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Central Recovery Press, Las Vegas, NV 89129
© 2012 by Utopia Bookworks, Inc. All rights reserved. Published 2012. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Publisher: Central Recovery Press
3321 N. Buffalo Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89129
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ISBN-13: 978-1-936290-72-7 (trade paper)
ISBN-10: 1-936290-72-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-936290-85-7 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 1-936290-85-5
Brief excerpts from Alcoholics Anonymous are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“AAWS”). Permission to reprint this material does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. AA is a program of recovery from alcoholism only—use of the Twelve Steps in connection with programs and activities that are patterned after AA, but which address other problems, or in any other non-AA context, does not imply otherwise.
Publisher’s Note: This is a memoir; a work based on fact recorded to the best of the author’s memory. Central Recovery Press books represent the experiences and opinions of their authors only. Every effort has been made to ensure that events, institutions, and statistics presented in our books as facts are accurate and up-to-date. To protect their privacy, the names of some of the people and institutions in this book have been changed.
Book design by David Leicester Hardy
Dedication
To Miss Vivian Costello, who always gave more than she took and left the world a better place than she found it.
To Don Walter, who stepped into a big pair of shoes and didn’t care if he filled them. One of the things I admire about him most is his ability to be himself.
Contents
02 | Anger and Depression
04 | Thinking It Through
05 | Getting Honest
06 | Expectations, Emotions, Experience, and Ego
07 | Time and Worry
08 | Faith
09 | Happiness
10 | Patience, Practice, Problems, and Principles
11 | Giving, Living, Gratitude, and Growth
To all the people—in recovery and not—who have helped me learn and grow in my own life, especially those who have helped me through or pushed me through my walls of fear. I thank you all for your help in my personal growth and on my spiritual path.
To my publisher, Central Recovery Press, for putting forth the effort to make this book available to anyone who might find it helpful in his or her own personal and spiritual growth. I thank you more than you know for helping me help others.
I would like to thank my editor, Daniel Kaelin, for his tireless work and support in bringing this book to completion. I could not have done it without him.
Finally, I thank God for the opportunity to share what I have been given.
Fear is something we deal with every day. Sometimes it’s a large, debilitating giant; other times it’s so small as to go almost unnoticed. Yet fear follows us nearly everywhere we go. Some fears we can avoid for the most part, like being afraid of snakes or of flying. Others we must face whether we want to or not, like our first job interview.
Fear controlled my life for so long, driving me in the wrong direction—or at least it kept me from going in the right direction. When I got into recovery and discovered how much impact it had on my life, I decided I had to do something about it. When I began to look at my fear and discovered the extent to which it ran my life and was a part of my being, I decided I had to learn to deal with it in a more positive manner.
As I looked back over my life, I found that I had never really dealt with fear on a conscious level. I had simply let it have its way with me, attempting to move through it only when I wanted, or needed, something very badly. As I was making this discovery, I noticed some common threads with which fear worked in my life.
The level of fear I felt had to do with my familiarity with the task at hand. It seems that the first time I try something, fear can shake me to my foundation. While doing my first jigsaw puzzle wasn’t too traumatic, getting my first job was, as was asking a girl out on a date for the first time. After getting the job or getting the date, my life seemed to smooth out and the fear subsided.
