Step by Step
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023
“When I entered a sanitarium for prolonged and intensive psychiatric treatment, 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, “Personal Stories,” Ch 4 (“Women Suffer Too”), p 226.
Today, my temperament as a drinking alcoholic was such that I can measure any progress in my recovery: if that temperament of then resembles now, I have not shaken off my “protective armor.” If not, I need to realize that armor is not protection from life’s “harsh realities” but actually enslaves me to the dysfunctional thinking of alcoholism. My armor, in short, was not a protection against the realities of life but instead my prison that kept me out of life. Today, I look to Step 10 to search for the character defects that forced me into self-isolation with nothing but alcohol and, today, I choose to live life on life’s terms and not on alcohol’s terms. My prison of addictive behavior was of my own making, and the Program guided me out. I look to it today to save me from returning to it. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2023
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