Scared to be happy!

[MemphisBlues]

If temperamentally we are on the depressive side, we
are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We wallow
in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and
painful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this
melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point of despair
that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here,
of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all
genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a
moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the
depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.

The above is really about Step Four, text from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, but it helped me immensely while working a Third Step issue.

My will is sick, insane, wants to wallow in the depression that has plagued me all my life.

But twice in the past five months of my fledgling sobriety, I've almost been happy. Actually, twice I had this inkling of what it meant to be at peace -- to find serenity -- with all the pain of being me.

I was struggling over a simple issue: To lie or tell the truth. The dilemma was whether to check a Yes box or a No box on a form. Yes would mean sending some documents to a former employer. No would mean that some money coming my way -- and more importantly, money to my daughter -- would slide through the machine without me having to apply grease.

I was sitting on the pot, and decided to open the BB to whatever page happened to pop open. It was, of course, page 59, the 12 Steps.

And I read Step Three a dozen times. And the answer on whether I should lie or not came to me. Check Yes, send the documents -- even though their is embarrassment associated with doing so. That's what I'm going to do. "Reverse pride" is just one of the Seven Deadly Sins that guide my will.

I decided to follow God's will. And that second taste of happiness struck.

Simple as crap! Just took me a couple of decades to realize it. Could you share some of your Third Step answers? The first little taste that surrender brings results? To me, this simple example PROVES the program works, after living and sleeping and breathing the BB, going to meetings, spending hours on SR, this small example burst through my will. As someone just told me in an e-mail, "MemphisBlues, you're a tough nut to crack."

Breaking through the shell begins with small cuts.

[pattenat]

Could you share some of your Third Step answers? The first little taste that surrender brings results?

The more time I spend in the Big Book and in my AA meetings. Everything. The more I turn over all I can the more I see the light. I'm not talking about turning over the responsibility I own just the pain, anxiety, remorse, depression, all the negative stuff.

I'm sure being in therapy has helped me take a second look and begin to understand. But I owe most of my recovery up to today to AA and the Big Book. My nose is burried all the time reading and re-reading. Learning everything I possibly can to find myself again. And everytime I read the Steps I realize there is something else I learn or something else I can do to help move my recovery along.