EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
March 4, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“A long-time member of our program, when she was new in recovery, said she felt liberated when her sponsor told her she ‘could walk away from crazy.’” BRB p. 628
It used to be anything goes in our dysfunctional families. We learned from our parents that it was okay to call each other names and to manipulate through hurtful sarcasm. We didn’t learn how to praise each other for our talents or to nurture each other through love and kindness.
No wonder emotional sobriety is such a puzzling term when we finally read about it in the Big Red Book. If we work our ACA program by getting a sponsor, working the Steps, and doing service work, life opens up. We can begin to experience what the program promises: peace and serenity.
The dysfunctional situations we’ve lived through can be likened to watching water drain in the bathtub – there’s a whirlpool at the end. In recovery we learn to identify reoccurring situations that pull us into the current of chaos and keep us stuck. We begin to step away from caustic situations and avoid being sucked back into insanity. We start to make better choices and learn to walk away from “crazy.”
On this day I practice emotional sobriety and let go of trying to change other people and things. I remain centered in the peacefulness of my ACA program.”
My Experience:
Everyone’s emotional sobriety is different. For me to gain emotional sobriety I constantly work on my control and anger. My upbringing made me develop the trait that I had to control every situation if I was to have any sense of safety. So I didn’t wait for others to determine my fate, I determined my fate. I controlled every aspect of my life and many aspects of the lives of people around me. They say the greatest trick the devil ever performed was to make people believe he did not exist. Well the greatest trick I ever performed was to make people believe I could do everything. That was serious control. And if things didn’t go the way I wanted to, I knew my anger would bring those in line to what I wanted. I used to use a term, “you will bend to my will.” How arrogant! Not that I am perfect but I strive daily to not only give up control and anger, but to examine what inside of me is touched if I start to display those traits. Do I need to forgive someone for something in my past that I developed this trait to combat? Do I need to forgive myself for being “weak” when in retrospect I had no other choice as I was a child? Is there something else going on for me that makes my display appear to be irrational, but rather it is PTSD being triggered? This is one of the greatest gifts of the program, to allow you the time to really delve into your true feelings and help you to release those traits that no longer serve you well. I am thankful everyday for this program.
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