It's all in your head

It is all in your head……………………..

I have been told I have a dis-ease of perception.  For 9 years…  Really?  How do I get beyond that?

In our big book it is written several times how we really can’t see the truth from the false when we are still drinking (or other substances).  That what mulls around in (ok, I’ll refer to ‘me’) my head doesn’t have to be my reality.

I have been in this program since 2005.  It took till 2007 to really find the happiness of sobriety.  And even that can come and go or be fleeting.  But those good days are so worth the other.

So, if my thinking is my problem (that is, I think of ‘me” too often and not you) what about me, what about me! What am I going to do to change that?

Ahh, the 12 steps.  I have a young woman I have been working with on and off for 4 years.  She just can’t get “it”.  Over the weekend she blew it out again and then called Sunday morning saying she is really struggling.  Really?  Well let’s see.  Work the steps, live the steps and learn to think of ourselves less often and ‘others’ more.  See, if I am wrapped up in what is going to happen to ME then my world gets smaller.  I am shut off from ‘others’ that includes God.  Yes, GOD.  Good orderly direction, or, just GOD.  See daily even after working the steps I still try to remain open to God’s power in my life.  Allowing my life to be directed in a path that is worth living, not my way that will choice self-destruction if given the choice while drinking, or given enough emotional pain.   Anything to change the way I feel and certainly without proper knowledge, change how I think.  Totally misguided use.  But that is another chapter.

So, my favorite pages are 86-89.  If you have read this book you know what I am talking about.   ‘upon awakening’  it gives us suggestions as to how to live through our day.  Live!  Not curl up in a ball and bawl; which is how I operated anytime fear crept in.  Fear of losing what I had/have or fear of not getting what I want.  Self-absorbed, don’t you think?

When I get in the middle of the promises of this program, when I work with another and share the experience I have or the pages I have read, things start to change.  Mostly ME.

If you believe in that power, then tap in to it.  Ask God for help….. with (fill in your blank).  He has never left me, not will he. 

So, friends that just won’t believe, or are skeptical don’t fret.  If you are in enough pain, then do something different.  Try to live by the principals of the AA program.  And, if after a year you are still unhappy, go drink.  We gladly give you your misery back.

I say I am a ‘free’ woman.  But what I am really saying is I strive daily to get out of the way (my thinking) and allow life to flow.  Ahhh, that not only sounds wonderful but it is.  

For someone that dodged life for many years without even knowing it; this has been a totally eye opening deal.  And it isn’t even mine.  It’s there for anyone.  Just ask…. Find the symbol and jump in with both feet.