After my last act out, I have come to wonder if I am addicted to emotional pain. For an addict pain, along with most human instincts and feelings, can be skewed by a strange mental twist. Is pain that place of comfort or familiarity that I am inexplicably drawn to?

I am drawn to the news, like a moth to flame, for comfortable familiarity even though it ignites my emotional pain. News feeds my primary character defect of fear. Constant pain needs constant soothing and I sure do know how to soothe!

I NEED to follow every link, read a few comments, dig deeper, then revolted run to the next news site for something else, something that will make me feel better. I ignore work calls, my wife and children’s calls, program members and my closest friends. I will not go to the bathroom or eat even though I sometimes feel the dire need to do both. I NEVER feel better and join the walking dead.

I am bothered by my lack of progress in my Step work. I have worked the Steps in another fellowship and I am working 10,11, and 12 almost daily. Yet, lack of progress is not the cause of my hindered sobriety. I recently reworked the Twelve and Twelve, Step 3, and (perhaps not coincidentally) stumbled onto this “wonderful revelation”:

“It is when we try to make our will conform with God’s that we begin to use it rightly. … Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us. … In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done’” (12&12 40-41).

Here’s the thing — what can I do about world events? How do I get balance? Get right sized? Have wisdom to know the difference? Well, I can’t but God can. I am a success in recovery as long as I really take it one day at a time and work my program without expectations. I have seen miracles of recovery in the rooms of SA. I have seen families, finances, and faith restored. But miracles, like feelings and willpower, have shelf life. It’s hard to remember a miracle when I am caught up in the fear that the news brings.

So what is the answer? How can I come back to the feeling that the world is a beautiful place where hope is real and the imperfections add to the beauty? For me it has to be action — small, positive action that I can take to make my world a better place. Once I take a small action I can start turning the results, along with the world at large, over to God who can do those huge things I cannot do. For today, I focus on the Serenity Prayer as a way of trying to align my will with God’s.