I think we all have things which puzzle us from time to time. I know that I do and I know others who tell me the same thing. What to do? Sometimes they’re little things but just as often big things. But they’re things, which start slowly in the mind and then, after a while, seem to be occupying our full attention.
I know for me that I often try to push them aside, but inevitably they rise back up, testing my patience and often accompanied by worry and fear. They don’t seem like much at the start, but seem to have a life of their own. Recently I had such an occasion. A friend leaned over at a meeting and said they were going to take a trip to Carolina and would I care to ride along. Not a big question. No big deal. I said I’d think about it. I knew I had a few days to answer this, so I shoved it aside. That afternoon I found myself asking myself questions. That night I found myself going in and out with this and so the next day. Should I or shouldn’t I? There were a lot of good reasons for going and there were just as many reasons not to. I mean, this was not so much a moral question as it was one of convenience or inconvenience. Finally I couldn’t stand this “no big deal” any longer and picked up the phone and called an old friend of mine.
A simple question requiring nothing but a simple answer. But wait a minute. Then how come I was going through all these mental gyrations? I remember an old friend years ago, waking me in the early morning with a phone call from Boston. Her husband had just undergone some very serious surgery. She was at the hospital and, when I asked how he was doing, she said she had to wait until later on in the day, when she would be able to talk to the surgeon. Meanwhile she was going through all kinds of things in her head and her heart. I said that she was looking at it the wrong way and why not call the doctor and ask what was going on? She said she knew that, but needed “permission” to take the action.
I knew exactly what she was saying. I often think I know what to do, but for some reason can’t get off the dime to do it.
The minute I talk to someone I trust, they tell me the same thing and all of a sudden I can do it. Before I couldn’t. What is that?
To me it’s why I’m in here and others are “out there”. Call it alcoholism or the alcoholic mind, but it’s one of the things which separate me from the rest of the population. Carl Jung nailed it down when he told his patient, “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic…”. Whatever that is I have it, also. I may not be able to describe it, but I know what that is.
I know exactly what step I should take to solve a problem, but can’t seem to get it into action. I ask someone or tell them what’s going on and lo and behold they tell me what I’ve already thought and I can do it. For some unknown reason I need “permission” to take that next step.
Why all this going around the barn to get to the point? The point is that someday I may reach that critical place where I’m in the “alcoholic box”. That’s a place where the alcoholic finds himself facing three options. He feels he is going to go crazy, or the option to kill himself, or to drink. Sound far fetched? Not in my experience or the experience of those who have gone through this. It’s the ultimate puzzle. The one which Bill warns us about in the BB. The one which says there may come a time when the alcoholic may have no mental defense against the first drink. When’s that? And, would I know it before I found myself in the “box”?
I don’t have the answer to that, anymore than Bill did, when he wrote the word “may”. I only know that if I stay current and talk to others and practice that over and over, that day probably will not come. It’s not easy for someone like me, who just loves to worry and fret, to give this up and tell someone else what is going on. But the practice of this is what just might save my sobriety and my life. Or, like they say, more to be revealed.