n early sobriety, my main obsession was with thoughts about drinking. I couldn't get them out of my mind and wasn't ever sure I wanted to. Even if could replace them with thoughts of not drinking, that was still thinking about drinking. Perhaps the most useful advice I have gotten was to go with those thoughts beyond the relief the first drink would give me to what would happen the next day and week. I don't suppose many people wake up wishing they had gotten drunk the night before. A saying I recall from that time is, "I can't stop birds from flying over my head, but I can stop them from building nests in my hair." Another obsession was with my job. I came to AA mostly to try to keep it, perhaps even at the cost of stopping drinking for a while. I was constantly evaluating me job performance and thought the boss spent most of his time thinking about how I was doing, instantly aware of it every time I screwed up. I had to learn that is wasn't my job to work out how I was doing, and that, at any rate, it was not as important as whether I stayed sober and just kept showing up. I eventually learned that bosses aren't as concerned about job performance as just having someone who shows up on time, keeps working when present and gets along with customers, co-workers and himself. My insecurity made me a workaholic back then, but I eventually got to the point where I could be content with doing a certain reasonable amount of work, and leave it at that. Perhaps my longest lasting obsession in sobriety has been with eating. I don't think I was a compulsive overeater, but I certainly was an overeater, more than 30 kg. heavier for many years than I have been for the last couple. It helped a lot when I moved to Tasmania six years ago after teaching English in Japan. This meant being able to walk to a couple meetings in my very own language and less stress. Instead of buying my own rationalizations at least a couple times a day, I now just try to make sure that my next meal will be a truly sensible one without too many calories and avoid snacking between them, but I probably still spend a bit more time thinking about that than most people do. Another obsession, with money, has reared its head in the last few weeks, coming with the present world economic crisis. I stayed in Japan for over twenty years to avoid having to put myself on the job market again as well as to save enough money so I could be self-supporting in retirement. I drive a Hyundai Getz, live in a small wooden house built in 1918 and my biggest extravagances are a trip off the island every couple years and driving over to a city an hours drive east of here on Mondays for a walkabout, lunch and meeting. But when the Aussie dollar was flying high and the local stockmarket was booming, I rather relished the idea that I was a millionaire. Seeing my savings evaporate lately took a bit of getting used to. I had really come to quite like living in reality and had been almost continually content since a trip to Sydney over three years ago. I didn't want to go into denial and had to think things through as with early thoughts about drinking. I could eventually see that I still had the same investments. I couldn't sell them for as much, but I had no desire or need to sell them anyway. My frugal lifestyle in not threatened, nor is anything I really value. There might not be much left in the bucket when I eventually kick it, but that doesn't matter as I never married or had children and was never eligible to join the SKI club (Spending the Kid's Inheritance) anyway. Perhaps the most useful thing I have learned in recent years is that it isn't shit that happens, it is life. It is only when I am out of touch with reality and my attitudes are unhealthy that life starts to stink a bit, when the glasses I see the world through go from clear, or even a bit rosy, start to brown up. I may be a slow learner, but, after many years of sobriety, I feel like I am getting close to being able to just enjoy each moment as it comes along. Jim in Tasmania |