EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY

Jan 7, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“Through meditation, we begin to visualize emotional sobriety.” BRB p. 265

Many of us had trouble learning the rules of punctuation when we were in grade school. We wrote sentences without commas, such as: “We ate the dog did not,” which sounded like we “ate the dog.” The rules were foreign to us and seemed difficult to master. But as we trudged forward, we picked up little tips along the way, like using commas that told us to “breathe/pause here.”

Emotional sobriety can be very much like punctuation because it allows us to set limits and be more clear about our wants and needs. When we pause and breathe, life becomes more manageable. As we learn to express our unexpressed grief to others in the program, we find that they understand what we’re saying because we’re saying it in a way they can hear us.

As we listen intently to the Problem and the Solution when they’re read in our meetings, we learn to not only hear but absorb them. We begin to visualize what our life can be like if we practice the Steps and use the tools of ACA, including meditation. We learn to pause, breathe deeply, focus and start to make emotional sobriety a reality in our lives.

On this day I will pause and remember that just as it took time to learn the rules of punctuation in school, so too can I achieve emotional sobriety with practice and focus. But the effort is definitely worth it!

My Experience:

Pause…Breathe.  That is what I do now.  Instead of reacting to situations, I pause and breathe.  I do this to determine if what is being thrown at me is really mine.  I take the time to determine how I want to respond or if I want to respond.  I check in with myself to see how I am feeling about the issue and then I make a decision on how and when I would like to respond.  All these choices provide me with the sobriety and clarity I need to live a sane life.  How sane is your life?