muddy management.

The stumbling blocks in this program revolve around my assumptions: what I know, what I don’t know, what I think I know, and what I think I don’t know.

Step 1: we admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

I knew I was a card-carrying alcoholic years ago, and I had the paperwork to prove it.  However, as long as I felt that my life was something I could manage, I never bought into the need to quit.  As long as I was effectively hiding my drinking, then there wasn’t a problem, right?

But that’s the kicker, and the thing that kept me miserable for years: I was constantly lying to myself.  It mattered little that this disease was slowly whittling away everything I enjoyed about life; I was quite adept at adjusting myself to the ever-shrinking circle of friends, as well as the extended periods of isolation required to brainwash myself into believing that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.  I’d rationalize and justify the day away, and stock my head with lie-filled promises of a productive and valued tomorrow.  I’d do my best to wash away the “sick and tired of being sick and tired” mantra that would occasionally bubble up from my subconscious.

My alcoholism lived in the now.  My life was off in the future.  To my way of thinking, once my life was fixed, better, whatever, then the over-doing it would go away, and I’d drink like a normal.

Here’s what I believed: the problem I’m having in the present will go away once my future improves.

What I’m learning about keeping it in today:  Go digging for those things in my life that I used to enjoy and took for granted, then lost/quit/gave up pursuing due to booze, rationalized and forgotten about, and now have back in my life due to the miracle of this program.  It’s not just about eliminating the bad stuff; it’s also about rediscovering the good stuff, and finding gratitude in that growth.