Emotional Sobriety

[recoverywfaith]

Emotional Sobriety

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by Bill Wilson
I think that many oldsters who have put our AA to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA – the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say humility) in our relations, with ourselves, with our fellows and with God.

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security and perfect romance – urges quite appropriate to age 17 – prove to be impossible and how very painful to discover finally that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the merry go round.

How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living – well, that's not only the neurotic's problem – it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.

Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to and it's a hell of a spot – literally. How shall our unconscious – from which so many fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden "Mr. Hyde" becomes our main task.

I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones – folks like you and me commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression having no really rational cause at all almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.

I kept asking myself, "Why can't the 12 steps work to release depression?" By the hour I stared at the St. Francis Prayer – "It is better to comfort than be comforted" – here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work?

Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence – almost absolute dependence – on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications. I had fought for them, and when defeat came, so did my depression.

There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away. Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had, never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA indeed! And upon any set of circumstances whatsoever.

Then only could I be free to love as St. Francis had. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love and expressing a love appropriate to each relation to life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me, and I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.

For my dependency meant “demand” – for the possession and control of the people and conditions surrounding me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit: An outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

Spiritual Calculus, you say? Not a bit of it. Watch any AA of six months working with a new 12-step case. If the case says "To the Devil with you!" the 12th Stepper only smiles and turns to another case. He doesn't feel frustrated or rejected. If his next case responds, and in turn starts to give love and attention to other alcoholics, yet gives none back to him, the Sponsor is happy about it anyway. He still doesn't feel rejected; instead he rejoices that his one time prospect is sober and happy. And if his next following case turns out in later time to be his best friend (or romance) then the Sponsor is most joyful without any demand for a return.

The really stabilizing thing for him was having and offering love to that strange drunk on his doorstep. That was St. Francis at work, powerful and practical, minus dependency and minus demand.

In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics – not a one responded, yet this work kept me sober. It wasn't a question of those alcoholics giving me anything. My stability came out of trying to give not out of demanding I receive.

Thus I think it can work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love. We may then be able to 12th Step others and ourselves into emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own "hexes" at depth. Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression – I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.

[saved1]

Good analogy. :85:

[MajestyJo]

When I was about 2 years sober, I heard a long-timer with 25 years sober say, "I got the physical, mental and spiritual healing as I worked the Steps." To maintain my emotional sobriety, I still have to come to meeetings. Because of people like him, I did two meeting a day for two years. At 10 years I was still doing 7-10 meetings a week. Then I slowed down to about 3 a week, unless a sponsee or a friend called and asked to go to a meeting. As my health got worse, I am lucky if I get 3 f2f meetings a month. That is why it is so important for me to come here and to other sites to share, to keep connected to others. I am so grateful that when I walk downtown, I see people I know, not just people in the rooms, but people prior to recovery, people in the community and people from my bridge club. Isolation of the spirit, keeps me sick.

[schell08122008]

Jo, thanks for sharing. This gives me ideas about my own emotional sobriety which I have been seeking for desperately since I got sober in 2008. This time around is different and one thing I am missing is more meetings your idea tells me that. Thanks. I just don't feel as content and full of life like I did last time I was sober for some time. I do isolate which doesn't help my depression . I too rely on this site for inspiration and support. Schell

[MajestyJo]

An important part of my recovery has been getting active in service. It started simple, setting up the meetings, helping to clear up, but with my physical health not up to full par, the place I liked the most was being on the door and being a greeter.

I was told my a co-sponsor of mine in early recovery, "You are only half a hand shake you know!" and since then, I have always tried to remember to stick out my hand and say, "Hi, my name is..."

http://www.angelwinks.net/images/think14.jpg

Sometimes that hello has all we have to offer. We can't give away what we don't already have. If I am living in chaos and turmoil, then I am not in a position to give away peace and serenity. Who I am in today, is the message I carry. I can't share what I haven't experienced, because then it is coming from the head and not from the heart. Yet this is a program of paradoxes, if the place I am coming from is my head and that is where I am at, that is okay. The longest journey in recovery is from the head to the heart. The ability to feel our true feelings and deal with them.

When I had two years sober, I got involved in work at the local jail and detox center. I also went back to the treatment center I went to at three months sober. I didn't have sobriety, because I just wasn't aware of me and my life. Sobriety means soundness of mind for me, but it also means more. It means be finding myself and being comfortable with me and who I am in today and not having to use outside sources to maintain my life style.

I have had several lapses along my journey where in the moment I know I have used food, work, relationships, television, books, my computer, etc. to escape where I was at in the moment, but thanks to the tools of the program, I am able to become aware and make the change to bring myself back to where God would have me be on this new road of living.

The relapse that would kills me faster than anything would be to pick up a cigarette. It would kills me faster than if I chose to go back to using my pills and picked up a drink. It would not only kill me physically but it would kill the spiritual and emotional sobriety that I have today. I know because I still have major craving after quitting twelve years ago. It has been the hardest thing in recovery for me to give up.

When I get these cravings, the best thing for me to do is to get out of self and do service. Whether it is to come here and post, to pick up the phone, go to a meeting, it takes me out of where I am at in a healthy and productive way. Service helped me with my self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect. But the greatest gift was self-honesty, because when I share with others, I remember when and when I work with others there are a reflection of my Higher Self. What it use to be like, what happened and what it is like today! I try to ask myself how much have I changed, and I generally end up with the self-knowledge, you are far from fixed yet, just keep coming, then you won't have to come back.

Each day is a new beginning. I have to work on my emotional sobriety daily. It doesn't matter how many 24 hours I have without a drink or a drug, they are no longer an option. It isn't about drinking and picking up a drug, it is my thinking which has always been the problem.

Thanks for letting me share.

[schell08122008]

Thanks for the share Jo, I too am struggling through emotional sobriety , of course I am in early sobriety still, so struggle is the word I use. You gave some good pointers to help me. One thing I'd like to share is that I was getting so depressed and sick of even going to a meeting ..despite my sponsors suggestions, I started going to new meetings?! It worked I have been lifted out of some of the worse of my isolation, hopelessness, lack of meaning in life and the big depression. Looking forward to more emotional growth. Schell

[MajestyJo]

My sponsor use to say, when you are tired of going to meetings, go to more meeting. When you don't feel like going to a meeting, that is the time you need to be there. I was lucky in the fact that I was willing to not just go to AA but to NA and Al-Anon too. 12 Steps are 12 Steps but they gave me all different perspectives on my dis-ease and they not only showed me how to stay clean, but how to live with me and not have to pick up. I went to different types of meetings too. All women, mixed discussion and speaker meetings, Big Book and 12 & 12 meetings. I did have variety. I found I could shut one person out, but it was difficult to shut out a tableful of people.

I went to AA for my denial. I went to NA for identificaiton. I went to Al-Anon for my recovery and the healing of my childhood hurts, abusive relationships, and my relationship with myself and others. I was one of the really sick ones.

[2ndAnne]

\ I do isolate which doesn't help my depression . I too rely on this site for inspiration and support. Schell

Hi Schell: Judy here, alcoholic. Nice to meet you in this format!

I know what you mean about isolation: it is just too easy for me to do that and to want to be by myself these days. I have a house full of small children, and getting to a regular f-2-f meeting isn't easy. If I can do it once or twice a week, that is a real miracle for me...childcare issues, you know.

I want to isolate a lot these days, just to get a grip, collect my thoughts, breathe, finish reading an article from start to finish without someone yelling for me, or some other minor crisis in my house that my young sons have created. The thing is, being away from meetings has isolated me from my fellows, and then, this alcoholic thinks just isolating by myself is going to help. THAT is where I start getting into trouble! A few hours by myself inside my head...uh oh.

It is so hard for me just to pick up the **** phone when this happens and call my sponsor, a fellow AA, or another friend just to say these things out loud. Funny thing is when I do that, the 'problem' I have seems to go away.

I also thank God and the group for these online meetings. Without them, I'd be sunk. These meetings are a wonderful lifeline for me. Thanks to all who are here today. God bless you.

[2ndAnne]

Jo, what a beautiful share, and I love the way you expressed yourself. I feel so many of the things you said. Bear with me: what you said meant so much. Particularly:

"I didn't have sobriety, because I just wasn't aware of me and my life. Sobriety means soundness of mind for me, but it also means more. It means be finding myself and being comfortable with me and who I am in today and not having to use outside sources to maintain my life style."

I may not have had a drink in almost four years, but I certainly struggle with the concept of sobriety in my life. I am still not comfortable with myself and who I am all the time. Feelings have this way of just washing over me, and I have no idea how to deal with them except to let them wash over me, sit with them, talk to someone who cares (my sponsor, my husband, a fellow AA), and work with them.

The temptation to RUN AWAY from these feelings is still there, and strong. Sometimes I feel myself running towards television, my computer, whatever other distraction is going on with my life at the time to keep me from focusing on the moment. God, the agony of just sitting with myself!!! Sometimes I think, surely this is hell.

And then, I also realize that but for the grace of God and this program, it would be hell. That often brings me down to a calmer place in my day. Like you, Jo, I thank the tools of this program that bring me back to the current moment.

It also helps me to think that God wants me to learn and get the most of where I am at the moment. Otherwise, I will be fated to relive the same frustration over and over again...until I GET it.

Thanks for your words of wisdom today, Jo and group. I love coming to this meeting.