Reasonably Happy

Reasonable: Not extreme; sensible; sane.


Let's take a bit of time to really criticize the shit out of some of the most frustrating parts of the prayer. One of the lines that grabbed me by the throat was the one containing the phrase "reasonably happy." I only have a passing acquaintance with reason. The concepts of sensibility, sanity, and moderation are alien to me. I don't want reasonable happiness. I want to be extremely happy. I want to be euphorically happy. I want life to be a shot of heroin, not a nice cup of herbal tea.


Coded somewhere deep in my alcoholic DNA is the belief that I can always be very, very happy and that pain is strictly optional. This is not normal programming. This is programming performed by a rogue hacker who is trying to crash the whole system. This is a computer infected with a virus and a worm, then set on fire and thrown out a second story window into heavy truck traffic. Even if this was normal programming -- which I will emphasize again that it is not -- life on life's terms will do some reprogramming.

Not extreme. Sensible! Sane. It's funny how often the concepts of sanity and insanity come up when we are discussing the behavior of alcoholics.