Fear is a thief. It steals our peace of mind and it corrodes our sobriety. I know, because I have been victimized by fear over the years. And the worst thing about it is that I have always found that the culprit, who threatened me, was down deep inside of me. It was me.
I should have learned from my mistakes, but never did. As long as I was comfortable, I figured leave it alone and somehow it would take care of itself. I didn’t think I had to do anything. It was all about my laziness. Someplace in the 12&12 it talks about this. We’ll do just enough to get by and no more. That described me to a T. Flying by the seat of my pants. Not paying attention to the directions I was given by my sponsor or the directions in the BB and eventually in the 12&12.
I ought to have known. I came in here to the program and at once discovered that I was a craven coward. As the effects of alcohol wore off, I began to become concious for the first time in twenty plus years of being under anesthesia. The numbness was going and I began to experience what I had been trying to avoid for so long; feelings. The first thing I became aware of was that life was painful. How long had this been going on? I remember reading Peck’s The Road Less Traveled in which he states right at the beginning that Life is difficult. HIs next statement was that if we can accept this, life becomes less difficult. Again, I thought, that’s a nice sentiment, and then glossed over it. I did a lot of that. Especially with the important stuff. Just glanced at stuff and thinking, that’s ok, but it really didn’t apply to me. I’ll deal with it if it ever pops up on the radar.
One of the things that immediately became apparent was that I was always angry. Always. I dealt with everything with anger. My sponsor pointed that out to me and told me that I was going to have to do something with my anger or I could very well get drunk again. I don’t know how often he told me this before I began to hear what he was saying. But, I couldn’t stop getting angry. Then, he pointed out in the BB, where it tells us that we are as powerless over our anger as we are our alcohol. I was going to have to treat my anger like I did the alcohol. I was going to have to surrender and accept and ask a Higher Power to relieve me of the bondage of anger.
After some time had gone by, I found that I was still plagued by anger. Not as badly as it was in the beginning, but it was still popping up. I talked to my sponsor and others about this. Why? My sponsor told me it was an underlying character defect and I had to do something about it. The defect was fear. My anger protected me from the feelings of fear that I had. And, almost in a flash, began to recognize just how much fear there was in my life. Fear of everything. I felt threatened. I became aware of how much paranoia I suffered from. Paranoia; the symptom of extreme self centeredness. Here it was. The root of my problem. The cause of so much pain.
With that in my face, no wonder life was so difficult.
The question was, could I stay sober with this overwhelming fear? I needed help and I knew I needed it fast. The answer was what my sponsor had been telling me all along; the steps. The twelve steps of AA. As I began to go through them, it was like my prayers for help were being answered along the way. As indeed they were. I began to see that there was no easy answer to my dilemma. God would do for me what I could not do for myself, but I was going to have to do the footwork. I was going to have to become willing to let God do what He did best, but it meant I was going to have to let go of my fears and humble myself. Not an easy task for someone like me, who was filled with so much false pride. I found that I rigidly held on to my fears with a grip so tight that it felt like I was having to have my fingers pried away from each and everyone of them.
I remember going through a phase at one point, where the fear of dying loomed into view. It was almost paralyzing. I spoke to my sponsor about this in sheer desperation. He told me something to do, which stopped me dead in my tracks. He instructed me to go home and act out in a way that seemed almost childish. I balked. Not me. I’m not going to do something so stupid. I’d be foolish. I literally felt like a fool. What he told me to do was to go home, go to my bedroom, kneel next to the bed, pretend I had a box, pretend I put this fear in the box, pretend that I pushed the box to the center of the bed, tell God that I was going to give the box and my fear within in to HIm, and then get up and walk out of the room, and leave the box and fear in God’s hands. Overwhelmed, I finally did what he asked. Wonder of wonders, it worked! The fear fell away from me like magic.
From time to time, I have had to humble myself and do something similar, whenever I have been overwhelmed by fear and a whole lot more. It always works. Not necessarily by this formula, but just the act of humbling myself before my Maker. The old axiom of simply turning something over. By acting it out. By becoming willing to do whatever it takes.
Someone at the meeting today, brought up the fact that she had been threated physically at a concert downtown. She said it threw her into fear and panic. I really didn’t think about this stuff until I got home. And here I am thinking about what worked for me. It’s part of my sobriety. I need to remind myself.