40 Years of not drinking, so what?

   Well now, after so many years of not drinking and going to meetings, etc. etc. etc., one would think most of life would have been figured out.  Ahhhhh yeah, sure.

   So in the last 60 days my life has been turned upside down by circumstances beyond my control, at least I think they are.  I am back in therapy, read psych here and I find out I have issues that I don't even know what they are.

   I assure you I have not been loafing for these past 4 decades, I been doing the work, well at least to the best of my "conscious" ability, and that word "conscious" may be the biggest word I use today.

   I find out I have terrible long term deep seeded abandonment issues, who would have guessed.  I also find out I have totally no idea what-so-ever what a "boundary" is in my life.  I don' even know what a boundary is.  Am I in trouble here?  Oh yeah.  For a few weeks and days I was melting down pretty regular.  Big tough guy...hmmmm.  

   Thanks to a greatttttttttttttt psych and a dear dear friend who had been reborn of "critical health and resulting suffering", I got some ideas for re-birthing myself.  Isn't that what the second step says?  "Reborn"?  More like retooling my entire operating system inside.  It is kinda like getting one of those computer messages; "an update is available, would you like to install it now?".  No matter what you say, the Divine is gonna do the right thing.  Better buckle up for what may be similar to "Mr Toads Wild Ride"!

   What happened to start this mess is not important.  What I had to do is not important.   What I am doing in this present moment is absolutely essential to a "happy, joyous, free" life.

   My dear dear friend suggested that my moral values, oh yeah I gottem' today, could be viewed as a set of simple boundaries.  Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I got boundaries.  

    So in this and every present moment these days I make every attempt to "Think, Think, Think" using my moral compass as a filter for thinking right thinking.  Check it out!  It works.  My life is on the mend, my thinking is less critical, I feel like a person who has survived to live another 70 years.

   I am being mindful to keep that "first drink" in front of my mind.  I do not mean ETOH or ethyl alcohol, I mean the drunken thoughts of fear, doubt, worry, jealousy, anger, et al 7 deadly sins.  Should I ever take another drink of alcohol in my life it will be while thinking one of these insidious paralyzing thoughts.  I have been reminded that every good and well thing I want in life stands on the other side of a fear of some form.

   Life is resembling a quadratic equation.  As I get healthier in my thinking and live out the idea that I AM not in control on this side of the equation, the opposite side of the equation gets more and more open, loving and supportive.  Life is supporting me in all ways.  As I let others live as they will,  I gain so very much freedom from self.  

   So now that I just have inhaled a 1 1/2 lb steak writing this, I am growing at least around the waist.....oyyyyy.  Letting Go and letting God is just not as easy as it sounds.  It is possible though.  It is possible.  Hmmm, maybe it was the twice baked potato that is gonna get me.

Love and light

richard