Step Four Study

[MajestyJo]

We had to drink because at work we were great successes or dismal failures. We had to drink because our nation had won a war or lost a peace. And so it went, ad infinitum. We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were. But in A.A. we slowly learned that something had to be done about our vengeful resentments, self-pity, and unwarranted pride. We had to see that every time we played the big shot, we turned people against us. We had to see that when we harbored grudges and planned revenge for such defeats, we were really beating ourselves with the club of anger we had intended to use on others. We learned that if we were seriously disturbed, our first need was to quiet that disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.

AA 12 Steps & 12 Traditions


When I look at my life, I did try to change me to fit the conditions I was living in. The biggest problem was I made bad choices and I found myself there as a result of those choices. Many times I didn't want to leave the situation because I didn't want to admit to being wrong.

My ex-boyfriend lived in the fast lane. I speed-ed up to keep up. My ex-drank, all his family and friends drank, so I did too. With my first husband they said I made a better West Indian than he did. I was often taken as one with my dark hair and eyes while he had gray-blue eyes with light brown hair. I loved to jump up and was the life of the party. This same person became introverted and isolated as her disease progressed. He told me I couldn't smoke. I had a pack that I used at work. He found it, put it into his big mitt squashed the package and threw it into the garbage. I picked out the butts. He threatened to make me walk home from Toronto because I bummed a cigarette from his cousin when we went to the West Indian Club. This was the same man who was running around when we were married and with another woman the night his son was born. I adjusted my thinking to keep him in my life because he was the father of my child. He left when his child was two months old.

Thought my second husband was as different as night and day because he was a redhead and had freckles. The same controlling and abusive nature only more violent. I adjusted to my environment. I learned to play his games and hit back.

It was the alcohol who gave me the big-shot-ism. I was good at what I did, be it darts, bridge, snooker, communicating with others, and doing the job of the moment. I was raised to be this good little Christian girl who became a braggart, a first class b*tch, was full of self-pity and my false pride was that I was a member of the Legion. I am paying respect to the people who fought for our country, I am working in the community helping seniors, canvassing for The Canadian Cancer Society, The Heart Fund, editor of the Legion Magazine that won first place three years out of four for Legions their size. The year we missed out another used our format. We were called the Maple Leaf and they called themselves the Oak Leaf. I wrote my own column in the Magazine and for the Orillia and Coldwater newspapers which were really gossip columns. Can't be anything else when it is called "Did you know???"

When a woman who I thought was my friend campaigned for President of the Ladies Auxiliary she said to me, "We will show these old ladies how it is done and give them what for! I was a buddy. When I got my own dart team that beat hers, got involved with Ways and Means for the men, was a kitchen convener and worked for others on banquets, I got too popular and had to be put down. They use to call me Gravy Jo. At work I was Odd Job Jo, whenever there was a job to be done, they called on me to do it. At times I found myself trying to do the work of three people and ended up using because I couldn't keep up or measure up to what I thought I should be. I was spreading myself so thin that things I did were 'okay' but not to the standard that I generally set for myself. I was feeling less than, and it was a good excuse to drink.

So many times I drank to someone else's health with no consideration of my own. When I asked for help and reached out to the counselor she would read my journals and say, "A lot of anger there, a lot of anger." I didn't know what she was talking about. I said, "I don't feel it." She said, "If you don't, you should." It took seven years in recovery before I truly felt 'anger' and discovered a whole lot of other emotions under it like rejection and abandonment. This only happened when I quit smoking. Smoking was my biggest stuffer. I picked up a cigarette not to feel to take me out of a situation or a thought. It was even more so when I no longer could hide with a pill or medicate with a drink.

I had to look at my part, not what was done to me but take responsibility for my own actions. I was hurt, I was abused, etc. yet I found out that often the abused becomes the abuser. So many times feeling cornered and hitting out in defense. So many times playing a role and not being myself so if I didn't confuse myself, I sure did others. The many faces of....! Recovery was about finding the real me. It was also about learning to speak out, to set boundaries, to be open and honest. Many people may wonder why I am doing this, but secrets were what kept me sick. I can be honest with who I was and it is my goal to be honest with who I am in today.

I had major attitude when I came through the doors. It needed major adjustment. Each time I went to a meeting, it seems to wrench another piece into place the wench! I often say, "I am getting so clean I am getting squeaky!" When you only drink water, sometimes with lime or a lemon juice, you can't help but cleanse the body, mind and spirit.

Spent hours thinking up ways to get back and to get even. Most times I didn't do it, yet the thinking is the crux of my disease. I don't think you can be an alcoholic or an addict without the thinking that goes with it. If you don't have the thinking, there is a good chance you are not one. My husband was the drunk. He maybe and alcoholic but that is up to him to decide. Perhaps he did because he no longer drinks according to his sister. I am the alcoholic because I had the thinking behind the drinking. I must always remember this is not a disease of substance abuse. It is a disease that affects my thinking which causes me to pick up a substance to mask, hide, cope, etc.

To be continued...