriety, and apply them to everything we do, we end up happy. I’ve had enough time to try this theory out, and to measure the results.