" I continue to be surprised by people I meet who say, 'You haven't had a drink in a long time, have you?' The surprise to me is the fact that I didn't know that they knew my drinking had gotten out of control That is where we are really fooled. We think we can drink to excess without anyone knowing it. Everyone knows it." This section contained the phrase "drink planning." Everybody knows it. My well-used quip is that when I began the face to face amends process no one argued with me. Not one person. Nobody said: "Get outta here." The responses were more along the line of "Thank God you're finally getting some help." Remember having to calculate how we could drink as much as we wanted while navigating any social, personal, or business obligations we had? No sense in going if I couldn't drink enough. The hotel rooms with a sink fall of beer cooling on ice so that I could show up well-lubricated. This story remarked that this guy's wife could never understand how he got so drunk on just one cocktail.
Odds and Ends from the Toltecs . . .
"It may seem counterintuitive but you choose to let go in order to be in control. Self-mastery is not an isolated idea within the Toltec tradition, as every form of spiritual discipline provides a map to help us live in harmony by freeing us from the tyranny of our own thinking and being affected by the projections of others. Knowing that others see you in a specific way gives you choices when you engage with them. Your awareness of that allows you to stay true to yourself and not give in to the temptation to take on others' definition of who you are."
Letting go. Hmmm . . . where have I heard that before? Not letting myself be defined or controlled by what others think . . . or To Thine Own Self Be True. Hmmm . . . sounds kind of familiar, too.
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