Step by Step
Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023
” …I was convinced that I was having a serious mental breakdown. I wanted help, and I tried to cooperate. As the treatment progressed, I began to get a picture of myself, of the temperament that had caused me so much trouble. I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic. My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armor against the world’s misunderstanding. That armor had turned into prison walls, locking me in loneliness — and fear. All I had left was an iron determination to live my own life in spite of the alien world — and here I was an inwardly frightened, outwardly defiant woman, who desperately needed a prop to keep going.
‘Alcohol was that prop …’” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Alcoholics Anonymous Number Three, Ch 4 (“Women Suffer Too”), p 226.
Today, with absolute honesty — maybe for the first time in my life — the temperament of my character misguided me to make the choice of alcohol as the prop to shield myself from “the world’s misunderstanding” and all else I wanted to shut out. In blocking out everything, I went to the only place left — within myself. And there lurked the isolation from anything good, and the loss of good leaves only the bad. My choice was to develop and nurture the bad — and it took me to the darkest places of my poisoned emotional and spiritual soul. Today, the temperament of my character can be tempered by the Twelve Steps. Grant me courage and strength to emerge from the bad and work for the good. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023
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