Dr. Paul, Dr. Paul, Dr. Paul

"In the hospital, I hung on to the idea I'd had most of my life: that if I could just control the external environment, the internal environment would then be comfortable.  Life keeps gettingg simpler as we try to take care of the internal environment via the Twelve Steps, and letting the external environment take care of itself."  

"I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation.  A.A. has taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God, and we each have a right to be here.  When I focus on what's good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what's bad, I have a bad day.  If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases."

I don't believe there is many a truth more universal than the tendency of substance abusers to find what's wrong and to ignore what's right.   This is probably a survival mechanism of long-standing efficacy.  The dumb people don't study their environment for threats and they get eaten by velociraptors or bit by pit vipers or they eat poisoned persimmons or they don't find anything to eat at all, poisoned or not.  So, great, I have good survival skills to rely on should I be dropped into an extremely hazardous place but the problem is, as I see it, that these skills have a certain amount of redundancy and are extraneous if I'm sitting in the sun on my porch.