The most frightening dream last night. I was certain it was real. An acquaintance pushed a tiny glass with an ounce of liquor and an ice cube across the table to me. Without thinking I lifted it and took a tiny sip. And then it hit me, I'd just done that. Dream me was thinking "wait, this isn't a dream. I really just drank. I have to tell everyone on SR, this is mortifying" I was crushed.
And then I woke up. Thank God!!!
Reading the big book today, thinking about this 3rd step. Trying to reconcile handing myself over to a higher power with an upbringing that has made me fiercely protective of myself. I grew up in a seventh day Adventist household and was always being reminded of sin, punishment, hell. Besides a lot of getting screamed at and hit. Standard southern upbringing.
I got scared into being "saved" at my friend's revival tabernacle church when I was 12 or 13. We watched a movie about the end times (at a freaking Christmas party) and then they asked if anyone present needed to be saved. Terrified by the mad max version of Christianity I'd just witnessed, I stepped forward. A bunch of strangers laid their hands on me and fervently prayed and spoke in tongues.
I still have the image of my brown Vans sneakers, which I stared at helplessly while this went on.
Afterward I slipped outside in the cold, unlit parking lot in front of this rural tabernacle and cried. I looked up at the stars and did not feel closer to God. I felt like I'd been raped.
I realize how selfish I am, how hesitant to get trapped in close relationships, to get snagged up trying to help a stranger, to get locked in to the wrong path. I feel life is a big trap lying open for me, and some how I associate "letting God" with having to hold myself to things I don't want to do. That I will never again be sure if I'm being selfish or fulfilling my purpose. So that's where I'm at, I guess.