The other day, my wife and I were traveling from North Carolina to Florida. She had been on her cell phone for about an hour nonstop. I became annoyed that she was not paying attention to me. I remembered that she had asked me, in a prior conversation, to remind her if she seemed over-focused on her work. Feeling justified making a comment, I told her in a patronizing way to “relax.” She correctly took it as my trying to control her, and we were off! In this old familiar pattern, we pit ourselves against each other in a cosmic battle for control. After some intense exchanges, we called a time out and she perceptively asked me what was really going on. I paused and went deep.

I discovered that I was feeling sad about leaving North Carolina and our friends in meetings there. In addition, I was sad about leaving such a beautiful environment and returning to the city. Our neighborhood in Florida is generally not as peaceful as the cabin by the mountain stream that we live in for half the year. At a deeper level, I felt the long-term grief about losing five friends and relatives I had been close to during the last two years. My sadness and grief came into focus and I began to weep. I relinquished my need to feel “in control.” Afterwards, my wife agreed that she would postpone her phone calls so that I could have a time of quiet. I had made a mistake. I really wanted a real connection with both God and my wife in my grief, but I didn’t have the clarity to ask for it directly.

My fantasy is that I can meet my own emotional needs. I can’t, but routinely I’ll go to any lengths to deny or distract myself from any feelings that attempt to get through my defenses. If I look at the positive in this pattern, I may have a model in my ferocious commitment to denial of my feelings. What if I were to practice my recovery as recommended in Alcoholics Anonymous (87) with the same energy and determination? “As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the next thought or action.” Perhaps a starting point for me would be program wisdom of pausing “when agitated or doubtful.” This would allow feelings to inform me instead of fighting with my mind and my wife.

I have a long way to go, but I wanted to share some progress on the path of my recovery.