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I am just a bloke who got in a mess with booze. I was helped to
recover by Alcoholics Anonymous and their Twelve Step program. I don't claim to
be anything special, but I was shown the path to recovery and I want to show it
to others.
AA does not endorse this book, but I hope you find that it
contains ideas and suggestions that help if you try and adopt the program into
your life.
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I have an image of my illness as a monkey. Not a cute little fur ball of fun,
but a devious, clever and tenacious monkey (who happens to talk as well). This
image came to me when I used to get home, open the door and "wham" a feeling of
dread and hopelessness would drop from the door jamb and land on the back of my
neck. It was an empty home and as I entered, feelings of despair and darkness
seemed to wreath about me. In this emptiness the whispered thoughts of how
difficult it would be to get through the night crept into my mind. It was too
much to bear. Within seconds I changed from happy and safe into lonely and
scared. Clearly, there was an invisible talking monkey waiting to drop on my
shoulder when I got home.
This might seem strange, but it helps me to understand my thoughts if I put
pictures in place to represent ideas. A more clinical view would be that I have
an addiction that triggers a subconscious craving, but I find the image of a
monkey trying to trick me into feeding it to be easier to imagine and resist.
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