Let Me Tell You About Hard

Difficult: hard to do, make, understand, etc.; involving trouble, effort, or skill.

I don't like to do anything that's difficult. I don't even like reading the definition of the word difficult. It contains terribly upsetting words like trouble and effort. I like things to be easy. I want things to be given to me while I take a nap. God should be like Santa Claus. Comes in the night, doesn't ask for anything in return, leaves nice stuff. Although my parents warned me that if I was bad Santa wouldn't stop by our house, I always got a lot of presents. I was suspicious of the flying reindeer and sliding down a filthy chimney hole story, but I wasn't about to look a gifts-with-no-work gift horse in the mouth.

I figure life should be like that. I want sobriety to be a walk in the park. I want all of the benefits without any of the unpleasantness: amends and right behavior and crap like that. I don't want to work the Steps or pray or call anyone on the phone.

Here's hard. Spending all of my money at a bar, in a blackout so I can't remember any of the "fun" I had, and getting up the next morning remorseful, sick to my stomach, and suffering a blistering headache. Enduring an entire day of physical sickness; suffering the emotional disapproval of my family, friends, and coworkers; worried sick about my finances and precarious legal standing. That's hard.

What is my excuse again for not picking up the phone and making a call?