Sometimes the road can become lonely, depressing and isolated. Sometimes you can lose faith that people care, or that the universe is watching out for you. Sometimes you might even doubt that there is a higher power working in your life or that this sobriety thing is even worth it at all. I get it, I’ve been there. I’ve had the experience of being incredibly isolated in sobriety, wanting to use, being in severe emotional pain and wanting to check out. I prefer to look at those times from a neutral perspective. Life can be difficult and painful temporarily. Life can also be joyful and peaceful temporarily. No condition physical or emotional, good or bad, is permanent. Practicing the steps in my daily life has enabled me to match “calamity with serenity”. In situations that appear dire, my first instinct is to refrain from causing harm to others or myself. My second instinct is to ask for god’s help to do so. Most of the time the answer is to not intervene. Most things are not my business. I’ve reached a point where the direction my life is headed isn’t even my business anymore. This doesn’t mean that it’s easy for me to loosen my grip on things that I believe I need in my life, but it means that I no longer struggle with having a stranglehold on those things in the first place. In most situations in life, I’ve been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected from my alcoholism, my obsession with others, my need for control. These things have been removed. Since they have been removed, I am at much less risk for going on emotional benders that leave me with emotional hangovers similar to a relapse. Over the past few years of sobriety I’ve only been in 3 situations where I felt like I truly wanted to escape life. Those were temporary. And when the next one comes, I’ll have even stronger faith that I’ll get through it.
