I was reading and thinking about some of Bill W’s. words about emotional maturity. He talked about how much misery he endured as a result of staying on the emotional merry go round, due to his demands, his dependencies.
I thought about what he had to say and how I think I’m doing with that myself. He was a long time sober, when he wrote this. I can well understand his difficulties. The deep seated causes are so hidden from someone like me, as they were for Bill.
It’s one thing to say I know all about this and another to actually understand what it means. My reading about wanting to control others, my dependency on others responding to me in the way I desire them to, and me thinking I don’t, me thinking I don’t want what I want, while I actually do, can lead to disaster in an emotional sense. Just the fact that I might experience disappointment should be a clue.
Another way of thinking about this is to ask myself, what do I expect? And expectations, as I have been told, are introductions to resentments. Some negative emotion.
Before I read that passage in The Language of the Heart, I read another of Bill’s writings about the spiritual awakening. He talked about, not just the miracle of being relieved of our desire to drink and how that has saved my life and the lives of others, but how, if I want to receive the full benefit of being sober, I must begin to practice these principles in all of my affairs. That includes giving of myself, without expectations of anything in return.
The message is that happiness, peace, joy, is the byproduct of right living. I know this requires me to get off that merry go round and depend on my higher power, God as I understand Him, rather than on myself. It’s one thing to say I do and another to actually do this. Not an easy requirement for a self centered alcoholic like myself. But it’s do-able. I see the evidence of so many around me.
So, as I look around today, I think I’m in a good place with my sobriety. Emphasis on today. I know that, because I was tempted to react a number of times today and, by the grace of my higher power and remembering what I have been told by my sponsor, I didn’t. Sidestepping my emotions and staying off of the merry go round.
Just thinking that there’s so much more to sobriety than not drinking.