Emotional Sobriety

The topic at tonight’s meeting was emotional sobriety from the July 17th Daily Reflections.

Surrender and Self-Examination

My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.

Thus I think it can work out with emotional sobriety. If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety. 

The Language of the Heart, p. 238

Years of dependency on alcohol as a chemical mood-changer deprived me of the capability to interact emotionally with my fellows. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-motivated in a world of unreliable people. Finally I lost my self-respect and was left with dependency, lacking any ability to trust myself or to believe in anything. Surrender and self-examination while sharing with newcomers helped me to ask humbly for help.

I have lacked emotional sobriety all of my life.  Self-pity and feeling like a victim were two of my most common emotional states that combined to fuel a self-righteous indignation when resentful at others.

I live with a much more even keel now.  Now when obsessing on some negative thinking, I strive to take positive action instead the old way of continuing to stew in my own “best” thinking while isolating.

I am grateful for much healthier emotional responses that drive me to take positive action instead of more negative thinking.  That is a lot of spiritual progress.  There is no danger of spiritual perfection!  (12 step humor.)