Keeping It Real

[Luckyv2]

Keeping It Real
Saving Your Face or Your Ass | 3/27/2012

Let's keep it real here! There is a old saying and I am pretty sure that *The Program* The first to come up with it, however I am not for sure. The saying, "You can't save your face and your ass at the same time.", is so true. Yes there is a lot of knowledge to be learned from this very simple saying.

Here we know for sure that when we are struggling in wanting to escape from the demons of the everyday living. That drinking or drugging was the only way that we had ever lived. We (most of us) never knew any other life. If we did know a different life, it was so early in our years of a human being that we never thought of it. Now that we have grown up physically and our mental state remained as a young adult if we are lucky, we tend to not think right when we are faced with issues of everyday living. The first reaction that we have is to drink or to use. We don't have to think about it, the life that we lived so long just sneaks up on us.

You might be asked, "What were you thinking?" Well that is the whole point, I am not sure why people ask us that because we don't think, the reaction is our so called *Normal Selves* in which we have lived most of our entire lives. Sometimes I think about that when people ask someone who has just relapsed what they were thinking. What were they doing when they decided to drink or use? I am not so sure that we decided anything for we never really thought about it. I kinda get a kick out of it when people say it was a decision on their part? If that is true, than why would they even ponder the thought especially after years of remaining sober and clean.

So we get upset about something, or something isn't going our way. We want to drink or use. This is the time that we have to Save Our Asses! Nothing else is going to work, we can't try and save two things at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. So here we are the nerves are building up for one reason or another. What are we going to do about it now?

We are going to Save Our Ass by getting up and going to a meeting. We are going to save our ass by giving someone a call and just talking openly about what is going on. We are going to grab a pencil and a piece of paper and write down what is bothering us at this moment. We are going to basically do a analysis on feelings is what we are going to do. Than we are going to begin a process of Letting Go Of These Feelings.

The first thing that we need to do is to admit to our inner most selves that these feelings which may not be true, yet they are true and real to us. Once we can accept the fact that what we are feeling is real, than we need to take ownership of these feelings. The Feelings are real and yes these feelings belong to me and only to me. How about that! We have just realized now that yes, there might have been something or someone who has irritated the hell out of us, but when we just started to do our analysis it belongs only to us. Once we have admitted it and took ownership of these things, than we have to ask ourselves are we now willing to let this situation go? Are we ready to say, "I don't want to feel like this, so now I am going to just let this go!"

Or are we going to hand onto whatever it is that is bothering us? If we are not ready to save our butts from a destruction that will kill than we are pretty darn sick. If in fact, we decide that we would rather drink or use than to take action to save our ass than what kinda program have we been working and living and what have we really done for ourselves other than to put down the thing that was wrecking every aspect of our lives?

We don't get into *The Program* full of joy and happiness. Most of the times we arrive in A.A. it is because we have probably been forced to go by the courts, trying to save a marriage, trying to keep your kids, or something like that. We use all of these things to get us into *The Program* and maybe that is the reason that most of us don't stay in *The Program* because we are than trying to save our Faces instead of working on keeping our butts on solid ground.

So if we are to get sober and remain sober, we really need to do it for ourselves because no one can save your Ass but yourself.

Written By:

Victor