Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A HIGHER POWER

I had a Recovery Dream…
I dreamed I was standing at the side of the street. There were a lot of people I did not know. I said to the man standing beside me ‘Watch this” and I stepped out into the street and floated as though I was on an invisible skateboard across to the other side of the street, never once touching the ground.
As I floated I had recited to myself the first step:
“Step One-We admitted we were powerless over our addiction and our lives had become unmanageable”

Having landed on the opposite side of the street, a crowd now formed around me there and a young woman asked me if I could do that floating thing again.
“But of course” I told her and began to float back, slowly flapping my arms as if they were wings, to the other side while reciting my Second Step:
“Step Two- We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

As I landed, there were “Ooohs” and “Ahhhs” coming from the two crowds now gathered on each side of the street. Everyone was now watching me. I pushed away from the curb and did a Triple-Toe Loop, a Camel spin and finished it of with a Quad as I announced:
“Step Three- We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him”
I "moon-walked" back, floating inches from the surface of the street:
“Step Four- We made fearless and searching Moral Inventory of ourselves” and went on to the Fifth Step:
“We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”

At each crossing the audience would cheer and clap. There were some who were trying it themselves, but they could not float.
And in the dream no one, including myself, had made the connection that it was something to do with the 12 steps that were allowing me to cross the street in such an elegant fashion.
Here I will list for you the remainder of the 12 Steps and leave it to your own imagination the graceful ways I devised to float my way back and forth across the street.

6) We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7) We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8) We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10) We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11) We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12) Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.


The crowd went wild!

So, having demonstrated the 12 Steps, a man in the crowd asked me how it was that I could float like that while reciting the 12 Steps.
I had to tell him that I did not know. It was then that I woke up.
Most of my dreams are pretty simple, pretty easy to find the metaphors. My subconscious tends to stay close to the surface I suppose.
Still I did not entirely know the answer to his question until I went to a meeting two hours later and read the daily meditation.
This is the last sentence from the first paragraph. I think it speaks to my dream:

"One of the greatest gifts we receive from the Twelve Steps is our belief in a God of our own understanding. "




AND THE JUDGES GAVE ME....
ALL TENS!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never once, in all my years of recovery, have I had a dream as cool as that. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I've yet to develop a faith in any kind of a higher power, aside from the group itself. I'm envious, pal, of your ability to float, and still hope to someday achieve the ability to do likewise. In the meantime I intend to lurch on, haltingly, in my own inimitable fashion. So long as I don't use, I can be pretty sure I'm at least headed in the right direction.

UF Mike

bulletholes said...

Mike, I shared this dream that morning. I opened with "I had a "recovery dream" and everybody laughed.
I guess because ebeverybody always talks about their using dreams, the tortuous nightmares of finding ways and means to get drugs, or the hellishy things that happen after you find them.
No one ever heard of a recovery Dream!
And I'm a lot like you...itsn the group that really kicks for mwe.
Hi Mike!

Martijn said...

I'm happy for you. (I know I sound like an idiot, but I mean it.) If it works for you, then it works, that's for sure. I myself have always felt All Alone in the Universe and find it difficult to even begin to feel how great a powerful and comforting God must feel like, even in a dream.

Although I am something like a complete atheist, I can place myself very well in the beliefs of Dutch Catholics. They don't know it themselves, and would stone you if you told them this in their faces, but in reality they believe that we have to love (and worship) God because otherwise it's so sad for him... 'To do Him a favour', that's the idea. You can hear it when they nonchalantly say things like: 'yeah, sure I go to church once a week... I don't mind, it's only half an hour.' I don't think they're lazy. It's a beautiful superior, non neady and kind way of dealing with God. I like that. I'm a sacrificial kind of guy. God is a helpless, needy being, dying for my love and we have to sing & dance for Him to cheer Him up.

Nevertheless... your dream was terribly exiting and beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Martijn, that's a wonderful way of looking at God. As somebody who needs us more than we need him. Who's like, "Come to church... please! I'll give you a free communion wafer!"

UF Mike

Martijn said...

"Order your place in Heaven now and get the first portion of manna for ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing!"

Sorry folks, I don't want to ridicule anyone's faith. I'm a very tolerant type of fascist. I am very close to what Dave so well said about loving people because of their other beliefs.

I just think the concept of a God that you have to love, cherish and guard, like He's a helpless child, is more beautiful than a fierce, omnipotent and hateful One for Whom you have to grovel, or One that can help you (and smite your enimies at the same time). God doesn’t need to help me. He can’t. I have to help Him instead. His Dad is real bossy and His Mom frightfully frigid... now there’s a difficult youth for you! No wonder He made such a pigs ear of things. Okay, this last thing was a joke, but before I was kind of serious.

But nothing is written in stone. Maybe it’s a ‘one hand washes the other’ kind of deal.

Steve, I haven't said anything wrong I hope? Hey there,

Martijn

bulletholes said...

Ah Martijn, you can say what you want here!
I've got a foloow up for this I'll put up in a few days.

GrizzBabe said...

You have the most interesting dreams!