Emotional Sobriety and Duct Tape

The other night at a meeting, a guy I'll call Jim shared his misadventure with his cell phone. It seems the battery panel wasn't holding the phone's battery in any more. Wanting to save some money on a replacement phone, he purchased one on Craiglist.

Alas, phone number 2 does not work, and as the reader can guess, the merchant is nowhere to be found for a refund. Angrily, he duct-taped the battery panel onto the original phone and stormed out of his house to a meeting, where many shared about how to make lemons when life hands us lemonade (or whatever non-alcoholic beverage you would make with a blackberry).

I asked him how his phone worked with the duct tape. Great! he enthused. So I asked, why did he buy a replacement phone when the duct tape fixed the problem?


"Because I didn't want people to think I couldn't afford a new phone."

On the surface, it looks like this guy's problem is scammers on Craigslist, but I think he has a part to play in his own misery.

Jim purchased the replacement phone out of pride. The duct tape solved the problem, but he wanted others to be impressed with his new gadget, and maybe therefore with Jim himself.  He wants life to improve based on an external condition: the ownership of a cooler-than-yours phone.  To make matters worse, Jim can't afford a new phone, so when he started prowling Craigslist, he did it to bolster a false image to others!

If Jim wanted to save time, money, and emotion, he could have adopted a grateful attitude for a cell phone that's working with such a simple fix. No Craigslist drama!

I know it's wrong to sell bad stuff to people - I get that. But "anger is the dubious luxury of normal men", and I am not normal. I need to focus every ounce of emotional energy into my sobriety.  I don't have the luxury of spending any of it on Craigslist crime, or whether or not people will think less of me if I have duct tape on the back of my phone.

Day 14

What a strange two weeks it's been. I believed that two weeks of praying for my "enemy" would enlighten me, but I had no idea that I would learn that ...

1) Forgiveness is an act, not an emotion. Each day, I prayed, whether I felt like it or not. Halfway through this, I realized I had to let her off of my psychological hook, whether I felt like doing that or not either.

2) Life changes in an instant, and in ways we can't imagine. If you'd told me two weeks ago that P would be sitting in prison right now, I'd have been shocked. It's easy for me to think that the way life looks at a particular moment is the way it will always look. I have been dramatically reminded that life has it's own pace.

3) HP really is in control. Others can do things intending their actions to harm me, but HP can use those very acts of theirs to benefit me.

4) This disease is no joke. I just had a ringside seat for someone's relapse and subsequent imprisonment. I have relished this reminder that while sobriety is fellowship and service and friendship, alcoholism is jails, institutions and death.

Day 13

It's official - P appears on the county jail list of active inmates.

This has been a humbling thing to watch, in that it reminds me of the gravity of alcoholism. While I've been doing this for many years, I have never witnessed someone go back out and then also witness their downfall - everyone I've seen go back out just disappears.

Throughout my day I have found myself marveling at the things I can do and experience that she will not be able to for a long while: taking my son to school, deciding what to prepare for dinner, cleaning the house ... none of these things seemed mundane today. They seemed like gifts.

It is Gratitude Month, indeed.

Gone in 60 Seconds

I did a small job for our area's upcoming Gratitude Gala recently, which allowed me to meet the District officers and volunteers. The chairman of the Gala committee was 2 years sober. He seemed really enthusiastic about the event.

He relapsed this weekend, and the money the District fronted him for the event is gone.

You know, I couldn't really care less about the money. Really what gives me the heebie-jeebies is the concept that in seconds, all my sobriety can be gone. Years of work, vanished. The trust I have earned inside and outside the recovery community, ruined.

It's terrifying. It makes me grateful for my sobriety. It reminds me that the enemy still stalks me, and my HP is my only defense.

Fear vs. Faith

"You can rest in the faith that God will take care of you." - 24 Hours a Day

I am struggling with my anxiety in ways I haven't had to since my custody battle over a year ago. I am freaked out about my job, my son's father, and my bio-family. I'm distraught with worry to the point that I have physical symptoms.

Today's Language of Letting Go devotional reads, in part "The choice is ours. Will we let ourselves feel? Will we take a spiritual approach, including gratitude, toward the event? Will we question life and our Higher Power by asking what we're supposed to be learning and doing? Or will we use the incident to prove old, negative beliefs? Will we say, 'Nothing good ever happens to me... I'm just a victim... People can't be trusted... Life isn't worth living'?"

That's the way I used to handle this, along with lots of booze. If mounting the pity pot worked for me, I would probably go back to that pattern, because it's easy - it's what I know.

But it doesn't work. Pitypotism has gotten me nowhere in life.

Gratitude towards the events is tough. I know I am grateful for income coming in. I know I would not miss knowing my wonderful little boy even knowing what I know now about his father. I am grateful for HP making me able to do my best with him, and people tell me that my best with him is pretty darn good. I am grateful for my non-biological family in the program.