A New Way of Looking at Things

I am sort of scratching the surface of a new way of looking at the world. My world. I finished Caroline Knapp's, "Drinking, A Love Story" this morning. Toward the end, as she speaks about her recovery, she mentions that in life, there are two ways to look at your problems.

1. Alcoholically
2. Soberly

This is laughably simple, I realize. I will elaborate with an example. If you are struggling with something, whether it be a new situation or one that has plagued you for a long time, you are forced to figure out how you are going to cope with it. Let's just say it's something as basic as "My car is dying." The alcoholic brain might decide to accept the fact that the car is falling apart, shrug their shoulders and drink. Drink to avoid dealing with the faulty brakes, the bald tires, the poor exhaust system, the useless windshield wipers, the slipping gears. The alcoholic solution is: put it off by dissociating, by replacing the feeling of dread (the anticipation of spending money you don't have to either fix the problems or doing the math to see if it makes more sense to trade in the car and start payments on a better, newer, safer vehicle) with euphoria (drink, drink, drink). The sober solution is to lay all possible options on the table and work toward a positive goal, a way to solve the problem.

She stated that sometimes the answers to our problems can come by simply shifting our thinking a little. Example: My life is a mess because I drink instead of I drink because my life is a mess. Just moving that idea around a bit can create a whole new, clear perspective. Sometimes, it can be life changing.

Because of my chosen profession, my hands are in water a lot of the time. I don't have beautiful nails and going to get a manicure would be like throwing money right out the window. My nails aren't awful, just okay. Except my left thumb nail. That nail is awful. I take a lot of my anxiety out on that nail and on the cuticle. I pick at it without knowing it. It's now to the point where I have to cover the nail with a false nail just to hide the embarrassment I feel allowing it to be naked in public. I looked down at my thumb last night and thought about how much effort has gone into masking the less-than-attractive nail from the rest of the world. How much I wished I could stop picking at the nail and just leave it alone. But then, I looked at my thumb. It's a decent thumb, in good working order. My hands are strong and all of my fingers work together to get mundane things done and very creative things, too. I am proud of the work of these hands. The nail is insignificant. It doesn't factor into my life, my work or the general output of the hands. The thumb does the heavy lifting, all the things that actually matter. So, why couldn't I get beyond the nail? From now on, instead of feeling like a bad nail freak, I will celebrate the thumb as my nail heals. I will learn to love and respect the nail, too, but really give the credit to the digit. Because that's where it belongs. I realize that this is just one long, rambling metaphor, however, it is also a way of shifting. Of realizing that there are always several ways to look at a perceived problem.

My SMART meeting was good last night. Usually, we have a couple of NA type people in the meeting with us alcoholics, but last night, it was a drinkers only group. I am still the only woman present. It's funny, really, when we all get talking. One of the guys refers to social drinkers as, "earth people." I feel like we all speak a foreign language together and only when we can actually sit down and talk about the challenges of our collective weeks do we realize how much we all have in common. It's a relief.