I was talking to another old friend about what to do, when someone gets up and storms out of a meeting. I know what my sponsor did. When this happened in a meeting a long time ago, I started out of my chair to follow them, thinking I could help. He grabbed me and pulled me back into my chair and said, “Let him go. Leave him alone.”
What he and another person taught me, although it took me a long time to put this into practice, was not to take on another’s person’s problems. What does that mean? Does it mean to be cold and ignore listening or working with others and avoid the meaning of the twelfth step? Certainly not. But, if we want to stay sober there are a few traps someone like me needs to avoid.
The first is not to assume the emotional burdens of others. The BB tells me that I can get overwhelmed by doing this. And how does such a situation come about? Sympathy. I can get so involved in trying to help someone, that I end up with both their problems and my own. A dangerous situation for an alcoholic like me because I can get dragged down into the pits. I know, because I’ve been there.
Anger and hostility can get me pulled into carrying another’s burdens. I was taught in this program, by others more expert than myself, to learn to distinguish who’s anger is it? If it’s not mine, I am to walk away from it. If, as in the presence of a drink, I’m not in fit spiritual condition, I can get dragged into someone else’s anger. No one wants to go to hell alone, the old saying goes, so they’ll drag others in with them. I’ve also been guilty of that.
I can say without fear of error, it’s my experience that there are a lot of hazards out there among us, where sometimes the best thing we can do is to do as my sponsor said: leave him alone. My job is to stay sober and try to help, not carry, another alcoholic. I have had to learn to try to stay on an even emotional keel, when dealing with others. Empathy is ok. sympathy is not.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today, after having witnessed the same thing yesterday. I had no yearning to fix it. I needed to stay in the room and listen to the counseling of others, because I want to stay sober.