Prayer is being loved at a deep, sweet level. I hope you have felt such intimacy alone with God. I promise you it is available to you. Maybe a lot of us just need to be told that it is what we should expect and seek. We're afraid to ask for it; we're afraid to seek. It feels presumptuous. We can't trust that such a love exists. But it does.
"Now comes the biggest question yet. What about the practice of these principles in all our affairs? Can we love the whole pattern of living as eagerly as we do the small segment of it we discover when we try to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety? Can we bring the same spirit of love and tolerance into our sometimes deranged family lives that we bring to our A.A. group? Can we have the same kind of confidence and faith in these people who have been infected and sometimes crippled by our own illness that we have in our sponsors? Can we actually carry the A.A. spirit into our daily work? Can we meet our newly recognized responsibilities to the world at large? And can we bring new purpose and devotion to the religion of our choice? Can we find a new joy of living in trying to do something about all these things?" I wrote about the difficulties with my husband yesterday. And guess what we read last night in our step meeting? ...the above from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book. I had a chance to talk to my sponser as well as my therapist and then the meeting. Not to mention the suggestions I have received here. Can I answer yes to these questions? Not really.
So here's the thing. I have rocked my husband's world. I've flipped it on him. I am no longer the same woman he's been with for 27 years...22 of it married. We met in a bar, we dated in bars, I worked in a bar for half our marriage and finally I turned our home into a bar. He has certain expectations of that woman he was with, certain patterns...but she's no longer there. She's not overcompensating for drinking anymore. She doesn't react the same way. She doesn't have the same priorities. Her focus has changed. Not only that, she is trusting and relying upon God..not him. And he's still stuck in the old system. And to be fair, I haven't really talked to him about any of this. He's not interested in sharing any of it yet and that's okay. He doesn't have to participate...just by giving him an idea of where I am may help. He's grateful I am sober..I think. We had a brief discussion when I made amends to him. That helped a little. But it wasn't enough and it's time. Now is the time. I cannot expect him to change...but I can let him know what is changed in me. He's seen it behaviorally to some extent..and he doesn't necessarily like it, but he doesn't really know what I'm feeling. Hard to talk about feelings when the conversation is staying on the surface. My therapist suggested a letter and I'll probably go with that...to get a vacant look will be distracting. And I must remember this quote from Step 7 of the 12 x 12.. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. I cannot have any expectations that things will change.....but I can "try to do something about these things" and then accept it and move on.
"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery. " (The Doctor's Opinion)
Why was the obsession lifted for me? How did that happen? What makes me different from my friend who died? What makes me different from the chronic relapsers I see so much of in the rooms? What makes me different from that new person who no longer wants to suffer the consequences of their drinking?
In the 9 years before I got sober, I watched as my mother drank herself into oblivian. She did not die a physical death but she is lost to me. I watched my uncle die on his bathroom floor where he lay for weeks before being found. And I struggled with my own drinking. "The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death." (pg 30) I did not, no way, no how want to be like them but I was becoming more and more. I could not think of a life without alcohol. I could not get through the day without alcohol. I tried over and over again to stop. I will not drink today. I will not drink ever again. I am done. This is it. Over and over...day in and day out..week in and week out...month in and month out..year in and year out. And once I took that drink I had no power over how much I drank. I'll just have one. I only want one. Let me have a just a sip. Okay two then.......till it was the morning and I had no idea how this happened...again. "they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence." (The Doctor's Opinion).
I cannot even articulate how grateful I am that I did not have to come to the gates of insanity or death as my uncle and mother did. That even though I came to Alcoholics Annonymous with perhaps the hopes that I would find out that I was not an alcoholic, not like them..I was not dead or dying.., that instead I found out that I had a physical and mental disease (not something caused by my own weakness and moral choices) and that there was a solution, a way to recover and that it was outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Annonymous and it wasn't as simple as my willpower..I will not drink. When I heard this, read this I felt relief almost immediately. Or should I say when I understood this. The things I heard in meetings definately helped me not to drink....calling people, go to meetings, H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired), one day at a time, listen (take the cotton out of your ears and put into your mouth), etc. But none of those things removed the obsession to drink and the resulting craving once I started to drink. They are all really good things..really helpful things...and I have seen those things help people not to drink for years. I cannot say however that I have seen those things remove the obsession for anyone. And they certainly were not enough for me. The most helpful thing I heard in meetings was that I needed to work the 12 steps in order to recover. All that other stuff would help me not to drink for a day..but to recover....I had to do the work..the steps.
I did not want to take any chances. And mind you this was not a conscious decision on my part. I could not, not drink. Like I said..those suggestions helped...but I still wanted to drink. I wanted a drink...please. So when I heard the word recover...my ears perked up. I listened. And I began to understand with the help of my sponser and others in the rooms who answered my questions, sometimes before they were even asked. When I got to AA, I knew my life was unmanageable...and that I was powerless over alcohol..my life had proven that....I just needed confirmation and I got it. Identification I think they call it. Then I heard I had to come to believe. In what? So I listened yet again. I read the book..Came to Believe along with the Big Book. And I heard God of my understanding. And I understood that I did not understand. And it happened. I came to believe...at some point here..I had a moment...ironing...when a sudden overwhelming feeling came over me that it was going to be okay. Why? I have no idea..but I accepted the feeling. I did not have to define it anymore..it was just there.
And as I progressed through the steps somewhere along the line the obsession to drink was lifted and removed. I don't think about it anymore...yes, if it's in my face..I may romance it..wish it were different..must be nice.....but it passes and its gone. It just doesn't bother me anymore. I am at peace about alchohol. Now... lots of other things do bother me and that's why I have to keep moving forward. And I have to be vigilant about this because these are the underlying causes and conditions that fed my disease. Resentments, fears, selfcenteredness and the like...these things did not cause me to become an alcoholic....lots of people have these same charachter defects and are not alcoholics...like my husband for instance:)...but what they did was feed my alcoholism...drove me to seek that effect I found from alcohol and then the resulting obsession and craving. Crazy isn't it? Something has clicked.
