Some wag wrote a poem and published it our local paper. To sum it up, he was talking about adults, who purported to be “intellectuals”, who at some point find that their thinking doesn’t solve anything and end up with a gun to their head, or in a “major league depression”. It just reminded me of what’s wrong with me and all my “problems”. He wasn’t referring to people like me or alcoholics. He was generalizing. But that made me go back and think.
Bill tells us that we are problem people and that our problems are of our own making. I examined what was bothering me most recently. Then I sat down and talked with a friend of mine and he identified with what I told him. After all, we’re both alcoholics and are dedicated to remaining sober. But experience has told me that it’s our “problems”, which often lead us back to a drink, if unattended.
After a long talk, we both ended up with this: our problems are in our heads. It didn’t matter what was going on with either of us, we really were all right. We both knew from experience that whatever was wrong, our minds tended to think things appeared worse than they really were.
I remember reading a meditation by a respected spiritual writer years ago. He said that if we would but sit down and relax and get in touch with our higher power, we would come to realize that no matter what was going on in the surface of our lives, that deep within we would find that all was well. That seems to fly in the face of what the world would tell us. But I’ve come to know over the years that, when I stop the storm in my mind that there’s truth to what that man said. There’s nothing going on which a drink can fix.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today and resolved in my mind to stay in the day and grateful for the opportunity I had to talk to another alcoholic. It just reminds me of how this program works in spite of me.