One thing I look back at frequently is how adamant I was about never being a sell-out, never being one of those people who'd give all the credit to God when something good happened to them, never being the kind of guy who "needed" people around them to help support them through life and, above all....never ever joining some stupid "support group" to handle something I should be absolutely capable of handling on my own.
I still get a chuckle every time I come across "we fancied ourselves as rugged individualists" in the BB.
So anyway, on came alcoholism and alcoholic drinking......pain....suffering.....yada yada. I honestly detested AA and, being honest, didn't have any respect for anyone who "needed" AA or needed to be in AA. I bet you wish you were at my first tables, huh?
Well obviously......those "old ideas" got completely smashed. All those things......all those beliefs that I was so convinced in were systematically proved to be wrong - or, perhaps
misguided is a better word. And those weren't new ideas either..they were olllllld beliefs that I'd held onto for decades. Eventually, I came to see I was quite simply wrong.....all those things I though were so bad were really good.
The idea that God put me here (in recovery, in AA, on this board, etc) started to make more and more sense. How else could I be doing so many things, and loving them, when I'd spent a lifetime believing I hated them? Had to be the hand of SOMEthing out there, right?
When I'm faced with a big change......or a big fear......or needing to do something I reeeeeally don't want to do..... it sure is helpful to look back through my past (my inventory too) and see allllllllll the areas where I was convinced of something that was 180* out of phase with what reality would end up being.
Putting this into practice is one of my life's great challenges. I can get SOOOO incredibly wrapped up in what I think, feel or believe I want that I can block out all thoughts to the contrary. I just hunker down in the bunker of my mind and try to WISH my way through things.... ah.....but then I remember....."look how many times you were 110% convinced of what you needed yet were completely off base and - actually - working in the wrong direction Michael."
Facing a fear like moving and all the big changes that come with it isn't easy.....but it's helpful for me to see that maybe..........even though I think it's "bad"...........maybe it's really good and I just don't recognize it yet.
best of luck to you.
......and make sure to find some meetings in that new area STAT!
(doing this helped ease me into my new situation......it provided the ease and comfort of something familiar when I recently moved).