Good evening, my name is Melissa and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is July 24, 2019.
I have chosen to start a blog which talks about addiction, God, recovery, relapse and so much more. I thought that using memes to generate a topic would be a cool idea and as you can see the meme I chose today is very simple, yet speaks volumes; to me anyways.
Stop overthinking...
On Tuesday nights I go to an AA "Big Book Study", tonight we were talking about step four. We were reading over pages 64 through 66. If you're not familiar with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, step four is a writing of a personal inventory. This is where you will write down fears, resentments, sex relations, and harms done to others. After this is written out, in as great of detail as the alcoholic can gather, they discuss it with a sponsor or someone they trust. Through working this step, one is able to see their character defects and that they played a part in whatever the situation may have been - in most cases anyways. There are obvious cases, where having a part, simply does not apply - these are cases such as rape, incest, or something of that nature. This is the ground breaker for all recovery, because drinking is just a symptom. There was something more within ourselves that we were lacking , we had a spiritual malady and the solution in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is finding a Higher Power - in my case, I chose the God of the Christian faith.
Whew, I know that was a mouthful and I hope you're still with me, because I have a few things to say about this that may not make it seem so intimidating. So, you remember yesterday's blog, when I stated that I finally had given in and admitted that I believed in God? (If you didn't read it, you can scroll down to the bottom and check it out; it should be listed there). Well, this was when I was finally able to stop overthinking. Step four had seemed like such a chore, and an absolutely frightening chore at that! Once I found God, I was able to freely write, knowing that I had been forgiven by the only one that really needed to forgive me. I wrote down everything - even if I was embarrassed or didn't know if it needed to be on there. I was purging. Not only the toxins in my body, but the toxins in my mind. I was getting rid of all of that useless clutter that has been taking up space and not paying any rent!
When I did my fourth step, my number one offender was fear! I was afraid of everything. I was afraid to live, and I was afraid to die. I was afraid to succeed, and I was afraid to fail. Basically, I was afraid of anything and everything that was both within and completely out of my control and I would shy away from anything that would put me into a position of the unknown. Fear was on every column that I had written. It had plagued my life. One of my old sponsors had bought me a book that is called "My Friend, Fear", and when I read it, I had not done my fourth step yet, so the contents inside that book didn't really make sense to me. Once I did my fourth step and saw that fear was riddled throughout everything that I was, I knew that this was a character defect that I had to work on, and that had to begin immediately!
So that is exactly what I did, and this encompassed overthinking everything. Because I did.
"What if this happens", or "What if that happens", and "This is not going to work". See - I set myself up for disaster right away. When my mind starts to think like that, I end up down a rabbit hole - inside my own brain, and I can't just turn that off. So, the first thing to battling my fear, and the inevitable overthinking that came as a result, was to just do. If I was afraid of something, I had to get to the bottom of why.
I am not saying that because I am afraid of heights that I would or should go to the closest base-jumping location and try it out, but instead I may go to a tall bridge and walk it, looking over the edge a few times. Recognizing that the fear that I had about heights, in this instance, is irrational and my mind is playing tricks on me. I am okay.
Or, thinking that there is no way in heck that someone is going to hire me, so I shouldn't apply because "what's the point?" No, I am going to apply for that job because maybe they see something in me that I don't know that I have, a potential that I have yet to unlock because I am too busy overthinking how I can't do something.
The point is, stop overthinking, and live your life. Live your life without fear, without expectations, without having to be in control. Practicing this on a daily basis for the last two years(ish) has given me so much freedom, understanding, hope and a new found peace/serenity that I didn't know existed.
I wish you the most wonderful evening, and I wish blessings on your day to follow.
God Bless! 🙏💓
-Melissa Paige
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