Good News / Bad News

Congratulations, you’re sober!  There's good news and bad news.  The good news, you get your emotions back.  The bad news, you get your emotions back.

"Arrested Development" ain’t just a show on TV.  It's an actual condition manifested in social retardation.  For many, prior to addiction, life translates into pain.  Somewhere along the line we discover that drugs and alcohol wonderfully mask the horrific mental and emotional strife which plague our daily walk; substance abuse offers temporary relief from said pain.  As a result, our emotional maturation ceases at the genesis of the addiction. Simply put, if we start drinking and using at the age of 15, we we emotionally arrest at that level of maturity until we stop drinking and using.  Here's the rub: Once sober, we must now struggle with adult problems handicapped by the emotional maturity of a 15 year old child. 

Think of how children deal with the world: When they become angry, they throw tantrums.  When they don’t get their way, they pout and hold grudges.  Children bound about the world demanding others focus attention to their every selfish little desire (sound like anyone you know?).  But let's be clear, they're SUPPOSED to do that.  They’re children!  Their very survival depends upon a reliance on adults. However, when a grown-up behaves in the same manner, it's simply annoying and pathetic.     

1^st Corinthians 13:11 says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."   

By working the steps, we begin to acknowledge our past and grow up.  We put our childish ways behind us.