WHO DID IT?

"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."  ---Theodore Roosevelt

A fellow at the meeting said his sponsor told him to stick on his bathroom mirror, in big black letters, the following statement: "You Are Looking At The Problem!"

"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." (Often attributed to Mark Twain) 

There is something the disease of addiction believes, and it has thousands of years and billions of examples for evidence to back up its belief. My disease believes if I get miserable enough, I will go back to using drugs. There is another way to put that: If I can make myself miserable enough, I will go back and use drugs.

Find yourself taking offense at every little thing? The weather isn't perfect? Find a new scratch on your car? Some motorist turned around in your driveway? There's a grease spot on your pants you can't remove? The wrong person (in your view) is dating your sister, daughter, or mother? The wrong person (in your view) is president, prime minister, or dictator? Or the wrong person is criticizing the president, prime minister, or dictator? Rent, taxes, prices too high? Wages and allowances too low? Meetings seem to be a waste of time?

Most normal persons, when they get a flat tire, either change the tire or phone a garage or the auto club. A recovering addict who is letting addiction choose the kind of day he or she will have looks upon a flat tire as just one more confirmation that life sucks and staying abstinent from mood altering chemicals is a complete and utter waste of time, happiness, and life.

Life is the purpose of life. Just as addiction wants to keep on using, life wants to keep on living. As it says in NA literature, the ends of untreated addiction are always the same: "jails, institutions, and death." To live, to serve life, runs counter to addiction. To serve my recovery and my life, I need to avoid feeding my own misery---what a friend of mine in the program called horriblizing her life. 

Today I am going to learn how to start my day over, with me, my life, and my desire for recovery doing the thinking rather than my disease.