This morning is a relatively quiet morning. Quite pleasant. No disturbances going on around me or inside of me. A moment where quiet relaxation is available. So, here I sit doing nothing but thinking about his moment. Sounds like I’m just wasting valuable time.
Suddenly I wondered about that phrase “valuable time”. In the world of commerce, time is money. Hmm. But it’s Sat. and I’m not in the world of commerce. I don’t think I am. Where then did the phrase come from? I mean, here I am apparently wasting time. I’m not doing anything, or am I?
I’m thinking. The alcoholic’s favorite sport. His favorite pastime. Thinking. And this is the tricky part for most of us. It’s what I’m thinking about.
My past expereience in thinking was bad. It was what my sponsor referred to as stinking thinking. Early on and, indeed, many years into the program, I often found myself in a melancholy depressed state from what I was thinking about. It was awful. I would find myself drifting down into a morass of negative thoughts. Thoughts about the past and the future. It was a dismal task. Talk about wasting time. Worse yet, I was continuing a bad habit I had developed even before I drank. But the drinking made it worse. And here I was in “sobriety” doing the same thing over and over. Talk about insanity.
But then, my sponsors words and example began to penetrate this alcohol soaked mind of mine. What was I thinking about? Slowly the words “a day at a time” began to stand out. Wasn’t I lving a day at a time without a drink. Wasn’t that what was important. I never stopped to think about the second part of the first step in this regard. I just considered the alcohol and not the alcoholic thinking.
“How are you doing?”, my sponsor would ask me. “Not too good,” I would reply. “No,” he would say. “How are you doing right now, at this moment.” I would have to think about that, but I would realize I was doing okay for the moment. That’s what took so long to seep into the cracks in my head. At any given moment I was doing all right. I could handle anything at the moment. I just never thought about it because I was so far away from it in my mind.
And then he would start giving me the instruction so crucial to right thinking. He would ask me the question, “How important is it?” How important is what? “How important is what you’re worried about?” Important as hell! was my response. “Really? How are you doing right now?” Again I would have to think. All right was my response. He would always bring me back to the moment.
Why was he doing that? Didn’t he know I had problems? I had all these responsibilities I was worried about. Financial problems. Relationship problems. Didn’t he understand? He pointed out to me that I was worrying but not doing anything about them. What did he mean? Of course I was trying to do something about them. Didn’t my worrying prove that?
Finally, what he was trying to show me began to emerge. Worrying and negative thinking didn’t help. He wasn’t trying to stop me from doing the footwork or planning my day. He just wanted me to be present in the moment, not in the past or the future. Just right now. He wanted me to keep it simple.
Looking back over these years in sobriety, I can truthfully say that all my worries and fears were just that; worries and fears. Nothing more. A true waste of time. And worse, I found that all these worries and fears were working me closer to a drink. They made me forget why I come here in the first place. That’s really what he was trying to show me. Thank God for my sponsor and his wisdom.
That’s what I was thinking about this morning.
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