Embrace Reality ... But Not in Movie Theaters

Movies are fantasies. They might be animated, show superheroes in flight, depict people alone in wilderness, let us pretend to witness a night-time burglary.... I mean, like when two people are talking in a moving car, how do we see and hear them? It isn't really a moving car and we know at some conscious level that they are really actors in a fantasy for our entertainment, yet we gladly suspend reality to enjoy the scenes.

And did you ever stop and think that the cameraman and crew would have stopped Norman Bates from stabbing that woman in the shower if her murder weren't make believe? Thank goodness for such on-screen fantasies to titillate our imaginations.

Some fantasies don't involve scripts and directors and movie sets and our enjoyment. All that is required to live in some undesirable fantasies is alcohol: too much alcohol.

I like to read the wisdom contained in personal narratives in the back of The Big Book. In "To Handle Sobriety" (page 559): "Above all, we reject fantasizing and accept reality.... I lived in  a dream world. A.A. led me gently from this fantasizing to embrace reality with open arms. And I found it beautiful! For, at last, I was at peace with myself. And with others. And with God."