Last week, as I sat listening to a fellow alcoholic share in a meeting, I amused myself thinking of the metaphor in her story. She described relapsing and how she fell into it rather easily. Going out on pain pills prescribed for surgery after many years of alcohol sobriety.
She told the story of how she ended up falling off a small stool while weeding. She was pulling on a rather recalcitrant weed (her words!) The weed would NOT come out. She put all of her might and will into it and it finally came out and she toppled over onto her hip and injured herself again. Instant excuse for relapse.
Recalcitrant weed—what a great metaphor for addiction itself.
Dictionary definition of Recalcitrant:
1. (adjective) having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority or discipline.
2. (noun) a person with an obstinately uncooperative attitude.
Synonyms: uncooperative, obstinately disobedient, intractable, unmanageable, ungovernable, insubordinate, defiant, rebellious, mutinous, willful, wayward, headstrong, self-willed, contrary.
I was every one of those synonyms while drinking.
In sobriety now, if I am not diligent about pulling the stubborn weeds of addiction each day, they can grow and take over my thinking once again. I have to dig deep to pull out the roots, so the weeds don’t return. I don’t have to use self-will anymore to overcome the unwelcome weeds.
Now, I jump into action with the tools that I learned in sobriety:
• Praying for strength—noticing the weeds
• Working the 12 steps—weeding
• Talking to my sponsor—cleaning out the soil
• Being of service to others—planting flowers
• Going to meeting and to hear others’ victory stories of hope—fertilizing the soil
• Trusting God for the outcome—watching the growth
I like to call flowers God smiles. When I gaze at beautiful flowers, I feel like God is smiling at me.
I need to use my tools of sobriety to pull out the weeds of addiction by the roots and plant those God smiles in the soil that I am enriching day by day.
You can do it too!!
Thank you God, for the reminder in nature of the purpose for which you intended me!
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Romans 1:20
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