Today I was thinking about yesterday. I thought about the old ideas again and realized that something I was told a long time ago was true. This is not only a program of learning a new way of life, it is a program of unlearning.
I was also thinking about what was wrong with my old ideas. Why, when I said to my sponsor, “What about the good old ideas?”, he replied, “You have no good old ideas.” Today, I can understand what he was saying. It wasn’t the old ideas themselves, it was my twisted perception of those ideas. My view of life and the world, when I came in was completely turned around. I couldn’t see anything the way others saw it, or what I needed to see. Turning thngs around in my mind and my heart was going to take a long, long time. I was going to have to unlearn and learn all over again.
But this process of unlearning doesn’t have to be gut wrenching. It is after all a process. Sometimes it may be painful and unsettling. At least it has been that for me at times. Bill W, talks about this in the 8th Step in the 12&12, when he says that opening old emotional wounds may seem like a pointless piece of surgery. But the effort, though painful, is worth it, as we see one obstacle after another melt away. He is, of course, talking about an inventory of harms we have done others and their after effects on us. However, some of these old ideas of mine relate directly to this process. Others might not, but the process is still the same.
Anyway, when I read the 10th Step in the 12&12, Bill asks us a question, when he talks about the acid test we all need to pass: can we stay sober, keep in emotional balance, and live to good purpose under all conditions? To keep in emotional balance. That’s what I lacked as a result of trying hang on to my old ideas. The result of unlearning brings me closer to this emotional balance, as I learn this new way of life. I’m beginning to learn something about emotional maturity.
It’s all about living sober.