filling a hole without making a mound.

It’s my sobriety that allows me to work on being a better person.  Most of my postings deal with acting right-sized in the moment.  It’s about living in the now all the time, as far as my feelings, emotions and reactions are concerned.

Step One: we admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

If I’m driving into work with a head full of deadlines and resentments, I’m putting myself in a hole of my own making before anything’s even started.  I’ve already begun setting mental booby-traps that will spring into action once the slightest tremor to my serenity occurs.  This is me not working my program.  This is me sitting in a duck blind, waiting to jump out and start shooting into the air.  Most times, I don’t even bother to aim.

Back in my drinking days, there was either liquid courage going in, or a binge scheduled for immediately after.  There was no past or future; only what was bothering me at that moment.  And what was always bothering me at that moment was that I wasn’t drinking.  My disease had progressed to the point that unless I was isolated and altered, I was miserable.

Not that I was happy sitting off by myself, slowly mashing my brain.  But once I decided that I couldn’t function normally around the normals, and that I’d never be accepted, I would systematically decline any and all invitations out of spite.  Any friendships formed would eventually come to an end: I just suddenly wouldn’t be there anymore.  Which, to me, was better for all concerned.

Today, I see:  Not everything is going to go super-awesome.  Not everything is going to go super-awful.  Stop expecting either.