Monday, November 22, 2010

When is one day at a time denial?

I opted to go to a meeting at lunch today. It has been about 3 months since I went to a meeting, I just felt like it, so I went. The meeting was on gratitude to follow the Thanksgiving theme and I do feel grateful that the program gave me a new life and a new way of thinking.

After the meeting I got a sandwich at the AA snack bar and sat down at a table outside to enjoy the warm weather and eat my sandwich. I woman from my meeting was getting in her car and suddenly turned around and came back an sat beside me. She began to tell me how after 20 years her husband stop drinking and now he has been sober for a year and things have only gotten worse.

His friends did an intervention but when he got out of rehab he didn't go to AA. So she is living with a angry dry drunk. She has determined that she is in grief over the fact that sobriety didn't solve the problem and she is still alone. She has been in Al-Anon for the whole 20 years and now what is next?

She says she is just going to wait it out and live one day at a time and see what happens. I have done a lot of waiting in my own life because I thought if I just stuck it our some miracle would come along and things would be better. In my first marriage I waited while the alcohol virtually erased the man I was married to and by the time he left there was nothing left of me either.

Is the one day at a time scenario just a form of denial? I have used it when I was in crisis and could not imagine a way out. I know that it is another story for those staying sober one day at a time, but denial is dangerous and you can wake up and decades have past and nothing has changed.

This is how I felt about the conversation today a lot of people stuck and not thinking they deserve more or can't even imagine the possibility of more. It is easier than facing the unknown to stay in the cocoon of our own making. You will never turn into a butterfly if you don't eventually come out and it might turn into a body bag at some point.

No comments:

Post a Comment