Alcoholics Anonymous Blog/Video Sept 21 DonInLondon Step 9 " Amends Into Action"
September 21, 2013: "denial: I can't believe it, coming to terms with truth in extreme circumstances is something all humans experience every day." Life in the raw, good bad or ugly can produce extreme feelings and fear clouds the truth, ego challenges our beliefs and opinions about the truth and pride can delude us into believing we know the truth.
Needing and wanting certainty in an uncertain world, being resilient when life is tough, being steadfast when challenged to the very core of our being happens on a daily basis. And usually the person or people, places and things are going to challenge hardest is always our inner voice of reason and unreason. Developing the courage to change our outlook, challenge our own position, learning to greet reality in the cold light of day and faith in doing the next right thing needs each and every individual to have the confidence and flexibility to be open to the truth of each day as the truth develops.
When we face issues and problems, the logical mind and logic might suggest we need to divide our issues and problems into manageable chunks. When we are overwhelmed and confronted with immense issues, it does not break down into manageable chunks that we can control emotionally in the moment of now. Thankfully we do have denial when life is overwhelming or we would not be able to resurface and learn how to accept changes we prefer never happened. Loss of loved ones, loss of control, being out of control and so many different variations in life events can throw anyone off course into unmanageable territory. The greater our emotional repertoire, the greater our emotional range, the greater our knowledge and experience developed through time, unless of course we do become stuck in denial.
There is a meeting in half an hour, and I think I shall go and come back to writing later. And now a couple of hours later having seen many friends in recovery and listen to a wonderful chair, I feel happy. Just in time to get there, listening to words of wisdom, words heartfelt and emotional about the good, bad and ugly of life, balance feels like it has been restored. There is another meeting in an hour or so, more the regular meeting. There can be extra goodies to be heard, or it might fall flat. The number of meetings we attend is really subject to what we feel is right in the moment of now. A good meeting in the morning can be overshadowed by an awful and unfortunate set of events in another.
I am happy in the moment of now, HALT: I am neither hungry, angry, lonely or tired. I am refreshed having been out. There is never enough time in one day to be able to do everything. And recognising there is never enough time to do everything is good perspective about progress and not having to be perfect ever again. Imperfectly perfect, in the ever present present moment of now is as good as it gets today. And I find it wonderful that many younger people are finding recovery early, making sense of life on the emotional and spiritual level and then able to think about what they can do one day at a time. I may go to another meeting. I am very aware having been to a meeting how strong denial can be on any given day.
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