Saturday, January 14, 2012

Tapping on an unsuspected inner resource

I received great news last night that a good friend passed the exam for his Merchant Mariner Master's license.  This is something that he has wanted for some time.  Ten years of alcoholic drinking from his late teens into his late 20's robbed him of a high school degree,  positive study habits, and a host of other things that the non-alcoholic learns at that age.  His inability to do math has been a huge drawback.  His ADHD mind just doesn't process how to do even the simplest of equations.

I've been in touch with him while he was away at a maritime training institute.  Several phone calls were to tell me that he had passed several tests.  And then there was the phone call to tell me that he did not think that he could possibly pass the chart navigation part of the exam.  It included math formulas.  Nothing he had studied was making any sense and the courses that he took previously on navigation were like a blank in his mind.

I told him to do his best and think positively.  I went over some of the equations with him, reminding him that he mastered them before.  I don't know how the ADHD mind works, but I have some idea of alcoholic thinking which is mostly pessimistic and even negative.  He has said that this was his "last chance" to make something of himself.  Getting this license was, in his mind, an opportunity to prove that he amounted to something.  Even though he has been sober for 21 years, he feels so much unworthiness.

So he has been in lectures all day and into the evening for the past two weeks, has stayed up late and gotten up very early to study.  He has studied with the intensity of someone during college exam week.  And I wondered whether he would be able to pull it off.  Yesterday, it all came together with something clicking in his mind enough to get a 90 on the most difficult exam and scores in the high 90's on the other exams.  I am more than glad for him.  For him this was a milestone of success.

I don't know how it all came together in his mind on the one day when it really counted.  I can't explain these things, but somehow, I think that a power greater than him had a hand in this too.  And from this accomplishment, his parents, his family, his friends are all heaving a sigh of relief and smiling with joy.

"With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped on an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves." ~Alcoholics Anonymous

21 comments:

  1. That's awesome news!!! So glad to hear that your friend received that gift! :)

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  2. Thank you for your post and congratulations to your friend for achieving this milestone in his life. After living with an alcoholic for many years, one of the things that still takes me by "surprise" in the recovering alcoholic's sobriety is how much a sense of worthlessness can still grip them from time to time. Thank you for the reminder that we are all still works in progress.

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  3. This post gave me so much hope and encouragement. Thanks for sharing, Syd. My son is taking a computer class beginning this week. I'm praying he will find success and motivation to learn and get a job. :)

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  4. what an inspirational story. Hard work and a positive attitude can solve so much.

    Dave

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  5. I think I have adult onset ADD, if there is such a thing. Or maybe I was just too lax with my brain for too long.

    Tapping on my higher power's resources saves me often.

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  6. Tekk you buddy, may he have steady seas and a firm grip on the wheel!

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  7. very cool...glad that your friend got that and it makes for a good tale as well...happy saturday syd!

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  8. Great news. There is life in all of us. NEVER give up.

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  9. I think we have heard about this friend before, haven't we? Bless his heart....I am SO happy for him! What an enormous victory.

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  10. This is wonderful. Your friend has received his just reward. For perseverance...

    AMEN.

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  11. ah bless.. lovely story..
    Good for you Syd for being such an encouragement and support..

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  12. This is so great. Passing it along (gently) to my recently sober adult child. Seeing how success, failure, substance, thinking and learning are so inextricably tangled is a great reminder and a great hope for anyone who thinks they won't amount to anything. Thanks.

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  13. That line about "tapping an inner resource" has always been one of my favorite lines. I almost opted out of the AA program early on because I got my sobriety here in the "Bible Belt" and couldn't stomach the way the God concept was handled here. A wise member recommended I read the appendix II "Spiritual Experience" in the back of the AA Big Book ...where that line comes from ... and it gave me what I needed to continue. That was almost 23 years ago!

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  14. Beautiful!!!

    God is such a show off!

    I needed this story today. Thanks Syd.

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  15. That is a story to gladden the heart! Well done to your friend and I hope this will lead to many more doors opening to him.

    I would like to wish you a happy and serene birthday. Reading your posts since your retirement make me feel happy to note how your fear of the future has vanished.

    Thank you for your posts - I find them so enlightening and helpful. I am not able to comment as often as I would like as occasionally Google fails to recognise me. Between AlAnon meetings and your posts my life is now so much more happy and serene. Letting go of the fear, gratitude for the many wonders of each day, minding my own business and trusting that other are able to mind theirs, handing my worries over to a Higher Power who has things all mapped out and is leading me on this unexpected and winding path, always leading me to greater understanding and trust.

    Sometimes I wonder what I would have been like had I not had my beloved alcoholic in my life. In truth can only thank my Higher Power for him and for the richness, understanding, gratitude and serenity that is now mine.

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  16. Wonderful accomplishment for your friend, and opens a world of possibilities. We are never too old to go after our dreams.

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  17. That is fantastic news. I can only imagine that he is beyond the moon right now. Well done, to your friend.

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  18. What a wonderful story! Congrats to your friend!

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  19. Lovely story of hope and perseverance. As a fellow ADHD patient, I think that details are so hard but when we understand them in relation to the big picture, we "get it." Thanks for the story.

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  20. I think you've hit the nail exactly on the head with the quotation. What a wonderful story!

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