My life for the first forty years has been a series of well-learned negative feelings and attitudes. These have been so ingrained into my total personality that so many trips to intensive in-patient and psychotherapy totaling over a year of my life thus far. Oh, and countless trips to the hospital for medical detox, one trip to a boy’s home and countless out-patient sessions did no more than to sink me further into severe states of depression and anxiety because I never truly told them about the real me. This only gave me self-sanction to attempt a nearly successful suicide behind locked doors of of of wherever with my progressive addiction to alcohol. Why can't you just stop is all I remember them asking.
I have always felt I was different. I thought I knew horrible things about myself, and I locked them up in my mind so that no one else could get a glimpse of the real me. From early childhood, I felt I was bad, even for others’ wrongdoings; I have shouldered their guilt for way to long. This has done nothing but produce fear, anger and hatred. During childhood I didn’t have a god to turn to, or I didn’t know how to turn to him for anything let alone HELP. I was hesitant to love another person for pure fear of rejection or them leaving because I wasn’t good enough to have the love reciprocated. But with you I didn't have a choice. You barged your way into my fucked up perfect life. You left me no choice but to fall in love with you. And I did. I fell hard.
Today, even after just 6 days of sobriety I am coming to realize and try to understand that I have not been victimized by society, by my environment, nor by my alcoholic mother, or my angry abusive father on whom I have blamed my many failures and mental and emotional defects on. I am my own judge and jury, my own prisoner. I have built my own scaffold and am/was my own executioner. I inflict punishment upon myself and you, the one that would do anything for.
As I put down the glass, I have chosen life over death. I will drag my sorry ass back into the four walls of AA and see faces that I recognize and they will welcome me back with open arms and smiles of what I presume to be long term sobriety. I will sit down and read the steps through unfocussed, blurred eyes again and again as my chin quivers with the enormous guilt and shame that I have harbored for so long and all the people I've hurt along the way; especially my beautiful blessing Keely who I have not been there for as a good father should be.
Today I will ask God to give me strength, courage and hope to stay sober for today, and to especially help me uncover my deeply implanted and almost instinctive thought processes, to try and make each and every thought a conscious one. I pray that in time I can begin to realize the tremendous power of the mind when working on a conscious plane, and with the help of AA and God and all of you I will be able to catch the negative thoughts which preceded the self-destructive actions, so that I can nip them in the bud.