The military taught me to worry about future contingencies. I had to have a plan for many different scenarios, especially being in the medical field. It was a useful state of mind when lives were on the line.
My personal life suffered greatly from the worry, though. I applied it to everything. Alcohol expanded my worries into consistent anxiety. Adding weed to the mix as a civilian distorted my imagination to a wider range of negative future scenarios, none of which were occurring.
My paranoia, worry, and anxiety grew through my years of substance abuse. I carried my assumptions that the day would suck or that something terrible was about to happen.
My outlook on life had turned bleak. I started to see our world as literal hell. But of course my perception was skewed from tens of thousands of drinks over the years. My mind and ego were the hell, which made booze the devil.
Healing from the Worry
It took a few months of sobriety for my brain to clear and for the impending doom to start to subside. I was like a nervous and broken chihuahua when I crawled into AA. I began to see that all my worries were from my negative beliefs in things that weren’t happening. It was a couple of years before my outlook was much better.
The more I practice focusing on the here and now (I call it the herenow because I am into word fuckery) the more peace that grows in me. The consistency of going to recovery meetings and talking with other alcoholics and addicts has brought my turn around.
I take care of what’s in front of me, the things that I am capable of working on. I forget what is none of my business and let go the things I cannot control. What a pointless torture it was! I called it being a realist, but that was a lie to cover up my dark, negative attitude handed to me by substance abuse.
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