Goa Friday's

Today was a great day, started off by perparing breakfast for everyone in the house, then ran out to town to get some supplys for the labourers. Got back to the house and finished of breakfast, hope everyone enjoyed it. Then started off cleaning the floors and the bathroom, I had worked may jobs in my life, but had never put my heart into work. Today cleaning the floors I could see my heart was in it, sweating and labouring in the heat of Goa. Left the house after taking a bath by noon or so and headed to a town called Mapusa, were we had a great lunch in a funny place called Stomach! I was really ammused at the name of the restaurant, quite to the point! Afterwards we went to the Friday market in Mapusa which was awesome, we got deals lik you wouldn't believe! Outfits for like 100RS. Afterwards went to a small beach called Ashwin I believe which is filled with Russians. Then rushed back to Calungute to make an NA meeting, were we all had awesome sharings and spent time at the Coffee Day getting closer to eachother. All in all was a great day, and I thank my higher power for the opourtunity.
God bless

Benaulim Beach

Beautiful Benaulim Beach is where we are spending time now, it is in south Goa, where there is not as much crowd. It has been relaxing and now we are constantly busy with the new house that was aqquired. We are getting the place ready as it has been years since someone has lived in it. Cleaning, and swabbing and removing years of spider webs has been a real task in the heat of Goa. Slowly but surely the work is getting done. Have met some great people from UK at the AA meetings and everyday am trying to meet somebody new. I tried my had at cooking this morning making breakfast for everybody in the house. I hope they enjoyed it. This is like an experience of getting my own place and getting it ready to live in. I am greatful to my higher power for giving me this opourtunity.

Beach Hut

Life in the beach hut is nice, very realxing and peaceful. But one thing I know now is I cannot live with children! I have no tolleance for kids who thow sand at you and get on your nerves. I have spent time realxing and getting a tan in the sun. When swimming in the ocean for the first time in my life, but don't really like salt water (yuck). Been meeting people from all over europe and managed to meet a guy who is staying in the same hut area who is from Montreal which is really cool. Nice being away from substance and still able to enjoy life and meet new people. Wishing everyone in the world a happy holi and may god be with you.

SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTNMENT

When we come to the program we are like birds without wings. We loose all our sense of sanity. We are completely void of a spiritual life. It is something we cannot figure out , but there is a solution . When we come into treatment we first recover physically and then we start to gain some amount of Spiritual confidence, but gradually.
May be it is inevitable that we cannot change our mental state of mind, but we can change our self into good living by following the path of 'Spirituality' .
Recovery opens new windows into a life more than getting high or drunk. We begin to enjoy small things, which previously did not even give value to. Spirituality is the way out and the only way, if we take it seriously we can achieve 'Spiritual Enlightenment' .

Positive Energy

What an awesome day today, started off early with a Yoga class for beginners, which was amazing, got very relaxed and got in touch with my inner being and left the class with great positive energy! We then spent the day on the beach had nice lunch and tanned in the beautiful sun here in Goa. Just got in touch with nature and myself reading a book and relaxing. Got to a meeting for 6pm which was in a small town where there arent any active members attending. Got to share with the few people in the room which felt good. Ending up the evening at Cafe Coffee Day just chatting with other members and looking forward to a new day tomorrow.

Yoga

Today we had a great beginner yoga class here in GOA. It was so relaxing and quite a workout sweating doing stretches and breathing teqniques on the mat. We left the session feeling calm and energized with positive vibes. This is our first go at Yoga and we plan on taking more classes in the following week. For all those who have not tried Yoga yet I would highly recommend it! We now are practicing the good things in life vs our old mentality of negative. This has been a great experience for me and my friend meeting lots of forigners from all over Europe and UK here in India. Many people have bought houses here and settle here for 6months out of the year. And now I can see why they do! Its been awesome and hope my higher power keeps this positivity alive in me.

Just for Today

Anxiety Attack
"the power that brought us to this program is still with us and will continue to guide us if we allow it"
Ever had a panic attack?Everywhere we turn ,life demands overwhelm us .We're paralyzed.and we don't know what to do about it .How do we break an anxiety attack.
First we stop.We can't deal with everything at once , so we stop for a moment to let things settle.Then we take a spot 'inventory' of the things that are bothering us .In most cases we'll find that most of our fears and concerns don't need immediate attention .
Then we stop asking ourselves "whose in control here anyway"?.This helps remind us that our higher power is still in control.We can do this in any number of ways :through prayer.talks with our sponsor or NA friends , or by attending meetings and asking others to share their experiences.
Anxiety attacks need not paralyze us.We can utilize the resources of the NA program to deal with any thing that comes our way.

JUST FOR TODAY:
Mu higher power has not brought me all this way in recovery only to abandon me!When anxiety strikes,I will take specific steps to seek god's continuing care and guidance.

Three Dimensonal Aspect of Our Disease

We have a very complicated disease which consist of three aspects :-
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
SPIRITUAL

Why do we say so ?

Mentally we loose our sanity and our thinking completely goes haywire.We cannot balance our thoughts,feelings and emotions.We develop a great mental obsession with alcohol and our substance of choice , our head can think of nothing else but our choice of addiction . We spend vast amounts of time on this great obsession through which we loose everything and gain nothing.So at the end of it all we become "INSANE".This is something that has been a great problem to us addicts ,we do not have good thinking.

Physically we deteriorate completely . We become weak , our body looses it's capacity to withstand the amount of alcohol or drug's we consume and our body comes to a complete standstill and we have a complete break down . It affects our Central Nervous System(CNS).
We loose weight , Start to develop tremors , Develop immense body pain , Withdrawal symptoms without getting high , Hallucinations , the list goes on and on till we have a total collapse of our physical system which can be fatal.

Spiritually we become bankrupt . We loose our spirituality completely . We here call it "spiritual bankruptcy".We stop to fulfill our responsibilities as a father,brother,son etc. We completely go against ours and societies moral values and believes.

This is the three dimensional aspect of our our disease from the point of view of a recovering addict.

twenty fours hours a day

Thought for the day -
When we came into A.A ,we came to believe in a power greater than ourselves.We came to believe in that Divine Principle in the universe which we called god,and to whom we can turn for help.We ask god for power to stay sober for the next twenty-four hours.And each night we thank him to help us keep sober.
Meditation for the day-
I should pray for faith as a thirsty person prays for water in a desert . Do i know what it meant to feel sure that god will never fail me? I should pray daily and i am sure that i still breath?There is nothing lacking in my life to know it .I am like rich person's child who sits in rags when all around me are stores of all I could desire.
Prayer for the day-
I pray for the realization that god has everything I need .I pray that I may know His power is always available.

One day at a time

Here in recovery we have learn't to take one day at a time,It works.
Our programme teaches us that we have to take one day at a time and that we have got to live only for today and that we should not bother about the future . This is something ,I as an addict have learnt .This is helping me to live a better life in my recovery .

just for today

REMORSE
"the eighth step offers a big chance from a life dominated by guilt and remorse"

Remorse was one of the feelings that kept us using.We had stumbled our way to active addiction,leaving a trail of heartbreak and devastation too painful to consider.We feel we can go ahead and repair the damage we had caused,there was no way to make it right.
We begin the eighth step by actually making a list of all persons we had harmed.We own our part in our painful past.
But the eight step does not ask us to make right all of our mistakes,merely to become willing to make amends to all those people.
Remorse is no longer an instrument we use to torture ourselves . Remorse has become a tool we can use to achieve self-forgiveness.