[bluidkiti]

"Journey To The Center Of Your Mind"

"...the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body." ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, There Is A Solution, Page 23~

There is a little bit of a discrepancy in the Big Book about this very subject. The above quote in "There Is A Solution" focuses on the main problem of the alcoholic, but it also states in "The Doctor's Opinion" page xxiv that "In this statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete."

What we do not understanding is the mind problem comes way before the physical aspects of alcoholism. The main problem is the mind of the alcoholic!!! Of course to leave out the physical factor would make talking about alcoholism incomplete, but we seem to focus our attention on the physical factor and not the main problem.

Let's face it we are messed up in the mind, and if we do not find a way around that problem we are condemned to a miserable existence. I don?t care if you drink, do drugs, have uncontrollable sex, gamble all of your money, or eat so much that you explode. If you quit those thing and still keep on using the same type of thinking you are not going to find the necessary peace in the soul that one needs to call themselves sober.

We have all heard about the dry drunk! That is exactly what I am talking about here. Sure he quits drinking and possibly changes a few things about the way he thinks, but he sticks to the same old thought that some how he controls his destiny in life. He will keep on trying and trying to find happiness in the things that he does, but has no luck. Again, like the actor he tries to control the flow of life instead of going with it. It not only goes against the grain of reality, but pisses everyone off including himself. Yeah, if he quits drinking the bodily problem goes away, but it is that mind problem that keeps on getting him down.

I studied the physical aspect of alcohol and drug addiction. It is very true that our bodies produce various chemicals that in effect make us feel certain things. Yet what we are not realizing is that to fire these chemicals off, it takes the brain to do it. Things like alcohol and drugs alter the brain into reacting a certain way, but what we are not realizing is our mind is what is firing off the signals for our bodies to produce those chemicals.

That is why you can become addicted to about anything. If you make the brain produce these chemicals enough, the body tends to expect the feeling to happen all of the time. I hear people who really and truly believe that they have a problem with anxiety and depression. I am not saying that these ailments are not real, in fact they are very real to the people who feel them, but it is exactly what these people are feeding their mind that produces the effects of the ailment. Just a slight change in the way they are thinking can produce different results!

In the Big Book it says the way around this problem of the mind is to have a complete psychic change. Again the "Doctor's Opinion" page xxvii, "After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery." This problem isn't specific to just those who drink, it covers a variety of people who cannot find any happiness in life. Happiness is not found in the bottom of a can or a glass bottle. Nor is it found by hoarding tons of money away. It isn't found in a prescription drug container, or in a plastic baggie. Those are all just ways we synthetically produce the feeling of pleasure. They all some way or another help us find a sure way sooner or later (most of the time sooner) to some type of despair.

Happiness is found by experiencing life as it comes to you !!!! It is by letting a God of your understanding change the way that you think. If you keep on grasping on to the same old ideas happiness will never come. I like what a very good friend of mine says in meetings almost every time I see him. "Now that I no longer am trying to drive the bus, I am happier, longer, for longer periods of time." When I asked him what he meant by that, he stated "Ed, There are still times after all these years of sobriety that I still find myself trying to get back in that driver?s seat. It is when I do that the happiness goes away."

We must let go and let God. If you refuse to do that the same old problems will still be there. It is really hard for someone to get depressed if they make the decision to notice the beauty that surrounds them. You can?t really feel anxious over watching the world work in all it's mysterious ways. It is only when we try to manipulate how those things work for us, that we find problems. Not only for ourselves, but for anyone or anything that comes in contact with that type of selfish behavior. It is the high expectations of the self that creates these problems of the mind, and the only way out of it is to change the way we are thinking!!!!!
--Ed C.