I think a lot about how much time I flushed down the toilet while boozing. If I added together the hours I have spent heavily intoxicated, the amount of time would equal months. Months of watching TV and movies whose plots I didn't retain, months of mindlessly eating food that I didn't remember the next morning, months of conversing with my partner and initiating the same conversations the following day, and months of clicking through endless internet links and reading superficial information. When I would wake up after particularly bad nights, I would check my phone for messages I sent, check Facebook for embarrassing rants, check my internet history, and check my refrigerator. While I was never a destructive or angry drunk, I definitely drank to disappear, and those mornings were the worst. Nowadays, I love how much free, sober, conscious time I have. I have grown so conscious of my time that I strive to avoid wasting it on stupid crap. At the same time, there's nothing to me as wasteful as time spent drunk. I often wish that I could get those months back, but also try to sit with the reality that without that experience, I would not appreciate the time I have at present. Here's to waking up with no surprises.
-A
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When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.
pg 48
I always like that "tedious process". Pure hell was more like it.. But I hung on to that insane thought I'd get a handle on it for way too many years. I think a lot of alkies hang on to that thought for far too long. We have to set our prejudices aside......And it usually takes getting beaten to get there.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Wednesday 18th of June 2014 11:27:19 PM
