Today is better than yesterday, and although it was painful, I didn’t have to intoxicate myself to numb my emotions.

Here is a pondering thought. To know thou self is love.

The reading claims to watch the love in newcomers’ eyes helps to eliminate my fear. Well. There is some tolerable truth to that. I have come to accept that I can be peachy creamy rosy depending on my day, but let something negatively upset me, and I can become a fearful raging barracuda. Maybe not that bad, but I can have rage that comes out of nowhere. Will my fear spew onto others?

I am starting to see more since attending Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) that my little Lynda still has trauma. I was reading a few pages last evening of Cicely Tyson, “As I Am,” and again, I can relate to her childhood. I want to believe that my ancestors and those from that era passed down certain rituals that others can identify with because I hear my story so often, so it makes me wonder. Those stories make me fearful, as if I want to turn off the noise, too scared to turn the page of what will happen next. Is that what happens to the newcomers? They run and don’t want to come back?

Bottom line, the more I understand and accept what I see and can identify with how I respond to the world, I can see myself in others, and maybe they see themselves in me. I accept that when I get in that agonizing place of tight muscles and the feel that someone has sucker punched me, and that is usually followed by a fizzle as if air has released from a tire, that’s my ego punctured. Although this awareness happens in hindsight, generally, I am searching for answers that no one can give me during the fiasco. I have to sit and meditate and ask for guidance from my higher power. What would happen if I didn’t have that resource? Would I intoxicate myself in some form? Or act out in some way that eventually would lead me to the inevitable dread of insanity, to drink again?

I have to know what my alcoholic characteristics are. In other words, I need to identify with the similarities when others share and accept that it is me too. Because when I do, it saves me from some misery, and I don’t have to go back out and do some more research. Maybe I will. Only time will tell. Yet, it will take what it takes, and hopefully, that won’t be jail, institutions, or death.

Knowing me is to know my patterns of what happens when I try to control anything other than myself. I go insane. My experiences have shown me more than I want to count that I am powerless over my past, alcohol, drugs, people, places, things, and future.

When I try to control any of that, and when the resistance is full force, I have to let go and allow my higher power to take control, and the liberation happens. I am a miracle to be alive—so the love I see in the eyes of others represents me seeing my journey—and that’s a beautiful thing.

Peace and love. Feel free to share and invite others. To unsubscribe, say so. The reading is attached.

Author, Lynda M.