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…

Every day

How often do I use being busy to stop me focusing on what “needs” to be done? I “should” get my car changed, I “should” pay more attention to my pension, but I know these will expose what I don’t want to look at. My increasing age and fragile finances.

When I drank, paraphrasing the words of the song, “I planned to die before I got old,” and so why worry.

This is surely part of the double edged sword we trick ourselves with. Gratitude for being sober? Look at the worries I carry. There is a really old joke. A man threw himself out of a skyscraper and each window he passed they heard him say. “So far so good.”

Staying alive and re-joining the human race has been a wonderful journey and the longer that it goes on, the more I need faith to lean upon. I also need people who will challenge me and push when I’d rather bury my head and need to let these people know my worries and fears otherwise they assume I’m OK.

Every day, I re-invent the reason I need AA and the meetings.