We used to hear a lot back in the 70s and 80s about the word “rationalization”. I was told that, when I came in, about the only intellectual process going on in my mind was exactly that; rationalization. Just another word for making excuses for just about anything. Looking for ways out of every situation I was confroted with. It wasn’t straight forward thinking, but a form of deviousness and manipulation. The result was much denial.
I was not capable of right thinking. So, I was instructed to stop thinking. Anyone of us can remember how difficult those suggestions were to accomplish, when we were told “don’t think”.
Of course, I’m still capable of and guilty of rationalization. The exception is that after having been sober a while and having practiced the solution in my daily life, the steps, I don’t have to fall back into this kind of thinking. I’m now capable of thinking pretty much in a straight line. My thoughts today are more solution oriented. I think a lot about this program and what it has and can do for me and for others.
Today I got the opportunity to sit and talk with a man, who was just coming back. In order to get anything straight out of him, I had to wait him out and repeat questions I had asked him before. One was, after getting a whiff of almost pure alcohol, when was the last time he took a drink. His answer was, after a moment of “thought”, last night. Half an hour later I asked that question again and I got 4 am. Considering the freshness of his breath, I would guess it was more like 8 or 9. Tap dancing is the order of the day.
It’s kind of like that old Bill Cosby show, where he confronts the child with a half eaten cookie in his hand. He asks the child did he steal that cookie. The child’s answer is immeadiate. Unh unh. No.
The meeting today was focused on the man, who slipped, and another man, who had raised his hand and admitted that he was thinking of taking a drink again. Rationalization. The sure sign that we’re back in the grips of insanity.
One woman described her former condition of having gained all the things she had lost in her drinking and having eased into a feeling of comfort in her sobriety, finding herself in a mental state, where, if a shoelace broke, she would have been drinking again. She said her sponsor spotted this state of mind and helped her bail herself out of this condition. Unfortuanately I know this kind of thinking.
I think that this is what is meant that this is a simple program for complicated people. We complicate it, because of rationalization. A friend of mine says that’s when we’re reading the white spaces between the black print in the BB. In other words, reading between the lines. Or just not reading it at all.
If we do read the BB we would find that it discusses the state of mind that leads to the drink again. It talks about the failure to enlarge one’s spiritual life. And that’s the key. When I accept the concept of a Higher Power, I must choose to go further. It means to me that I must cease going into the murk of rationalization and to make a rational choice. Either this or that. Living on a spiritual basis or no.
I hope the man I spoke about can and will make the choice. For me, I can’t go back. I can only go forward.
I’m once again reminded of the man, who entered a black tower. He began to explore this tower and began climbing the spiral staircase leading upward. After he had gone quite a ways, he stopped to rest. When he did he looked back and saw that the steps behind him had melted away. He could only go forward or step back into the abyss below. Rationalization might convince me that I could land safely. Or that the next drink won’t hurt me.
Anyway, after the meeting today I was reminded of what the old timers used to tell us. They were right.