Once more I was reminded of emotional sobriety today. For a number of reasons, a couple of people I know, were struggling with their problems and I could relate to their feelings of desperation and what they were saying.
There was a point in my sobriety, when I came to realize that I had missed certain phases in the growing up department of my life. I had a tendency to overreact emotionally to almost anything. I was easily frustrated at every turn. I was soon to learn that I missed going through the adolescent stage of my life. That phase of my teenage period where they say we have “growing pains”. I was going to have to endure that stage in my sobriety when I was in my late 40s and early 50s, and still not take a drink. I was an adult chronologically, but I lacked emotional maturity.
This kind of reaction to life on my part placed an impediment in my dependency on my higher power. It literally threw a monkey wrench into making spiritual progress. It blinded me to the unmanageability of my life and threatened my 1st Step. It put blinders on me to my 2nd Step and a barrier between myself and my higher power and began to restore me to insanity.
Thank God for my sponsor and a couple of those old timers. One thing my sponsor said that got through to me was that things might not get better but that I would. It was also at that point that I was introduced into spiritual direction. I was ready and I didn’t even know it. I had hit another bottom in this program.
At the same time, I had entered in the early stage of looking at my 8th Step. That was the point when I began to see what was really wrong with me. I had thought I was intelligent enough to know what was going on, but, as someone said today, I was “bar smart” and nothing more. I might have been well educated and intelligent, but I didn’t know how to use these things. I was forced back into the 6th and 7th Steps. I was going to learn something about what I most grievously lacked: Humility.
I learned what is often said in the program, that it’s spiritual progress, not perfection. Even today, having grown to a point, where I seem to be in more control, I’m still a long way from attaining to emotional sobriety. I’m better, like my sponsor said.
I did learn one thing from all of this: That no matter what my problems were, I didn’t have to take a drink. I am sober today in spite of myself and know that it is all dependent on my higher power and this program. Listening today makes me truly grateful.