Today I got a lesson in right and wrong. I was wrong and someone else was right. Hmmm.
About a week ago I lost my temper at what someone said to me. It involved a really touchy subject where I live. I received a call and someone wanted to talk about this, but what they said got me so angry that I could hardly sleep that night. Worse yet, the thought of what they said hung on and my mind began to think of things I could do to stop them from what I thought they said they were going to do.
Today I learned that’s not what they said. In fact just the opposite. During our talk I was sure they had said something which had built a fire under me. When the man called to today to explain I was surprised. Pleasantly. I realized that maybe key phrases related to the situation up here might have penetrated my head through my reaction. Somehow I had assumed he had said what I thought he had said.
When I found out today the truth, I had to make amends to him for my angry thoughts and the resentment, which I had built within myself. I told him he was right and I was wrong and owed him an apology. I told him that my emotions took over and I was hearing him through the ears of a drunk.
I had prayed and did inventories during the week between our conversations, but there was still a simmering under the surface. And maybe the answer to my prayers came during this call. I sure didn’t want to have this stuff inside of me. It was the kind of stuff I was used to in my drinking days. Days that I never want to return to. But I know that the BB is right about the deadly nature of resentments and I don’t want to go there.
In the past I have let this anger loose and have taken it out on companies, the government, and others in a way that comes close to deadly. People around me knew I was capable of exploding and often were intimidated by a man I laugh at, when I think about it. Here I was, under the influence, playing Arnold Schwarzenegger, when in reality I was Barney Fife.
A friend of mine reminds us all, almost daily, that nothing is worth a drink today. All through these moments I thought about that. I want to stay sober and have to be aware that underneath this quiet exterior of mine there abides that old drunk I knew back decades ago. He’s been sleeping all these years, stirred occasionally by irritations or disturbances, but nothing, which could wake him, as did this event.
I pray he’s back resting peacefully so that under the influence of my higher power I may never wake that sleeping tiger. I fully realize that I’m not cured of this disease of alcoholism. No matter the fact that I never think about a drink, as the result of the spiritual awakening I have undergone, I know that unconsciously within that the next drink is still there.
Perhaps this occasion today has been just what I needed. As my sponsor once said that he needed a two by four up the side of my head to get my attention. Today I woke up and paid attention. I was wrong and he was right…thank God. I’m glad and still sober in spite of myself.