Quote:
April 9
Acting Out
"We learn to experience feelings and realize they can do us no harm unless we act on them."
IP No. 16, "For the Newcomer"
Many of us came to Narcotics Anonymous with something less than an overwhelming desire to stop using. Sure, the drugs were causing us problems, and we wanted to be rid of the problems, but we didn't want to stop getting high. Eventually, though, we saw that we couldn't have one without the other Even though we really wanted to get loaded, we didn't use; we weren't willing to pay the price anymore. The longer we stayed clean and worked the program, the more freedom we experienced. Sooner or later, the compulsion to use was lifted from us completely, and we stayed clean because we wanted to live clean.
The same principles apply to other negative impulses that may plague us. We may feel like doing something destructive, just because we want to. We've done it before, and sometimes we think we've gotten away with it, but sometimes we haven't. If we're not willing to pay the price for acting on such feelings, we don't have to act on them.
It may be hard, maybe even as hard as it was to stay clean in the beginning. But others have felt the same way and have found the freedom not to act on their negative impulses. By sharing about it and seeking the help of other recovering people and a Power greater than ourselves, we can find the direction, the support, and the strength we need to abstain from any destructive compulsion.
Just for today: It's okay to feel my feelings. With the help of my sponsor, my NA friends, and my Higher Power, I am free not to act out my negative feelings.
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Always a good topic, at least a good lesson for me. As I have said before, "Just because I have a feeling, doesn't mean I have to act on it." Recovery isn't just about giving up the drug, it is about changing the actions and thoughts behind the act of picking up the drug in the first place. I needed a change in attitude, a change of thought, and changes in my habits, behaviours, and my selfish, self-centered, that was about I and not about you.
The drug was a cover up, the acting out was my disease, and the drug spoke through me, and I had to build a relationship with the God of my understanding, to keep that disease out of my life. I am not my disease. I am responsible for my actions while under the influence of my disease, but thanks to the program, I no longer have to slip back into old ways of thinking and acting.
Feelings needed to be acknowledged and let go of or nurtured. It is how I act out in my dis-ease, that needed changing, no more hissy fits, no more putting someone down to make myself feel better, no more acting out as the god of my life, no more thinking I know everything and my word was law, and the list goes on and on.