UPON AWAKENING - PREEMPTING THE MONKEY

Welcome to our blog, and my first post. I am hoping that this blog becomes  a resource for people in recovery.

Please note that ANYTHING posted here is simply OPINION, and not the gospel!

I believe that we all "do recovery" at our own pace, and learn the lessons that we learn, just as we are intended to learn them, by divine grace.

It took me a LONG time to really get this lesson: First thing's first.

How I start my day has an enormous impact on my experience moving forward.

Very, very often when I first open my eyes in the morning, I am greeted by a voice in my head called "the monkey" (used interchangeably with "the disease," "the 10,000 pound Gorilla"). We can call it the "hyper-critical parent" too. 

The monkey says something like this: "what's up jackass! Top of the morning to ya! Are you ready for things to finally, and completely unravel today?" It will then run through every possible failing that I could possibly face, and ensure me that they will come to pass, if I am a good boy.

To use a physics analogy about momentum: If I start my day with a huge amount of energy in a certain direction (towards healing and recovery), it is much harder to knock me off my course. Life has to throw a lot more at me to get me on the wrong path.

Of course I can restart my day at any time!  Recalibrating at any point in the day is many times a necessity. It takes much more work to get the ship back on course if I haven't made a solid start. There is nothing wrong with this additional work, and the practice of "resetting" or "recalibrating" during the day is critical. Many times, we have no choice but to do so.

AA BIG BOOK PG 86

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.