Read Page 417...Read Page 417...Read Page 417...

........I hear that in my sleep and in my dreams

So - Do you think a certain sentence from Page 417 will show up when I read "Acceptance was the Answer"

Let's Find Out:

"If you had my problems (my wife), you would drink too"

• In my first marriage, this was a common theme to my drinking. This was something that at some lower level I even believed after my divorce. I truly believed that with Nicha I would never drink again. That is probably still the single most demoralizing aspect of my relapse. Given that, it just reinforces that I am and will always be an alcoholic on the inside, no matter what blessings I have surrounding me. My daily reprieve is based on my spiritual condition as well as my acceptance of the world around me.

"There's only one persons' guts I hate more that yours and those are my own"

• For so many years I hated myself. The more I drank, the more I cheated, the more I lied, the more I hated myself. This simply led to more of those destructive actions. I started to dislike myself again with the latest relapse. Not to the same extent as before, but poor decisions lead to poor self-worth.
  

"I had to give up all mood and mind-affecting chemicals in order to stay sober"

• When I was in the ER for my abdomen, they gave me morphine and then a prescription for Vicodin. All this and they do not know what is wrong with me. My wife has the prescription - I am not sure how I feel about not taking it if the pain gets as bad as it was on Wednesday.
  

"If I could just control the external environment, the internal environment would then become comfortable"

• When I was in the ER for my abdomen, they gave me morphine and then a prescription for Vicodin. All this and they do not know what is wrong with me. My wife has the prescription - I am not sure how I feel about not taking it if the pain gets as bad as it was on Wednesday.

"At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem"

• Acceptance is something for me to work on every day. That must be why my sponsor has me reading Page 417 every day. :-P
  

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today"

• To Reiterate: That must be why my sponsor has me reading Page 417 every day.

"Perhaps the best thing of all is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations"

• I so needed to hear this again - especially when it comes to Brady. I struggle so much in how much lower I should drop my expectations. If I am a father to him, don't I need to expect even the slightest of effort? This will be my daily effort to practice acceptance.