One of the hardest things for me to take, and I’m sure I’m not alone, was the fact that I had never grown up. Bill W. wrote about this, concerning the fact that most alcoholics in recovery had not matured emotionally.
As hard as that was to face, it was even more difficult to turn that around and continue to age emotionally. And why was that so important to me? Because of what happened to my first sponsor and others, who had done the same thing. He went back out and drank again over a resentment and died. So did others I knew. Talk about a wake up call.
My second sponsor told me much of what those old timers did back, when I came in. Think with my head and not my heart. The old timers used to put it another way. To put the intellect over the emotions. Or, as they used to say, the “I” over the “E”.
In the 12&12 Bill wrote in the Eighth Step, as I’ve quoted before, about the emotional conflicts below the level of consciousness which are still hanging around. He said that when these occur that they can discolor our personalities and our lives for the worse. Since then I have read a lot about this and I was amazed that Bill knew about this stuff.
I was talking to an old friend of mine in the program today and he described exactly what Bill and others have written about our emotions. Things that went back years and years ago, and when situations or people would cause us some difficulties our emotions would wake up and come back into action within us causing anger, pain, remorse, anxiety, worry, fear, and often resentments.
We both talked about the value of the Eleventh Step. Prayer and meditation in working on the change we all need to continue to grow in this program, especially when it came to ancient and unconscious things from the past. As was pointed out we may not be able to ever remember what those were, but our emotions always remember and come back into action, when we run across familiar things.
That’s where we talked about first praying and turning these things over to our Higher Power and then learning to sit and meditate in silence. It seems, as I have read and learned, as did he, that whatever these things are they are gradually healed in spite of us. Something psychiatry and psychology can’t do.
The reason we were talking about these things today was that a recovering alcoholic brought up the fact that their emotions were causing them many angry situations and resentments to boot. We could all identify and did give them good feedback in sharing our own stories and the solutions we had found through this program. Almost all warned about the danger of taking a drink again as a result. We can only hope that they heard and listened to the spiritual solutions being offered to them.
But just the same I thought that we all need to listen to Bill W. and begin the process of growing up emotionally. I know it’s changed my life. Not an easy process to say the least. It has taken a lot of years, but has been worth it. It doesn’t mean that everything is gone. I’ve talked to others about this and those, who have been doing much of the same thing can report, as can I, that we’re still human beings and subject to our egos and weaknesses.
Sometimes things will pop up to irritate me. But the results have been minimized. Irritating wake up calls to remind me that I have a long way to go and I will never finish no matter how long I stay sober. The most important thing is that I do remain sober. It’s why I came here and I don’t want my emotions getting in the way of my staying sober. I know that I’m just another alcoholic, who is not cured of what is wrong with me. That this is still a day at a time program. I need to seek a spiritual solution each and everyday.
After the meeting I know I was grateful for all I heard today. Grateful for the reminder. My friends told me they had benefited from what they also heard and were thankful for being there.