Transcript

welcome

to victorious in recovery what you're

about to hear is simply one man's

journey to victory over addiction

my ups and downs and everything in

between and the solutions that i find

along the way

my purpose is this

to let you know that you're not alone in

the things that we go through trying to

recover and that there is hope of a

recovered life from addiction my name is

david victorious and i'll be your host

[Music]

thank you for tuning in to victorious

and recovery

this week seemed to have gone

pretty slow

just work home meetings work home

meetings

usual schedule for me really

and this week really wasn't that much

different than the rest

i find myself kind of in a plateau right

now and i don't think that's a bad thing

all the time

it's kind of annoying when you get used

to things

progressing quickly

as

most of us do

it feels strange

to just be

at peace

to be at ease with where i'm at

i find that i want to

not necessarily be doing something all

the time

but i want something to be happening all

the time but i don't want it to

interfere with my peace either

so

it's just

completely unpleasable of me to think

and be that way

i find that i'm just

dissatisfied

with general life most of the time

and i've mentioned

things like that before

but i'm really starting to see

the magnitude of that

and what that might reflect about me

and it hasn't always been this way

i would say for the first

year or so

being clean and sober it wasn't this way

i was very appreciative i was very

grateful

and i think it was because i didn't

have to look that far back to see where

this all began

to see how low that i really was once

upon a time

and not only that

somewhere between then and now

even with my daily bible study even with

my daily devotions and prayers and

everything

i seem to have lost a little bit of my

identity

for the longest time in my life i had

this strong identity of a christian

believer that really truly believed in

everything

that i was

in my mind supposed to believe in

and my belief hasn't changed i still

hold god and jesus christ and the holy

spirit as my higher power

but there's something about

the identity

that i had in that that has kind of

fizzled away it's giving room for

something else but that something else

isn't here yet

or i don't recognize it or maybe i just

don't know how to walk

in the new being that i am

i was reminded of this because i was

reading this thing and it was talking

about the jewish people and

some war that they were going into

and the guy described it as the

israelites having

identity amnesia

that's what i have

because i can i can be blessed today

and forget everything by tomorrow

and of course it's never my intention to

be that way

i want to be the

grateful joyous guy

that i love being

but i think i i tied up so much of my

identity

in with my emotions

and i forgot that

it has as much to do with that as it

does with

my choices

and my actions

either my circumstances or my life in

general has just conditioned me that way

but i tend to think of joy as a response

to something that's

happened to me

or the lack of bad things

happening

just a result of some

something some favorable

circumstance

and so i i get in this rut

where i forget who i am

i forget how

i became who i am how

life works

of course i'm gonna have joy when good

things happen

of course i'm gonna feel like a child of

god when things are going my way

when i'm celebrating

all the victories in life of course i'm

gonna feel good about those

that happens automatically

what i forgot is that joy is the choice

and then i'm equally able to grab onto

that

that joy that identity that i have

with my higher power

by simply choosing to do that

by reminding myself daily of where i'm

at

of the progress i've made of the

failures i haven't made

i find myself right now

just waiting

just waiting and trying not to mess

anything up

which is fine

i don't feel like i have the forward

motion that i had

before but

i don't need to have that kind of

momentum i just need to

continue to move forward

but it's so easy to forget that

just because

everything hasn't been perfect

just because everything isn't exactly

the way i thought it would be

doesn't mean that i'm any less

blessed or

accepted

doesn't mean that my higher power has

abandoned me

if anything it probably means that he's

preparing me for something

out of his love for me

which is usually the case

so

these last couple of days

not as well as i would like but i've

been reminding myself of that

that my joy doesn't have to be attached

to a certain set of circumstances

that i don't have to

have a season of sadness just because

things aren't going the way i thought

they were

even though lately i've felt a little

incomplete

a little dissatisfied with little things

around me

worried about the future

disappointed about

decisions and

outcomes of different things

i must

absolutely must remember

to remember

so that i can be grateful i can look at

the things because i'm not great at just

coming up with gratitude lists out of

nowhere but it's really easy to come up

with one if i look backwards

thankfully i was allowed to go through

some pretty hard stuff

and now i can look backwards and easily

find things to be grateful for

but another thing that's

been holding me back is this bitterness

it's like a unwillingness to forgive

not that i'm incapable of it but i've

had things pop up

you know some people call them

resentments

in my case most of the times it's not

anything that anybody's done to me

it's mostly

the reactions that i've chosen to have

to the things that they've done despite

of me

taking things way too personal

getting upset with people for

asking me to do things that are 100 my

responsibility

and it's it's robbed me of my joy

of course there's still been good

circumstances that have popped up and

boom i'm joyous i'm free you know

but the trick is getting to the point to

where i can find that joy and that peace

that serenity

outside of good circumstances

outside of a victory

on the other side of a tragedy

that i could still

dig deep and find it and i only find

that when that's my identity when that's

who i really am

but i can't be

joy i can't be victorious

if i'm bitter and i'm unforgiving

i can't be serene and happy

if i'm holding on to things whether

they're

fault of somebody else or fault of mine

it doesn't really matter

you know and of course like everybody

else i'd like to say oh i don't care

what people think about me

or oh no no

i don't hold grudges

i'm fine i'm over it it's okay i forgive

you

i don't

and it's not okay

that's what i have inside

i don't know how to let go of everything

so i'm doing the next best thing i'm

working my steps

i'm sharing it with another person

slowly hopefully

just chipping away

at those things until someday i can

really let them go

but i've come to find out that there's

things that i truly honestly with all my

heart i want to let go of

and i haven't been able to do it

big things things that affect my

everyday

yes they've gotten better though and

that's my saving grace

is that i can see that they have gotten

better

i stand a little bit taller

i can look people in the eye just a

little bit more

it's not that i've gotten better

at some magical formula to forgive

people

because honestly i don't believe there

is this magical formula

you know some things yeah i'm just being

petty but there's some big things that

i'm like

every day i have to ask god to take it

every day i have to do whatever it is

that i can come up with to give it up to

my higher power

but who teaches you how to do that who

can tell me how to do that

i can say the words

all day long and it hasn't happened

i can want it from the deepest part of

me and it hasn't happened

i'm left with the question how do i get

better

people tell me what the steps i'm doing

it again

and i'll continue to work them

in hopes that they work

there are some things though that i know

do work

i've said it a hundred times if not a

thousand

guys are probably

tired of hearing it but

sharing with other people

like opening up like today today i'm not

providing people with

huge insight

or any kind of

amazing wisdom

i am

expressing my

discomfort

my frustration with

my inability to forgive

but that that's one of those few things

that i know has chipped away slowly

at those huge things inside me

those things inside me that make me feel

like what's the point

why do i even try

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sharing that frustration with others

helps

asking others to share theirs with me

helps

it helps when people

are brave enough

to talk to me about the things that i

share

so i'll continue to go to meetings i'll

continue to

log into zoom calls

because i need you guys

i need all the help i can get i am

not yet healthy

i'm motivated and determined though

some days i feel

somewhat healthy

that's a lot better than two and a half

years ago where

i was neither healthy nor motivated

nor dedicated

and was in deep despair

i don't have anything else today

i just want to thank you guys for

being on here and sharing my life with

me

y'all have a good one

[Music]

you