An Elevator Analogy I Understood
When I heard about the elevator headed down, it dawned on me, when I checked the floors to which my drinking had taken me, I was in a scary basement. I had gone lower than I ever thought I would. I’d done stuff that frankly I never thought I’d do. But because I didn’t “get caught” I figured I wasn’t that bad and the lower levels weren’t that bad, either.
That’s what stinking thinking will do. So busy was I comparing myself to other drinkers, I failed to assess what my drinking was doing to me.
Another Dangerous Elevator
I also failed to understand the power of trying to control people, places and things . It was a more dangerous downward ride than trying to control my drinking
In Al-Anon, I heard for the first time that it was not my job to control other people.
When I came to believe a power greater than myself was in charge, and would do for people I loved what I could not, I began to grow up.
I became willing, in time, to look at alcohol – what it did to me when I drank and admit I could not control alcohol.
But trying to control people, places and things is also a hard habit to break.
In some ways, control can be a drug of choice for me. I know I am “using” control to get my way when worry, fear and resentments start talking to me, beginning with two deadly words: What if . . .
Drinking Doesn’t Solve Problems I Think Up
No matter what I fear, resent, or worry out, drinking will not make it better. Nor will my trying to control others or manipulate their emotions to get what I want make anything better. I believe and trust that truth.
Trying to control any one other than myself is stepping on an emotional elevator that is going down, down, down.
How amazing the revelation that the world, and everyone in it, can get along just fine with or without me. What a relief to know that people, places and things will be perfectly okay without my control and direction. And how wordlessly wonderful to come to believe that a power greater than me exists separate and apart from myself. I believe that the feeling of separation I experience between me and God will one day vanish. In the meantime, faith must serve as the pathway to the center of my life.
From the book Daily Reflections
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
God is good.
No, I do not understand His ways or timing, which somehow turn out to be perfect. Letting go of what I can’t control, change, or cure into His hands, nail-pierced for my sake, is the best step off that down-elevator onto level ground.
Today, a friend recommended reading Psalm 61, so I am passing along a link to it.
Love in Christ,
Sober and Grateful
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