jerk w.a.d.s.

I got on my knees at work this morning and prayed for a solid 5 minutes. Out loud. That’s long for me.

I’m working my way out of my alcoholic brainwaves today. I will not keep repeating this ignorant cycle. Going to bed angry just to wake up depressed is no way to go about living. Monday will not be an entire day of me in my  give-up, hopeless mode. You tell me so often that you love me and would never hurt me; that we can be great together if I just let it. Familiar story, right? I’m getting tired of telling it as well.

For years I thought once I drilled down to the core of me, I’d find out what it was that drove me to drink all the time. It must be a serious character deficiency, this nub; one that I can’t wait to expose and watch wither and die. And I think I just figured it out.

So here it is – the cause of all my problems: emotional insecurity.
Lacking confidence in my own value.
Lacking trust in myself and others.

The big book states the most common symptoms of emotional insecurity as: worry, anger, depression, and self-pity. The big Four. It might not be the cause of all my troubles, but it’s a solid 90%.

Worry, anger, depression, and self-pity (W.A.D.S., if you prefer. I do), can go to work on me better than anything, each taking a turn at distorting my reality from its specific, unhelpful angle. And just enough of the previously bad emotion remains, so there’s a mixing of feelings which further adds to the discombobulations in my mind.

Pulled this off Wikipedia: Emotional Insecurity may contribute to the development of shyness, paranoia and social withdrawal, or alternatively it may encourage compensatory behaviors such as arrogance, aggression, or bullying, in some cases.

And my favorite line: Insecurity is not an objective evaluation of one’s ability but an emotional interpretation, as two people with the same capabilities may have entirely different levels of insecurity.

So, as always, it’s all in my head. And I dealt with it by drinking it out of my conscienceless. Now, in sobriety, it sits front and center, waiting to be called upon. I don’t want to acknowledge it, because that becomes an admission of failure.

But hey, I came clean on my alcoholism. Admitted to many, many people that I cannot control my liquid levels. “Why is that?” they sometimes ask. Telling them, “because I’m emotionally insecure, and don’t know how to function in the land of people,” which, while being the truth, isn’t as easy to share with everyone. “I feel an almost constant vulnerability that threatens my ego. I’m scared most of the time, as a matter of principle. That’s why I shut people out. That’s why I’m full of W.A.D.S.”