OKaysez

 

Our mind is a garden. Our thoughts are the seeds.

We can grow flowers … Or we can grow weeds.

 

 

        The Problem Is Always Me

 

What???   I'm the problem??? I don't think so!! 

After all …

HE fired me! ... SHE stole my savings! ... HE never stops yelling at me ... 

THEY are spreading lies about me ... HE's the one having the affair ... 

SHE won't believe me ... HE broke his promise ... SHE’S my sister and treats 

me like dirt ... My father lied to me ...  SHE blabbed my secret ...

 

We can play that blame game forever, but if we want emotional sobriety - 

aka: serenity - we may want to look at what our A.A. program teaches us. 

Like this from the 12&12:

 

It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are

 disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is 

something wrong with us.

 

And this from the Big Book:

Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, 

we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us,

seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in 

the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed 

us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.

 

In the A.A. magazine The Grapevine, Bill W. himself was quoted as saying:

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the 

root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. 

Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling liabilities. 

Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to twelfth-step

 ourselves, as well as others, into emotional sobriety.

 

Yeah, sure. Easy for Saint Bill to say, but not so easy to do if you're just a

 struggling drunk like me.

 

 But remember, it was "Saint Bill" who actually wrote those words we hear 

at every meeting: "We are NOT saints." We'll have to step back here and

 remember Bill W. - who gave us so much - was an unsaintly drunk just like

 the rest of us.

 

Sure, he was inspired - many say God inspired - when he and Dr. Bob put our

 incredible program of recovery together.  And there is no doubt both men 

were highly intelligent, strong-minded, high-achieving individuals. But the

 same can be said of many A.A. members. The difference is, our founders

 recognized that to stay sober they had to let go of any hint of being victims.

 

When we were still ignorant about addiction, we were victims of its power,

 but once in recovery we are no longer ignorant so we are no longer victims. 

No matter what we've lived through, we're still here. That makes us now 

survivors working on becoming better people.

 

 Our history has taken us from victimhood to victory. By climbing our steps of

 recovery, we get to the places offering life's finest views.

 

The moment we fall back into old behaviors and start playing the blame game it's

 time to rein ourselves in. We do it by looking at our part in whatever situation

 is causing us unrest.

 Because, clearly, the statement – Every time we are disturbed,

 no matter what the cause, there is something wrong

with us. - offers no loopholes.

 

I wish I had a crisp dollar bill for how many times I’ve heard someone in A.A. 

say “My family doesn’t understand me.”

How could they? We defied all understanding when we drank.

But our A.A. “family” understands us perfectly and they tell us, regardless of

 what’s happening around or to us, we have the responsibility to look only at

 our part.

Others in our lives may seem unreasonable, but - just as holding onto

 resentments is dangerous for us - so is holding onto the blame game. We must

own our part in any life problems we're experiencing.

 

Easy to do? Nope. Acceptance is seldom easy. It can often feel like submission;

 but it’s not. Acceptance is actually when we acknowledge the facts of a

 situation and then decide what we need to do about it.

 

When we regularly do our Tenth Step nightly inventory we will start to see our

 part in our problems with others. It’s where we learn we must stop judging

 others and ourselves.

So, throw the stick away you still beat yourself up with and start acknowledging you have good qualities, too.

(Yes, this means you).

 

We are not always in the wrong, but our self-respect will be enhanced every

 time we act on the phrase: ... when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

 

Our Tenth Step work teaches us the person upsetting us the most is our best

 teacher!!! Our goal is to mentally thank that person for offering us so much

 to learn about ourselves. (I'll be working on this one till the day I die,

 but I'm better than I used to be … progress, not perfection).

 

The 12&12 states that all of us Are to some extent emotionally ill as well as

 frequently wrong, and it urges us to develop tolerance so we can learn ... 

what real love for our fellows actually means.

When we don't learn from our mistakes, we remain driven by them. 

Freedom is the absolute discovery of the joy to be found in living our own way,

 but better.  Freedom is actually obedience to our inner Higher Self, the

 One seeking expression through us.

 

The program of AlAnon, made up of those amazing souls who have to deal 

with us drunks (wet or dry), while maintaining their own peace of mind, 

teaches that everyone is to some extent emotionally ill.

One of the AlAnon sayings is:

 

Don't take anyone's inventory but your own.

 

It's great advice! Do you know anyone who is physically, mentally or spiritually

 perfect? I don't and I don't expect I ever will.  If "they" aren't perfect and

 "we" aren't perfect, how can we expect emotional sobriety unless we learn to cut everyone some slack?

 

The best way I've found is to begin treating others as I would like them

 to treat me - as that high-valued yellow metal "rule” suggests. *

It's pretty much the gold standard for finding emotional sobriety.

 

 

 

*(The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.)

 

 

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