I remember being sent to bed at a reasonable hour as a child
while my older brother and sister got to stay up with my parents. A dark room, discontent, and imagination
created a bogeyman in the closet. The
closet door opened slightly, I called out with terror for help, and a parent
came in to reassure me. Then, I was
again alone in the darkness and could see the closet door open just a little
bit, and… [repeat several times a week].
Switch to adulthood.
Several hours of drinking, isolating myself, day after day, and in my
world I saw my life in ruins, everybody and everything out to get me, and
leaving me in poverty. Blame,
resentment, anger multiplied like cancer cells.
Apply AA principles of sober living to the affected area,
work the Steps, pray, meditate, remember The Promises, go to meetings. Relief comes, the plague of faulty cancerous thinking
clears up, and life is rich. The past
three years, life for me has become progressively brighter and better.
How can it be that I could slip back into creating monsters
after enjoying such recovery? The past
two days, even while beginning to feel consumed and experiencing the toxic
thoughts, responding with prayer and meditation and reading from the Big Book,
the mind kept manufacturing its own reality and all seemed lost. Feelings of isolation, fears that bills can’t
be paid, taking up heavy burdens without any need to tote them, and the spirit
begins to spin into a self-induced collapse from the weight.
Relief comes from talk, honesty, and fearlessness in
acknowledging how the mind can water the seeds of fear. There is no way to the light other than
walking through the darkness. No shame
here, no guilt, no despair, only recognition, renewal, and recovery. Day by day, hour by hour, sometimes great
strides, sometimes small steps, sometimes stumbles, always getting back up.
