People, places, and things. What I am powerless over. That was pretty much the subject of the meeting I was at today and what I have been thinking about the last couple of days. Probably a cause of a lot of folks going back to a drink again. At least in my experience, from what I have witnessed.
What we were talking about were friends and relatives we’ve been unable to help get sober. I remember learning, back many years ago, was that often these people knew our own stories, having witnessed what we went through in our drinking. We stopped drinking but they didn’t. Why? Because they could point the finger at us and saying we had to stop drinking, because we had to. Not them. They didn’t need a reformed alcoholic telling them anything.
But that frustrates people like myself. I know, because I tried to help my brother. He drank until he finally got cancer and died. Others told a lot of the same kinds of stories today.
How did that affect me. I realize today that it was my ego that got in my way. In fact, when it comes to people, places, and things, I still want them to do it my way. My way or the highway, as I’ve heard so many times. The birth of so many resentments in the past. It’s in the BB in the 5th Chapter.
When I’m like that, it shows how I failed to grow up. Ashley Montague, the eminent anthropologist once said, that of all the animals in the animal kingdom, man has the longest childhood. It lasts from birth to death. Telling us that it takes a long time to grow up. And children always want their own way. Like my sponsor told me about myself, I want what I want, when I want it. And he would say about that, that I would get what I would get, when I got it and not before…if I ever got it.
Fortunately for me, because of this program, I have grown up a little. Maybe not much, but I have learned to step back and not try to control things. Such as thinking I can change someone else. Or change the world. But once in a while I will find myself thinking that maybe if I did this, or that, or made this move, or said this thing. Talk about driving oneself crazy.
Again, when I think I should be able to change someone and find out they won’t, that’s the fertile ground for one big resentment. They won’t do it my way. And that, as I have found out is an invitation to that next drink. How do I know? Some have come back into the program and told me. But, just as many others, like those today, learned from their experiences with their friends and families it doesn’t have to be that way. They learned to back off and pay attention to their own need to stay sober.
And staying sober is exactly what I was thinking about, when it came to people, places, and things. It’s what I think about and pray about. Whatever I do, I know I need to depend upon my higher power. I’m powerless over this stuff. I need to turn it over to my higher power and let go. When I do, my peace of mind and serenity returns. I am once again comfortable with myself and grateful to my higher power for keeping me sober.