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My last trip to Vegas
Well, this was a lot different than my last trip to Vegas and I can definitely say it was much more fun and memorable. Broke, hungover, and playing penny slots for the drinks was a pretty sad experience, not hard to buy either. God, just thinking about it makes me realize how bad things were getting even a few years before I hit my bottom. Those years in between flew by in a month or so it felt. The fact that I’m able to recall nearly all the events of the past seven months makes them seem like years. Being able to remember things and engage in day to day life is much more preferable. I never want to have another 6-7 year gap in my life again.
Sometimes it’s in my nature as a addict to want to escape the moment, especially when it’s difficult and involves facing life’s problems. There’s a few things I’ve learned about this desire that help me refrain from indulging in it. For one thing it wasn’t just a moment that I ended up avoiding, it was about seven years of my life. Secondly it doesn’t make the issue at hand disappear. It’s sort of like a boomerang, the further away I throw it, the faster it comes back to hit me in the face. Thirdly, dealing with the obstacles, hurdles and challenges life puts in front of me can be very satisfying and rewarding. It’s great to put something behind you for good and actually grow from the experience rather than let the anxiety build and sometimes remain for weeks, months and years over something that could’ve been solved in a day. Every problematic situation I confront and deal with now helps me out with the next to inevitably come my way. This is great because it is a severely underdeveloped skill that I not only want to get better at but need to. A bonus to developing this is that I am directly working on a major character defect at the same time, my procrastination. I used to react to many differently issues by immediately pushing them under the rug and falsely promising to deal with them later. Even if the matter could be addressed and dealt with in a matter of seconds I’d have already said, ”I’ll do it later” before i’d registered the request. Today I’ve become much better at recognizing that particular reaction, pushing it aside and giving myself a chance to respond, usually in a proactive manner, seeing some success with this method made me realize I need to apply it to the other character defects.
The response over reaction idea is something that the big book would describe as simple but not easy. Another thing I’ve come to realize about life is that the right choice is usually the difficult one. Because of this and the success and worth I’ve found in doing difficult things as of late and the amount of difficulty I’m having with the response versus reaction strategy, I believe it is worth doing. I’ve noticed lately that when I react it is from a place of ego and pride. A common reaction and character defect I’ve noticed lately is my anger. It showed a few times during this trip and has reared its head a dozen times of so during my stay here. I’d say it was probably a major reason behind my drinking and drugging because of my desire to suppress it when I react like this, scratch that… When I react, period I am taking my will back and that is a bad thing. Why you say? Because when I’m in control my best thinking go me into some fucked up situations. Situations that required a proper response as opposed to an immature reaction.
When I respond to something that means a few things. First of all I am putting the ego and pride aside. Second I am weighing my options. Third I am making an honest attempt to look at the outcome of each option. Finally I am using that information and action upon it. I believe that by doing this, by taking time to respond I am allowing God’s will into my life and my decision. There are many things I can and need to do if I want to be in a state of response. Meditation, prayer, exercise, AA Personal hygiene are all very high on that list. When I’m able to respond to situations it is a huge victory and step toward the man I want to be. I’m now at the point where I’ve realized what I need to do, now the journey really starts, I need to put these principles and ideas into action if I want to success. Thank God I don’t feel like procrastinating.