Can’t help but think about our thinking. I was told that the first thought a sober alcoholic has is usually an alcoholic thought. So too for the second thought. And that if I wait past that, I might have a chance to come up with a sober thought.
Does time and applying this program to my life eliminate that kind of thinking. Sometimes, but not all. Not in my experience anyway. I think, as far as I can see, that I can often fool myself into thinking otherwise.
It’s not the thought of a drink which is the problem. it’s the kind of thinking that can get me to open my mouth at the wrong moment, or to take some action that I shouldn’t even be thinking about. It’s kind of like the 10th Step tells me. Whatever it is will end up disturbing me. The spiritual axiom.
Having the patience not to respond to my own thinking initially, and taking the time to wait my thinking out is so valuable to me. Of course, if I know that my thinking is off base, there’s always the telephone or a meeting. Asking someone else to help me check my thinking out. I remember one night I was with my sponsor, when I said I was thinking about taking such and such action. His response was, “Are you nuts?” Well, yeah.
I was listening to a man today at the meeting, who took about twenty minutes to explain his thinking to the group. My first thought was, he should be talking to his sponsor and not the group. Further, to take the advice in the BB, where it tells us to seek outside help. Looking for counseling in a group, whose primary purpose is to carry the AA message to the alcoholic, who still suffers, kind of neutralizes the groups goal.
Anyway, I talked about this with others and thought about my alcoholic thinking. In any given moment, I can take the simplest of things and turn it into a complicated mess. Or, as my sponsor used to say, that I could screw up a one car funeral procession. True. So, I thought I would take time and think about this, hopefully with a sober mind.