Corking the Bottle

Marty told a good story yesterday at A.A. It shows us that resentments are in the eye of the beholder. He was driving his business' truck somewhere and picked up a call from the dispatcher. He asked, "Are you all right, Marty?" He said he was. "Is anything wrong?" No, why? "Someone called and said your truck was weaving." Of all the nerve! That guy should be minding his own business. As Marty thought about it, the resentment built to a breaking point. How dare someone report him when he was driving just fine! Marty called his sponsor and related the story about the busy-body. The sponsor replied, "Did you get fired?" No. "Did you have a wreck?" No. "Did you run over someone?" No. "Did you have a personal injury?" No. "Then why are you resentful? Maybe the person who made the call was concerned about your safety and the safety of others. He did you a favor. Maybe he did a favor to others on the...

I hope this series of blog posts will enable you to recognize some symptoms of relapse. I meant well and tried hard, but I kept relapsing anyway. There was often a nagging little voice telling me to go ahead and try a drink. Maybe this series of blog posts will help you or a loved one break out of the relapse pattern sooner and easier than I did. Terence T. Gorski, co-author of  Staying Sober , identified 11 phases of relapse in his book Staying Sober ( https://www.amazon.com/Terence-T.-Gorski/e/B001JSA9K8 ). I hope you will find this series helpful enough to review again and again -- at once or in parts. An idea might be to checkmark symptoms in the 11 phases to see if you or a loved one is in danger of relapsing. Then take action. Gorski's research involved 118 recovering patients who had four things in common: They completed a 21- or 28-day rehab program; They recognized they could never again safely use alcohol; They intended to remain sober forever through A.A. and ou...

I asked yesterday what drives your life. Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests  four drivers that often distract us from what really should be driving our lives: The past  has passed. Resentment and Anger -- Some of us would rather get even than get healthy. We bottle up our hurts and never get over them. Instead, we react poorly. "Some resentment-driven people " clam up " and internalize their anger, while others " blow up " and explode it onto others. Both responses are unhealthy and unhelpful." The past is gone. The person we think wronged us probably has forgotten about whatever it is that keeps you resentful. No one who hurt you in the past can continue to hurt you unless you allow it, "For your own sake, learn from it and then let it go."

Take a minute. What guides your life? The correct answer here is God. But all of us -- some of the time, all of the time, or part of the time -- are driven by painful, bad stuff. If you are reading this, maybe you are being driven by alcohol or other drugs. The Self-Driven Life gives us four common things that take the wheel as we drop God off at at a bus stop in Kalamazoo. This is a wonderful book, written by Rick Warren ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ), that gives me lots of oh-yea moments. Here are his top drivers. For the next five blog posts, I will write a little about each. They are: Many people are driven by guilt. Many people are driven by resentment and anger. Many people are driven by fear. Many people are driven by materialism. Many people are driven by the need for approval. I will dissect each like a frog in a high school biology class.