So grateful to be sober today. Whew!
I am grateful to be sober today. Yesterday was the kind of day where I would have definitely gotten drunk if I did not have a recovery program. First, I transferred money from one account to another and when I checked it online oh, it look like there was money missing. When I waited on the phone for about an hour and finally got a Bank representative, the representative gave me the wrong information and directed me somewhere else. After three hours, I was finally able to make progress on the situation even though I'm still waiting for a final answer about where the missing money went. Second, someone tried to scam me. I received an email saying that they wanted to feature me on a television show because I have a great product. I thought it was a public-interest show and there would be no charge. However, after scheduling a time to talk to the person, I realized that the person was just trying to sell me advertising. She said the minimum cost would be $5,500. After that, my boss told me to do something I disagreed with. In summary, I owned my feelings about this day and was very angry and disappointed and hurt. I felt stupid for almost getting ripped off by the scam. I felt humiliated by my boss. I felt abused by the bank. In my drinking and drug days, I would have gotten mightily drunk and stoned after only one of these occurrences. However, I was able to call my sponsor, I was able to correct my thinking distortions. For example I did not exercise all-or-nothing thinking. I did not see that this was a situation that was all black and that life was all black. I was able to say to myself that this too shall pass. I was able to avoid lashing out at the salesperson and being resentful. Rather I felt pity for the salesperson. I was able to avoid magnifying the situation by remembering that these were not big deals that would end my life. I was able to exercise perspective by thinking that there are other people who have cancer, or are newly sober, a multitude of things that are worse than my problems. I was able to say to myself that I am thankful to have a job. I was able to exercise patience. I was able to say I was thankful to have a product that others wanted to advertise. I was able to say to myself that I was thankful even to have money at bank accounts. That I would have none of these things if I were still using. I was able to avoid personalization in that I did not see myself as the cause of the negative external events. So I did not blame myself. Finally, I did not adopt a victim stance where I adopted an attitude that the situations and problems were hopeless and impossible to solve. I took small steps to deal with each one. SO, this is victory for me today. What I used to view as a bad day was a great day. I was able to starve my bad wolf and feed my good wolf.
To-do:
It's not what happens, it's how you respond to what happens that counts. I will keep correcting my thinking. I'm practicing a good recovery program simply because it works. I am so grateful I did not get drunk yesterday. I feel as if I've got a great chance of staying sober again today. It's been working for 31 years, 3 months, and 25 days.
Check: https://tinyurl.com/oneminserenity