"Fear
of people and of economic insecurity will leave us." The 10th promise
There are a lot of reasons why people fear others.
And why we fear economic insecurity. But the promises teach us that these will
leave us. And I know that in my case that has been true.
As far as the first part – fear of people – there
have been some people that I have feared and some that I haven't been afraid
of. For some reason, probably because of my being brought up by an alcoholic
father, I was always comparing myself to others. What they had. What they did
for a living. Where they went to school. How they dressed. For me it was always a
comparison game and for some reason I came out on the short end. And that made
me feel socially incompetent.
But since I've gotten sober all of that stuff is
gone away. I no longer compare myself to other people. I know that there are
some who do things better than I do, just as I know that I do some things
better than others. The one thing that has made a big difference for me is the
fact that I have quit using alcohol and other substances. I know that deep down I just felt worthless most of the time because I wasn't living up to my potential.
That's where my fear of people came from. I felt like they were judging me,
though probably in reality they didn't give a crap. As long as I didn't cause
problems in their life they were pretty much okay with leaving me to do my
thing. But since I've gotten sober I feel like that I've learned to mesh with
society, to contribute to the community, and to give back to a world that I had
taken so much from.
As to the economic insecurity, I'm one of those
people who has always been fortunate in that I have the ability to make money.
I have owned several different businesses in my life. I've had a lot of
material success. My problem was that because of my addictions I was unable to
hang on to anything. Either I gave it away, or spent it on partying with people
who were like me. I don't know how many businesses and relationships I
lost because of my disease.
Today, going on 26 years of sobriety I feel secure
in myself in most every way. And I know that none of this would've come to me
unless I first got sober.
