Easy?

I was still thinking of restoration to sanity this morning. For me, the freedom from the bondage of alcohol is still the first thing in my life today. Hope it always will be. The 2nd Step. The beginning of the solution.

But what about the rest of my need for more sanity besides that? For me that has been a process. Applying the Steps and learning. Sometimes successful and others…oh, well.

One of the first things I had to learn was how to handle mood swings. The good moods and the bad moods. I had those, when I came in and they stayed with me for a good period of time, until I learned something important. I learned from my sponsor and others and my readings, that once I’m in a good mood, it will seduce me into a bad mood very quickly. What did I learn? I had to learn how not to let myself be caught up in either one. I had to learn to sidestep moods. And I did. I rarely ever have these anymore. And if I find myself in one or the other, I know that it’s up to me to get rid of it.

Part of that is understanding two things, which I learned in here, which added to balance in my life. The first was my attitudes. And, as I proceeded through these Steps my attitude began to change from negative to positive. The second thing was what my sponsor and those old timers kept trying to teach me. It’s what Bill W. talked about in The Language of the Heart. Emotional maturity. Growing up and becoming an adult. Well, most of the time.

They kept reminding me to place my intellect over my emotions. Not to let my emotions do my thinking for me. To learn to sidestep my emotions and use my head for what it’s there for. And there are the tools in the Steps to help me do that. 6 and 7 and 10. But also the housecleaning Steps, 4 and 8. From them I learned what was inside of me, which made me an emotional wreck at times. I could look back to the way I grew up and how all this came out in my drinking.

I remember reading a doctor, who was well known back in the 80s for his thoughts. He was always writing his thoughts down. A pathologists, he was really more than that. He once wrote about his worries. He said he worried so much during the day that he finally had to put an end to it, because it affected his work and his life. So, he made up his mind that no matter what the worries were that came up in a day, he would follow a rule. He would put the worries on hold so that he could spend an hour after he finished work and think about them. The laugh was that, when the appointed hour came to ponder his worries of the day, they were gone. I thought about what he said and decided to follow his example. Guess what?

That’s just some of the stuff I think about and try to practice to stay on balance. Not going too high or too low. Using my head for something else than a hat rack. Trying daily not to let my emotions take over. To put worries, stress, tensions on hold for a later hour to deal with them.

Does it always work? I wish.But if I put my mind to it, yes. When I get complacent, self satisfied, full of me, when I think I’m smart and know it all, then no. That’s because I’ve forgotten who I really am. Just another drunk.

Was any of this easy? No. Definitely not. It was difficult and took a long time for some of this. Even though I’m hardly finished, I have a long way to go, it’s been worth it. What I have found in here has been wonderful and I’m grateful, because all this has added to my being sober.