Try thinking about it as if you were standing in front of a curtain. Behind the curtain are happiess, joy, peace of mind, all the good things, they take the form of a pure white light. All the bad feelings you have take the form of darkness. Each sober day that passes the curtain rises a small, almost unnoticeable amount and as it does some of the darkness gets replaced with the pure white light. When the bad feelings come you manifest the thought " I am surrounded by the pure white light of all that is good, nothing but good will enter, nothing but good will leave."
You know that if you drink or let the negative things in the curtain will begin to drop and the darkness will be allowed back in and you don't want that. You also know that all of the discomfort you feel is transient, it's part of the price you must pay to keep the curtain rising and for that reason you embrace it. You begin to fill your life with positive things and as time passes the curtain continues to rise and you start to reclaim the things you lost somewhere along the way.
You view the negative thoughts as an observer, you let them flow in, examine them and let them flow out. You notice feeling lost or angry flow in, you examine the thoughts and let them flow out. If a craving flows in you acknowledge it and let it flow out. The thoughts seem to lose power when you deal with them as an observer of the thoughts.
The more that you learn to live in the present the quieter your mind will be and you'll notice the flow of negatve thoughts will geatly diminish. Just some thoughts... Happy Saturday morning NC and everyone!