The message of the insanity of forgetting kept coming back to me today. I heard it from a couple of people. Someone said, in a response to a remark that was made about being able to remember, that they never remembered. They forgot how alcohol had crushed them and returned to drinking, thinking only of how alcohol could relieve their feelings. Instead it made them worse.
Later in the day, I was talking to another man about his drinking. He told me that he kept repeating his drinking over and over. He couldn’t seem to remember what it was going to do to him. So he keeps on drinking, because he forgets the consequences. Again, the insanity of forgetting.
What I was thinking was that I have to ask God to keep me refreshed and my memory fresh. I want to remember what the drink did to me. I got that, when an old timer of some 40 plus years said that there is no seniority in this program. Every recovering alcoholic, no matter how much time they have in this program, is prone to drinking again. There is no graduation day in this program. Only graduating to the next drink.
That’s why I need to go to meetings. I have to go to keep being reminded that my problem is alcohol. I don’t go for therapy to massage my hurt feelings. If I work the steps on a daily basis and try to practice these principles in all my affairs, just the attempt or effort to do this, whether I succeed or not, will take care of those things. And in the process I can stay sober one day at a time.
I was thinking about this today, because what I heard helped me to remember that my sobriety is the most important thing in my life. It is life for me.