# 341 Anchor In Recovery

[Music] What's up everybody? I'm David Hain. Welcome to episode number 341 of the A2D from Attic to Disciple Podcast. I would love to welcome the new listeners from Jordan, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Belize, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Oman, and Pakistan. That brings the total listeners up to 98 countries. Wow, I'm just blown away guys. Thank you for sharing this around the world and for those of you who are finding us on search engines share with your friends and I do want to say as the listeners in new countries keep growing. If you would like to get our curriculum, you can contact me. The books are available on Amazon in ebook or paperback format. It's called From Ashes to Destiny. If you have trouble finding it, just drop me a message and I'll help you out. Also if you'd like more than the curriculum, please contact me and we'll see if we can arrange my supporting you in Zoom groups and Zoom and WhatsApp information also. Today's episode again is number 341 of the A2D from Attic to Disciple Podcast and it's entitled Anchor and Recovery. Let me just say at the beginning this is going to be the first of two parts. This one is going to focus on the anchor in recovery and the second is going to be the win in your recovery. We'll be looking for each of these at sort of the pros and cons. So today we'll be talking about the pros and cons of what is your anchor in recovery. And we'll start by saying what is an anchor? Well, if you Google what's the purpose and definition of an anchor, it says an anchor is a heavy metal device attached to a vessel by a cable or a chain designed to dig into the seabed to hold a ship or a boat in place and prevent its drifting. Its primary purpose is to provide safety and stability allowing vessels to remain stationary to rest or that you can even go fishing without having to rely on a motor or or is to propel your ship. So let's look at each of these aspects and see how they might apply to you and where you're at in your recovery. So first an anchor is a heavy device. So not a light thing. It's strong. It's not easily moved and it says it digs into the seabed. So the purpose of an anchor is not to just be rolled around with the tide but to really dig in, dig into the soil, dig into the seabed and hold you in place. It stops you in a moment when you drop an anchor. It stops you right where you are right where the anchor digs in and it prevents you drifting in a current. Currents can shift, tide shift and beat against you but the anchor holds you firm, holds you strong. It provides that safety and stability. It does the hard part for you. So if you're in recovery and the tides are shifting and situations change and storms come up, the anchor does that hard part of saying, how do I stand firm in the midst of this temptation? How do I stand firm in the midst of the cravings? How do I stand firm in the midst of the storms? Drop anchor. Let it dig into the seabed of your recovery. And when you do that and the anchor is keeping you stationary and stable, even though the pole is strong in many directions, you can rest and it anytime when the going is hard and you need to take a break, you need to say, this is just pulling too strong against me, too strong against me. So I often describe it as like that strong magnet, drawing you back to relapse. Drop anchor and get stationary, find a way to rest and take a deep breath. And I like the last aspect in the definition from Mary Webster, which says, it allows you to fish without having to propel your boat. What's cool about this is when the fish are biting, you can stay right there and catch all you need. You're hearing good ideas, you're digging into your recovery program. And good stuff is happening and good ideas are coming out. Drop anchor and be able to just fish without having to worry about how to keep your boat moving. So I want to ask you what's your anchor in recovery with each of these aspects. So first, what's your heavy metal device, so to speak? It could be the curriculum from ashes to destiny that we use in traumatic to disciple. It could be the 12 steps. It could be another book that you use daily devotions or daily thoughts. It could be the Bible. Whatever your tool is whatever your faith is, whatever is this strong object. Drop the anchor and let it dig in. When it digs in, for me, this is a reminder to say, don't try to do it all alone. When you dig in into the seabed of your recovery, you should have sponsors, coaches, counselors, mentors, other guys that are supporting you. And your support system can be that group that holds you in place, especially if you're going to support groups regularly. Or it can simply be that one person that will always be there to listen, not judgemental, not trying to correct you, but someone that you can just vent to, someone that you can just share what is out there pulling you in different directions and just say, hey, just keep me in prayer, keep me in your thoughts. And what would you do in my situation? And the anchor prevents you from drifting. And again, for me, this is that recovery group. This is a place that you're involved, that you're active, you're open, you're honest, you're sharing. And other guys are too. We learn so much to prevent us from drifting by hearing what other guys are doing. What other guys have done when they feel the tide and the current shifting on them. The anchor also provides that stability and allows you to remain stationary. So for me, these things are what is your routine in recovery? There's nothing more that helps us just stay in one place and to feel stable than having a routine. So what's the stuff that you do every day that keeps you strong in your recovery, keeps you anchored in your recovery? What are your responsibilities? What are your tasks that you do? What does your journal time look like? You're quiet time, your time of contemplative meditation and thought? What are you writing down in your journal? How does the fellowship that you have with other guys in recovery help to provide that safety and stability and keep you stationary? So what is your harbor? What is your port where you can feel like a boat that just comes in out of the storm, ties off to the harbor dock and knows that it's not going to be pulled back to sea? So here you would look at your people places and things from positive standpoints. Who are the people that help you stay stationary? What is the place? What is your safe harbor? What is your refuge? Your Haven? What are the things that you do and the things that you read and the things that you listen to that help you stay strong in stationary? And it says the anchor allows you to take a break, allows you to rest. So I want to ask you what do you do to take a break? What refreshes you are you paying attention? Not to just say I'm going to lay down and sleep, but to say I can take a breath and just kick back and sort of see my situation, see these shifting tides and currents from a different perspective. And when the fish are biting, take notes, take notes when you're in groups, take notes when you're reading, take notes, put them in your journal, read them again and again, go back in your journal and look at what you wrote earlier. And write down how you're applying them, maybe get two different colored pens, one when you take the note and one when you figure out how to apply that idea. So use your journal, measure your tangible progress. So what are some cons in recovery about having an anchor? I've seen that lots of guys fall into this one and that is When you drop anchor, it's easy to just stay where you are and say, "Hey, I'm just out of plateau. I've reached a good spot. I don't need to grow anymore. I don't need to do anything." And so they drop the anchor, it digs in, and find that it's hard to pull up the anchor when it's time to move into a new situation, when it's time to move back into community reintegration when it's time to move and work the program. Also we can find that the anchor almost increases our fear, our sort of mental pain, of trying to find the momentum to get going again. If we drop the anchor, it can also keep us oblivious or unaware of the shifts in the current, even unaware of coming storms because we get too content because the anchor is doing all the work for us. Also, if we're anchored and stationary, we can get tunnel vision, where we're only seeing this limited view from one spot as our boat is anchored there. And when we have tunnel vision, our vision is really limited. We can also be anchored to the wrong thing. We can be so hungry looking for a place to anchor out of the chaos that we don't recognize the undermining that's happening. We can get focused too much on the past and working with people who just talk about the good old days or talk about all their grief and shame and guilt and sorrows. And then anchor can become our means of escape from doing the hard work that way. So we really need to look at this from the pros and the cons. We need to understand our season in life, our season in recovery. When the anchor brought a safety and stability, when we desperately needed it, but we equally need to know how to convert the aspects of growth into our mast, into our sails so we can keep moving forward. And that's what we're going to be looking at next week. How do we know that it's time to pull up the anchor? Because the winds have changed, the currents have changed. How do we need to get our sails up and moving again? And that's what next week's topic going to be. So thanks for listening to today's episode of the A2D from Attic to Disuckle Podcast. You can reach out and contact me through the message link in whatever platform you listen to this episode. Or you can send me an email at David from [email protected] or go to my website, www.fromatud.org and click on the contact page. Again, especially if you're one of the new listeners, I do Zoom groups, I do WhatsApp groups and one-on-ones, please reach out. Listening to future podcast episodes and as always, stay safe and stay resilient.