Denial Baffles My Brain

So, I'm in a meeting earlier tonight and I see a young man in so much pain. Denial of a problem, still strong in his addictions. Losing his family as he spoke and not wanting to change a thing. He had honesty about the issues, yet the addiction was winning. How could this be possible? I wept, hard.

Nobody could get through to this young man. Nobody. Then again, nobody could get through to me when I was active in addiction. Nobody but God because he was the only one that could see what I was like when nobody was looking and the only one I asked for help from.

When I look back at the moment I asked God for help and told him, "I can't do this anymore.", it's strange. I felt like a zombie. Like my life was on the line if I didn't change, if I didn't drive to that twelve step meeting. Though all I did was ask for help. I was willing to live differently and yet I still don't have the answers as to why I was given the gift of being present for my own experience in the midst of that bender.

I was in denial for so many years. I lied to myself daily to continue drinking. To continue reveling in selfishness and flopping around in grandiosity-denying truth. I told myself it was fun, that I was rich and could afford to buy people drinks, that I was irresistible, that I had all the answers...no I wasn't and no I did not. My brain could not conceive of the truth, especially while intoxicated.

Denial

1. A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.

2. A refusal to grant the truth of a statement or allegation; a contradiction.

Denial still baffles me in my own life and the lives of others. Though, if I go to my closest friends and family, and to God, with willingness to listen, and ask them to reveal the truth of what they see in me and of my life, I know from experience that they will...with love.

For this willingness to be a student, I am grateful. I thank all of my teachers. Especially God. I hope to always show my gratitude in return.