I have begun sitting quietly in the morning and taking hot baths in the evening, both while listening to a Deva Premal chanting playlist I created. I have found that after my sitting in the morning, my day has progressed more peacefully. I have also found that the evenings spent bathing to this peaceful music has resulted in me entering an altered state. A peaceful state. I still believe that there is much in my body that yearns for understanding and release. I believe that I have trauma and grief stored deep in my bones. Listening to my deeper self in these ways feels amazing, and maybe even overdue. There was a time, where I practiced yoga regularly, and I long to get back to a yoga class when I feel it is Covid safe. However, stillness and meditation, complete stillness and breath, is what allows this deeper listening. Coupling it with exercise can be a challenge to my mind, as I suffer from over-achievement as a regular ailment or character defect in my life. This last month of illness has brought me to a place of practicing stillness, once again. It is an amazing revelation.

I have also been practicing quiet activity in my new day to day routine. I am going for a sustainable walk every day of just about two miles. I am slowly picking away at the chores that surround me. And most importantly, I am attending one to two AA support meetings every day, (four to five days a week I attend the two). I have been leaning into reading AA literature or “AA approved literature”, and I am understanding this twelve step program in increased relativity. I am understanding that “one day a time” is a good way to live. I can increasingly live moment to moment, give up control, and give things over to my Creator or God. I am learning that my coping mechanisms or character defects are there for me to recognize and let go of. I am relearning total acceptance of both my addiction and my mental illness. As I lean deeper into acceptance for myself as I am, I let go of outside burdens and goals that are only perpetuating my character defects. My whole mind is getting a remodel. I simply want to be here and present every day. I want to practice loving kindness instead of control and denial. I want to love those around me and not be angry. I want to let go of the deep resentments I have against the world because of having mental illness. As I accept my illness, and accept that I developed alcoholism on top of my illness, I accept that I need help. I accept that I need meditation and prayer. It is a humbling experience. I thus give myself the much needed break and credit for living with this insurmountable disability of schizoaffective disorder, that God has put in my life’s path. It feels like freedom. I am no longer striving, or “arranging life to suit myself” (AA Big Book P. 88), and wasting all sorts of energy doing so. I am treating myself with the gentle loving kindness and acceptance that I deserve. This all directs me down a path of healing and insight.

This realization and growth has occurred during this last month that I have been ill with a never-ending cold. I also experienced a small relapse (but a relapse none the less), concerning consuming alcohol. I am on day 19 today, and I have spent the last 19 days treating myself with loving care, as well as getting my body and mind back on track with AA. It is always a humbling experience starting one’s time over, and I understand that this keeps some alcoholics from returning to the program, post-relapse. I must work my program and my program only. It is my responsibility to not compare myself to others, and to do the best that I can. Every soul is unique on their path of recovery. Many people are in twelve step programs designed after Alcoholics Anonymous and still intake substances. My own path involves being mentally ill, and this colors my journey with sobriety in a different hue. Learning about my deeper self through stillness, and finding support within the rooms of AA, I am growing considerably. All of this has contributed to healing wounds and traumas that occurred to my gentle psychosomatic body, while living with mental illness. These two paths, (mental illness and alcoholism), are intertwined, effect or bleed into eachother, and are also essentially different. Alcoholism is a symptom, and my Schizoaffective Disorder a chemical imbalance and disability. Still, when I work on and nurture one, the other benefits considerably. With mental illness, my mind can enter dark places where rationality ceases to exist, and it is important that I do not turn to drink when these irrational symptoms occur. This is what happened recently. I desperately hope that I do not fall into that trap of faulty thinking again. 

I prayed myself out of a desperate state of mind the other night. This has never happened to me before. I asked God to remove my anger, and He did. I am grateful for this solution; AA brought me to this place of total surrender and prayer. Yet, I know that I cannot pray my mental disability out of existence. The Big Book promises, “There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.” (P. 58) So, whether it is God or Science or both that save me, I believe. There is a healing path for my body and my mind that lives and breathes and suffers. There is hope and light entering my pores within these solutions. I am eternally grateful to have found a path that works for me, as I get out of my own way and find healing insight, serenity, and peace.