MentalLoop

Dans - it would appear that we have much in common. Although i have started to come to the same end, i have to admit i am in the dislike camp of catch phrases. That said, i do however recognize the wisdom of the words. My resentment i think has ultimately been rooted in 2 things 1) Fear of my own inadequacies, 2) This high horse i have sat on for the last decade about my lack of fallibility (or more accurately my ability to be fallible). When you are constantly judging yourself, you have little room but to judge other people - Alcohol exacerbated this for me 50 fold.

One perfect example of my resentment towards my mother-in-law....she is by any stretch of the imagination very materialistic, and has done and said many things that at least in my opinion are very low brow. She also conducts her business and spending habits in ways i just can't live by. I had setup a very methodical and "honest" (i look at my use of this word sober and realize that i am anything but honest) approach to business and managing of money. And everyday although successful has been a struggle. I look at my mother-in-law, and if i am honest, she continues to succeed beyond my wildest dreams. And what i used to categorize as shady business practices, she has valiantly righted her ship. The more she succeeds, the more angry I get. When drunk for some silly reason - my anger makes all the sense in the world - hell it's almost brilliant. When I'm sober, i wonder what the hell I've been smoking (or drinking as the case may be). Instead of admiration, I have contempt. How sick am I?

The other thing I've learned or at least realized of my resentments in the last three weeks - everybody and i mean everybody has their own crazy. Of the 50 actions by others that i have taken personally on any given day, with liquor, I always deemed to be personal affronts. Sober, i'm seeing them just as people trying to make their way in life, and dealing with their own internal issues....For god's sake (and i mean that), when did i stop thinking anybody else mattered, and the whole world was about me? The simple rationality of it should have stopped me - why would anybody have nothing better to do than to **** me off or affront me? The answer is they don't, they are just trying to get by themselves. And if something does or did happen that insulted me, i can almost guarantee it wasn't personal, not because it didn't hurt me, but because i am not the center of their world!

My friend uses this term about liquor - cunning/baffling. Liquor makes the world revolve around you. I've been the sun for 5 years, i'm ready for life to revolve around somebody else!

dans

Thank you for sharing this with me ML. Two things I identify with VERY strongly:

You're about as sick as me!!!

My problem (well... one of them) is, in addition to my day job, I am a professional musician. My partner is a fulltime professional musician, who is also more in demand than I am. The voice inside who loves HER loves her success and musicianship. The voice inside who loves ME at the exclusion of others, looks for reasons to be angry and sullen. Sick enough for you? I have to accept that art is a one-way deal. The person makes it, and you have to deal with it, or not. [BTW - Our happiest times are when she and I are working together, which is pretty often. Much gratitude.] I must take joy in the virtues of others.

Wow. I'm with you. I have to assume everyone's doing the best they can. No one is trying to **** me off... and if they are, I have to accept that, too. That can be part of their karma, not mine. The more I'm willing to lose my sense of self-importance, the more room I have to recognize the importance of others, which has the great side-effect of making everyone feel better.

Cunning, Baffling, and PATIENT. It will wait, and it will find a reason if I let it.

Sapling

This is good Big Book stuff....So true.

Pg 62
Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.

Charon

Sorry but (tough love) I think your buddy & I (as objective observers) have a clearer picture than you may be willing to accept. If you are still romancing the drink positively, you are in deep s**t and, to me at least, that's not a firm resolve. There is nothing romantic about alcoholism. Euphoric recall is just that - recall - it's not real - it's like chasing smoke. Firm resolve is when you first find yourself beginning to romance the drink you immediately call someone (or a number of someones) to get you back on track. None of us can do this alone. Firm resolve is actively preempting urges by remembering the pain that drinking causes, not just for us but for those around us. Firm resolve is having a disciplined daily schedule that allows no time to go to the liquor store/bar, no time to drink, no time to think about drinking. Firm resolve is hard work - but it is soooo worth it. Sorry to be so honest.

MentalLoop

I'm not sure if you were agreeing with what i said, or feel as though i have a different interpretation. Regardless and for clarity, i agree that my resolve is not on firm or even sound footing as yet. That said, i'm pretty self aware, and try not to lie to myself as much as possible. With that, i have been able to acknowledge that i have a problem (and not just with my words, but in my core), and i have been able to stay away from the boos thus far anyway. And predications of my impending failure, i can only address at the time - but i have no intentions of failing today.

The rewards of my sobriety have been tremendous in this short time however. I have seen in live action what my stupidity looked like when drunk (through other drunks), i have experienced life challenges as recently as today that i would have gone over the deep end with due to my morning grog and hang-over that have ended more than positively - Lost both my wallet and phone running in the park - both were returned by strangers that didn't even wait for a thank you. My heater broke with temperatures in the 30's that an honest repair guy fixed in under two hours (high recovery system with ventilation and combustion problems), and rather than panic about the dropping temperatures in my house (in the mid-40's), calmly enough i found a company to deliver fire wood in the city (which if you are from NYC, you know is rare), and heated my house alternatively through the fire place until my heating issue was resolved. Now the point of sobriety - not a single event that happened today was a big deal or took any kind of rocket science to solve. But not once in the last 5 years would i have been able to deal with all this without getting into a massive funk and rage against the world because i woke up heavy headed and with poor sleep because of an evenings heavy drinking. Today - sobriety has treated me very well, and God certainly hooked up the wallet/phone/heating issues today!