my drinking days, excitement was measured by the degree of my emotions. My ecstasy came from the fleeting highs of alcohol and sex and from the appealing but dangerous depths of writings about suicide. The in-between—moderation—was despised as a malady of the “common folk.”
Today, by the grace of God, I strive for a basically bland diet. For example, on this day I've worked eight hours, washed my clothes, gone to a meeting, and written a poem about gratitude. Later, I'll meditate. Dull by my past standards, but pleasantly sane by my AA way of thinking.
Bob P.
San José, California
Binge Thinker
July 2010
Before I was powerless over alcohol and my life had become unmanageable, I was powerless over unhappiness and my life had become unmanageable. I turned to alcohol in my late 40s as the best self-help option I thought I could find. Often, my unhappiness seemed to melt as I drank. But drinking became an ever more elusive and flawed solution to my unhappiness. It began to create unhappiness of its own. My overall unhappiness was eventually much greater than what I had evaded and yet not solved at the beginning of my alcoholism. Now what?
Maybe the best way to feel was to be happy. How was that possible?
Long before I was a binge drinker, I was a binge thinker. I tended to think incessantly, as if this were an essential part of staying alive. My mind either had no “off” switch, or, if it did, I had no idea where it was. In this constant banter, I could find all sorts of resentments to chew on, grudges to hold, victimization to ponder and catastrophes to protest. Life was unfair, people were the harbingers of much injustice and unkindness, and I was justifiably withholding my seal of approval by not accepting what already was.
I create thoughts. I can do so from default behaviors (what I have come to otherwise recognize as “character defects"), or I can create thoughts within the awareness of having choices. Awareness for me is realizing that I am not my thoughts. Rather, I observe my thoughts and their creation and content. If I need not be run by my conditioned default thinking, then have I discovered the choice of observing and creating constructive thinking?
Once I learned to meditate, as encouraged in Step Eleven, I was able to find the “off” switch to my thinking when that thinking is neither needed nor useful to me. I can use thought, rather than have my thinking use me. “Awareness,” I believe, is the most accessible doorway to what has been referred to as “spirituality” throughout my life and in AA.
Ken T.
Ames, Iowa
It's Not the Shoelace
May 2010
Recently, my home group conducted a workshop exploring emotional sobriety. We broke it up into different aspects such as “What is emotional sobriety?”, “How does it differ from physical sobriety?”, etc. My assignment was to explore why we need emotional sobriety and I presented it as follows:
When I first came to AA my emotions rose to the surface, where I became aware of them. While I thought that I had successfully submerged them with alcohol when I was drinking, I can't deny that I often drank at “him,” “her,” “Mom,” "Dad,” the boss, some unfair customer, a disrespectful sales clerk, the police, the system, or whatever. I could say that alcohol let me not feel, but the truth is that I felt everything and often wanted to show "them.”
I used drinking to hurt others or plot my revenge. The only blessing was that I often wouldn't even remember the plot when I sobered up. Newly sober, I not only had the feelings but I also had a lack of ability to deal with them. My immaturity came out in full force. My old idea was that alcohol would still work with these feelings, and I would sometimes give in. Even if I didn't drink, I could be miserable and hold grudges. That's when something trivial like a broken shoelace might lead me to drink because it was the last straw.
Without the help of God and a sponsor, I might never know that it wasn't the shoelace but the lingering grudge and my lack of emotional sobriety that led to drinking again. While this lack of emotional sobriety was dangerous when I was newly sober, the danger did not go away just because I've achieved some time in AA. Indeed, I can mistake number of years for a degree of emotional sobriety. I can rest on my laurels without even recognizing it.
When I hold on to resentments, when I find things unforgivable, when I am jealous of another's success, when I am unwilling to listen to others and change my mind, when I react severely to criticism even as I congratulate myself for another day or month or year of not drinking, I am not only not emotionally sober, but I also may become not physically sober. This can happen even if I once had a spiritual awakening and have many years of sobriety behind me. The Tenth Step tells me to "watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear" not because these emotions are so deadly in themselves, but because they block me from dealing in a mature, emotionally sober way, rather than just reacting. Since the essay on the Step next says, “and when they crop up,” it is a sure bet that time in the program will not make me immune from these negative emotions and my ensuing reactions. My reactions can include drinking again, but even if I don't drink, I can cause problems and heartache in the lives of those who love me and work with me.
As the book says, “We believe a man who says sobriety is enough is unthinking.” For the sake of others if not for myself, I should seek emotional sobriety.
When I am letting myself be ruled by “selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear,” any rational thinking or action I do would be purely by accident. Likewise, serenity would be elusive at best and non-existent at worst. As a friend says, my biggest job in a spiritual life is to become undisturbed. I would only have one of two reactions to any negative interaction with another person: I would either forgive the other person or make amends.
I have made a real advance in emotional sobriety if I finally realize I do not have to react to a slight by striking back.
Finally, I was told to live a day at a time but not told how to do that. I submit that it is impossible to do a day at a time when bedeviled by emotional chaos. If I strive for emotional sobriety, I will have a much better chance of living in the now, which can lead to joy and appreciation for the wonder of my life.
Jim H.
Largo, Florida
Carrying the Message
February 1971
After six years of sobriety, I recently went through my first really long (four weeks) depression. Doctors had given me some bad news about my eyes, and I immediately exaggerated their diagnosis. I went around telling myself I had to accept blindness and, “Thank God I would not be a drunken blind man.” I thought I was applying the Eleventh Step (to the best of my ability), but I could see it was not working, and I proceeded into a very bad depression. I used all the gimmicks I was taught in AA—except “Let Go and Let God" and “One Day at a Time”—but nothing was working.
Then I met a doctor who told me things were not as bad as I thought—it seems I was hearing only what I wanted to hear. However, the depression continued. Along about this time, I had some difficulty with someone I was sponsoring, and the result was another emotional upheaval, which did not help the situation.
I began talking to good friends and members of my group, and things started to look a little better. I found my “conscious contact” through these friends.
