"The feelings of uselessness and self-pity
will disappear." The Sixth Promise.
Just because we get sober why would our feelings
of uselessness and self-pity disappear? I believe there are a few reasons.
One of the reasons would be that when we were
drinking and doing the other things we do we did very little that was useful.
Once we get sober we stop stealing, start working, become responsible for our
children, and start acting like productive citizens. Those are things we didn't
do much of when we were drinking. Because when we were drinking all we were
thinking about was ourselves and our internal chemistry. Where would I get my
next drink? Would I panhandle some change? Would I steal it from a market? It
was a constant challenge to stay drunk.
And self-pity followed us around like a dark cloud
over our heads. Then one day, after we've been sober a while we realized that
the feeling of self-pity had disappeared. After all, when we had self-pity we
had a good reason to take a drink or whatever else we took to change our state
of consciousness.
But there is something powerful when we set down
the bottle and start taking charge of our lives. Many of us – and I was one of
them – showed up with virtually nothing but a few pennies in our pockets. In
fact, all I had when I showed up was the clothes on my back and seventy-three
cents. After being sober 11 days, I was sent from the detox I was in to a
halfway house. Right away I started working and getting my strength back. Soon
I started getting a paycheck and was able to pay rent.
I no longer felt sorry for myself because I was,
to some degree, taking charge of my destiny again by getting rid of all the
substances I was ingesting. It's real difficult to feel self-pity when one is
doing responsible things. Like going to meetings. Like chairing meetings. Like
paying rent and being responsible for ourselves and our obligations.
Of course, uselessness and self-pity might pop up
once in a while, but once we have a period of sobriety under our belt it
quickly disappears because we realize what we did to get rid of it in the first
place.
