Sobriety Lost Its Priority

At what point is my sobriety most at risk? At times I feel so good that I cannot imagine being ‘that person.’ I cope and life flows effortlessly by. Do I need to put myself out and go to a meeting? Surely I can ‘get by.’

Or, am I more at risk when I feel that my back is against the wall and I don’t know how I’m going to get through. At these times, I need to reinforce myself. Possibly, I need the edge that ‘taking control’ will give me and allow me to manage the situation to steer my life back into calmer waters.

If I’m lucky (and I have been so far,) somebody will point out that both of these are equally dangerous.

I’m never going to be free

My daughter said that somebody had tried to bully my grandson. A terrifying wave of justifiable anger surged through me. Within moments I had decided the only answer would be a petrol bomb. If the entire family who had refused to punish the child had to perish then so be it. I’ve never spoken to this family, or had any contact, but in my head, the discussion had gone badly and the time to act had passed.

Without being able to discuss this insanity in the freedom of my group, how could I survive? At some point I would act on the crazy thoughts. I can never indulge myself in the fantasy of stepping ovwr the line. The moment I do, the sickness takes me to places I don’t want to visit.

One day I might be able to not react this way, but I haven’t reached it yet. My only hope is to continue with the daily reprieve contingent on maintaining a fit spiritual condition. Now where did I hear that before…

Why do bad thoughts last so long?

It’s odd isn’t it, but bad thoughts stay in my head and if I’m not careful they grow.

This week I was driving my wife’s car. It’s not the fastest and it has the overtaking power of a snail, but it gets us around. I signalled to pull into a layby, slowed down and pulled in. As I did, a Mercedes blasted his horn at us.

Now, I’m never going to see this person again, but I wanted to kill them. Why did they do that? They have to be punished. As we drove on, I wanted to catch them up. If I did I was going to leap out and rip them from their comfy cocoon and beat them to a pulp. I was going to…

All that insanity dropped from nowhere and left me with a rage to control. Not only that, I then started to dig through other times I’d been annoyed for no good reason and started to relive those as well.

Crazy thinking that I need to control is always waiting to get me. The search for a perfect serenity isn’t over yet. At the next traffic lights I thought they were two cars in front and debated. I held back. As we turned I realised it was a different car. Thankfully, think twice worked.