Putting my head in ,'the noose'...

[Redmayne]

The last few days I've been feeling, 'twitchy' and uncomfortable, irritated with myself, always a bad sign, for I know I'm in fear of becoming a ,'dry drunk', and I have, or am begining to lose my way, forgetting who I am, a recovering alcoholic, and where I came from.

I had been reading the penultimate book, in a series of 12, the last one due to be published in the New Year, of a crime saga, set in the city of Portsmouth(UK), one of the central characters, a senior detective, not in many aspects, disimilar to what I had once been, was being asked by his erstwhile, girlfriend, to , 'unzip his life' and take on the shared responsibilities of adopting a badly burned little girl,they had come across whilst recovering in hospital from a road traffic accident incurred whilst holidaying in the Middle East . The practicalities of this, in 'real terms' where zero.

All this , whilst being involved in steering a major crime investigation involving the murders of a family and others in a 'drugs' rip off. Graham Hurleys , 'Borrowed Light'.

The phrase,'unzip his life' is the authors, the term,' putting my head in the noose', is mine, as I reflected on this and thought how many times, drunk or sober, had I , voluntary or unvoluntary,'put my head in the noose', driven by my own, 'self will', in my view the greatest adversary of alcoholics, motivated by ungrounded and unfounded fear, carried in me since I was a child, that I was inadequate, not good enough, a failed human being.

This said , in reality, drunk or sober, I've lead a ,'rich', full life of experiential learning involving four professional careers, in the service of my country,the community and those who serve the community, raised my son, now aged 30 and a succesful, university educated professional musician, as an unsupported, single parent, from the age of 10, not forgetting, 30 yrs as an alcoholic!

Alcoholics, when sober, are often, 'friendly, able, intelligent' people ,'Alcoholics Anonyous', right!

So, for me, right here, right now, as I'm tapping they keys, writing this thread, it's necessary for me to pull back, remember who I am, and where I came from, I'm a recovering alcoholic and I got here by taking the actions in the suggested 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which involved my handing my life and (self) will over to the god of my understanding, and on a daily basis trying to make spiritual progress.

Because, if I forget that, I'm just, once again, 'putting my head in the noose', and if I do that,.... I'm not 'unzipping my life',, I'm ending it.

" A society, (or individual, my words) that forgets where it came from, will destroy itself" Carl Sandburg.