Hair of the Dog
More Thoughts on Recovery
by
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HAIR OF THE DOG
The definition of “hair of the dog” is an alcoholic beverage consumed as a hangover remedy. The phrase comes from the expression “hair of the dog that bit you,” meaning that the best cure for what got you there is to have more of it. In ancient times it literally meant that if a dog were to bite you, putting the dog’s hair into the wound would heal it. “Like cures like.”
I heard when I first got sober, “If you don’t take the first drink, you can’t get drunk.”
I thought that was ridiculous!
There’s always the second and third and fourth and so on—to get drunk, so what are they talking about? It took me a while to get this. I learned there was another solution to not having a hangover.
How about not drinking?
Oh. Now I get it.
When I learned to turn to God to help me not drink as my new behavior, I realized my new “hair of the dog” is:
More God.
He is what got me there.
__________ARE YOU STILL AN ALCOHOLIC?
People ask me, “You have been sober for quite a while now. Are you still an alcoholic?”
“Why do you still go to meetings?”
My answers are: Yes, and to STAY sober and help others to get sober and stay sober.
I am an alcoholic.
That is not so much who I am, as where I have been.
My past is what makes me who I am today. I don’t have to react to circumstances anymore by using alcohol. That is old behavior.
I am an alcoholic in recovery. Now I get to respond to the challenges God has placed before me with new behavior solutions—prayer, telling the truth, huddling up with others like myself who need support, serving, and reaching out a hand where that hand reached out to me in my hour of need.
God relieved my obsession to drink.
I go to meetings to hear God speak to me and to be of service to other alcoholics in the room.
__________WANTING IT
Recovery is for people who want it.
Not for people who need it.
While sponsoring other women, my sponsor always tells me, “Heidi, they have to want their sobriety more than you want it for them.”
When I finally saw the light for myself, I wanted that for everyone else. The relief that said—I don’t have to carry this by myself anymore.
I can’t force them to get there. I remember being so disappointed when someone I was sponsoring relapsed yet again. I took it personally, like there was something I could have done or said to make that not happen. My sponsor said to me, “Heidi, you are not that powerful!”
Oh, yeah. I am not God.
Here is what I CAN do:
I can pray for them.
Stand ready to help.
Listen when they reach out.
“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
Galatians 6:2 NIV
__________SIMILARITIES, NOT DIFFERENCES
I was taught in sobriety to look for the similarities in other alcoholics, not the differences.
To identify with them and not compare myself with others.
To identify implies seeing likenesses. Comparing implies looking for better than or less than.
When we compare ourselves, we separate from others. When we identify, we lift ourselves out of isolation and become “part of.”
The way out of the pit of isolation is to identify, be a part of, and to notice and feel similarities with our fellow alcoholics.
When I see the differences, I become “separate.” When I see the similarities, I become “part of.”
This empowers us. It helps us step out of judgement into acceptance.
Find somebody, see how they are like you and talk with them. I think you’ll find that feeling of belonging. Then do it again.
Then again.
You in yet?
__________UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
That line, originally, may as well have been a direct quote from God.
We don’t get to know what happens after this life, or if He is really there for us in this one for sure. Do we?
If we really knew how wonderful it was to be in heaven or with God, we may not want to be on this troubled Earth anymore, right? Everyone would be rushing to get to the good part.
OK, that’s the faith part, and—the hard part.
So I think we are supposed to sit with the mystery of it and just trust God. Lean not on our own understanding. That is where the real work in us happens. He did give us an option to communicate with him on a personal basis right now, today—
Prayer.
Our brains weren’t designed to hold all that God’s mind holds. He wants us to call on him, talk with him, and depend on Him.
That’s the whole point. Okay, I get it—
“Hi, God. It’s me.”
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About the Book
How could I not go? A year ago, I heard from a friend who had been on mission trips to Zambia many times. She had talked to a pastor there who had alcoholics coming into his church and wanted to know what he should do. My friend called me, knowing I was in recovery. I went online to find a meeting. Realizing that the nearest one was over fifty miles away and very few people there have cars, I decided to prepare materials for them on how to start a meeting. I went to my recovery group meetings at my church and got funding to buy books to send. I packed up the books, included notes on how to run a meeting, and merrily sent off the package to Africa. The package got stuck in customs and never arrived. Four months went by. I was very disappointed. Months later, out of the clear blue, I heard this distinct message from God, “I didn’t want you to send books. I wanted to send you.” I did not want to go to Africa, but I knew in that moment I would go. Not only was I in Zambia talking to women about alcoholism on the day I got sober exactly ten years prior; I was speaking on the hour I got sober. God was very specific about where I should be on that day. Not in a million years did I think that I would be talking to people in Africa ten years later about staying sober—I was just trying to stop drinking for that day in 2004! While there in Zambia, I got to visit that pastor and sit across from him in his dirt floor church talking about his meeting for alcoholics. I realized that God had taken me halfway around the world to encourage this one man—and that was enough. My purpose now is to carry this message to other people who struggle with addiction as I have struggled in the past and to let them know there is a solution and there is hope. My hope is that this book encourages you and lifts you on your recovery journey.
About the Author
“My name is Heidi. I am an alcoholic in recovery.” That is how I introduce myself now. Although I don’t drink anymore, the disease of addiction needs to be addressed and treated daily with a commitment to telling the truth and staying connected to God and to others like myself. Writing these books began as a strong call from God to write them to help others. These are simple realizations coupled with my photography and meant for alcoholics and addicts to identify with and to relate to thoughts to read and for them to consider and to know that they are not alone on this road to recovery. These books are fifteen-minute reads—fifteen thoughts, fifteen photos. I realized in my own early recovery that this was the short information-receiving window I had! As a transformed woman with 4,378 days of sobriety (12 years), I know that I could not have done this without God. Period. I would not bet on anyone staying sober without getting the concept of surrender to God. I am forever grateful for God speaking through me with these simple reads. People have told me they have given these books to someone who was “thinking” about getting sober but could not do it before this. They have come back to me and told me about the miracles of these gentle messages being received by their loved ones and them deciding to get sober. My husband, Dick, and I live on the coast of California in a sweet little town called Aptos. He is a retired dentist. I have had my own graphic design business, Heath Design, serving the Silicon Valley high-tech industry for over thirty-five years. I didn’t start writing until after I got sober in 2004, three days before my fiftieth birthday. I never felt compelled to write before that. My other great joy is being a watercolor dog portrait artist. I love to capture the love shared between the dog and their owner through portraiture. I am totally committed to God and to my sobriety. My prayer is to give back through these books what was so freely given to me.