EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY

August 19, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“With emotional sobriety, reparenting ourselves becomes a reality in our lives.” BRB p. 265

“Our program calls us to recognize the truth within us. A beginning truth is that our families, in their unfinished spiritual states, corrupted our thinking.  As young children, we could relate to no one other than our families to ‘see how the world was’ around us.

This often involved a series of dysfunctional beliefs, such as “I can make it on my own,” “I am too proud to accept help from anyone,” and/or “We are s-o-o-o-o much better than they are.” This led us to a false sense of independence or even superiority that effectively cut us off from many forms of useful information that could have helped us.

As adults, we lived with this corrupted thinking, in a state of confusion and denial, unable to admit that we needed help and unable to trust anyone.

When we find recovery in ACA, we discover that we can reparent ourselves.  We learn to see the truth about our parents in a non-judgmental way, which helps us first accept whatever good things they passed to us. Then, without anger or resentment, we firmly reject their dysfunctional ways of thinking.  We are now free to chart our own course of behavioral, spiritual and emotional sobriety.

On this day I will focus on using all I’ve learned in ACA to help me reparent myself.  I choose spiritual and emotional sobriety.”

My Experience:

The best reparenting I can do for myself is to provide gentleness and kindness.  Not beat myself up for making a “mistake.”  I say “mistake” because ultimately most “mistakes” are learning opportunities and if you learn from it, was it really a mistake?  I used to think I was s-o-o-o-o much better than the next person, that it caused me not to seek out help/advice, because I thought, “how can they possibly help me?”  I have come to know that most of us have been through some sort of trauma in our lives and are in varying stages of recovery.  We could all use help in this endeavor and ACA was a way for me to help myself.  I say myself, because I recognized that I needed the help, but I am no longer alone and I am not getting healthier on my own.  The various aspects of the ACA program are with me everyday to help me heal.  My Higher Power, my sponsor, the steps, literature, fellow travelers, etc are all with me.  All day, every day, no problem!!

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