I want to start a brief conversation about consequences in sobriety.
Someone once said in a meeting that he thinks that being sober is the act of actively facing the consequences to your actions. That hit me hard and has stayed with me. I drank because I'm an alcoholic, but I also tried to drink away the consequences to my actions - usually only to create more. It takes discipline via the 12 steps to own up to the consequences to my actions and face them actively.
Making amends is the beginning of this, it is a concrete and directed way to face the harms I have created and try to right them. But with prayer, meditation, continued inventories and good friends that will tell me when I'm full of shit, there is much more "owning up and fixing" on my horizon - it becomes a lifelong journey. Over the years I have begun (just begun!) to see how my own actions have come back to bite me on the butt. I don't like the bite on the butt, and even less the facing up to the fact that I had any part in it. And other people's butts, well, I don't even see them or care - without a lot of help.
Some of my past consequences are large, like facing jail for an amends when I first got sober. Or my divorce years ago and what it entailed. Or hurt friendships because I was selfish. Some are simple, like not wanting to talk to the customer at work who will be angry because I was lazy and didn't do what I should have done.
But I am so very grateful that I am given the strength to face up to my life - consequences and all. And the overwhelming sense of freedom and peace that I get when I can accept those natural consequences and stop fighting God/Nature/Fate. And finally, how I am able to love others more fully because I can accept the imperfections of myself.
So....what are your thoughts about the comment I heard years ago, that sobriety is the act of actively facing the consequences to your actions?
Good question. To me it's about cleaning house and having God remove all my defects of character that block me from him, me and others. Steps 1-9 did this; and today the promises are coming true. I continue on a daily basis to work 10-12 to have that spiritual experience and the daily reprieve from alcohol and self. It's like the BB says; any business that doesn't take regular inventory and part ways with the inventory that isn't selling or working any longer will go bankrupt. So today, living an honest life based on the principles(steps) of AA, I try to limit the amount of consequences in my recovery. When I have them I ask God, my Sponsor and friends in the fellowhship how to best handle them. I no longer run the show. Good thing.
Sobriety has a slim chance until the alcoholic runs out of options. The 4 horsemen of Denial- Youth, Health, Wealth, and Brains, (and enablers) have to be significantly diminished or depleted in order for reality to begin sinking in. "When all of our score cards read zero..."
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Wednesday 26th of May 2010 06:45:59 PM
Sobriety has a slim chance until the alcoholic runs out of options. The 4 horsemen of Denial- Youth, Health, Wealth, and Brains, (and enablers) have to be significantly diminished or depleted in order for reality to begin sinking in. "When all of our score cards read zero..."
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Wednesday 26th of May 2010 06:45:59 PM
That and the triple threat that occurs in early sobriety
Job Back House back Girl Back
I've seen more people "drink" over good things then bad....except relationships
being sober is the act of actively facing the consequences to your actions.
There it is, The difference between being dry and being Sober, thing is without the steps with a good sponsor we are still in denial, so we keep having consequences, but being alcoholic we begin to think life doesn't treat us right. We decide to exert ourself more. we become, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still it does not suit us. Admitting we may be somewhat at fault, we are sure that other people are more to blame. We become angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is our basic trouble? Are we not really self-seekers even when trying to be kind? Are we not a victim of the delusion that we can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if we only manage well?
Don't our actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Are we not, even in our best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Great Topic
__________________
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I don't think I could be responsible and face the consequences of my actions unless I was first sober...wide awake and chemically free and aware of where I was at and the time I was there and that my life had much meaning. I have been dry and not sober because I was still under the influence of alcohol as the biggest single event in my life. I drank because it was there..just that simple. Today I haven't drank alcohol and been under the influence of it and I had consequences from my choices and actions...some positive and others I'll have to amend as in do over. I get consequences for every thing I do and don't do. I handle them better when I am not under the influence.
