There are many pitfalls to avoid in addiction recovery. Hanging out on old playgrounds with old playmates, allowing life situations to distract us from what we need to do to stay sober, or, here’s a big one… handling emotions that have been “frozen” for years.
What a rollercoaster of emotions I experienced a few months after I got sober! My friends told me to hang on for the ride—and with their keen alcoholic wit, some of them told me things like, “You’re gonna feel better now! You’re gonna feel anger better, loneliness better, and fear better, too!”
They were right, of course; but I didn’t think it was very funny at the time! Now I can laugh about it, though, and I thank God that they shared their experience with me. You see, I used alcohol to keep my emotions at bay for many years. With alcohol, nothing bothered me, and if I had an unpleasant emotion, I’d drink it away. If I was angry, a drink would fix that. If I was lonely, a drink would get me through.
In the beginning, I discovered that alcohol amplified the good feelings, too, and I could never have too much fun! But over the years, I drank all the fun out of the bottle, and found that it stopped working consistently. Many times, I would black out, but that was preferable to feeling badly—so I drank for oblivion.
Then came the awful day when I couldn’t shut off my feelings, no matter how much I drank. Now I was stuck living in a hell of my own making, desperately trying the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.
But God, in His mercy, reached into my life and showed me a way to get started in sobriety. I’ll be forever grateful for those who shared the simple principles found in the Bible: admitting my helplessness; asking God to take control of my life; carefully looking for and confessing my faults; asking God to change me from the inside out; and making amends to those I’d harmed. Prayer and meditation on God’s will for my life and helping other alcoholics to find Him all became essential in staying sober—but I still was plagued with those “bad days.” It seemed like I could easily spend a whole week being depressed, resentful, or full of self-pity—and I hated that!
Wisely, I was taught to take life one day at a time, and expanding on that simple idea, they told me that I could start my day over anytime I needed to. “How you count your days is up to you,” they said. “You can start your day over as many times as you want. Only the Romans had to start and end their days at midnight.”
So I decided to try it. I caught myself having a bad day, and started it over again. And it worked! All it takes is a simple prayer: Lord, I don’t like the way this day is going. I know Your will for me is to be happy and useful, but right now, I’m not useful to anyone. Please show me what I can change, and let’s start this day over again. Thank you for the chance to learn from this moment, and please put someone in my life right now that I can help.
I’ve learned that no matter why I am disturbed, the problem is always me. My lack of acceptance, my self-righteous attitude, my “right” to have it my way—all these things disturb my peace. But when I turn to God, He reminds me that it’s better to understand than to be understood, better to love than to be loved.
So I rest in His unfailing love, accept His forgiveness (which I don’t deserve), and try to extend forgiveness to those who probably don’t deserve it, either.
And it works.
It really does (and not just for alcoholics)!
I haven’t had an entirely bad day in over 33 years.
Bad moments, certainly; even a few bad hours.
But never another bad day.
