The Path of Self-destruction

The Path of Self-destruction
March 23, 2009 Story of the Day
January 1973

Vol. 29 No. 8


MY LIFE for the first thirty-four years was a series of well-learned negative feelings and attitudes. So ingrained were these into my total personality that seven and a half years of intensive psychotherapy, plus six months in a psychiatric institute, did no more than give me self-sanction to attempt a nearly successful suicide and to sink further into severe states of depression and anxiety.

I left therapy to continue my progressive alcoholism behind the locked doors of my home, becoming addicted to tranquilizers and sedatives as well. On my not-so-merry way, I carved a perfect path of self-destruction. Quietly and insidiously, many other lives were painfully affected. On this path lie three wrecked marriages.

I always felt I was a completely worthless person. I thought I knew horrible things about myself, and I locked them up in my mind so that no one else could get a glimpse of the real me. From early childhood, I felt I was bad. Even for others' wrongdoings, I took the guilt upon myself, producing fear, anger, and hatred.

The God of my childhood, I thought, didn't want me to talk to Him. If I did turn to Him, I felt, He wouldn't protect me anyway, because it seemed He never answered my prayers--He wanted me to suffer. This great source of strength became a tool against any healthy attitude I might have developed. I didn't dare to love another human being, either, knowing that I wasn't good enough to have the love returned. Frightened, I lived in a world of silence, often wishing I were dead.

Today, as a sober, recovering alcoholic, I know that I was not victimized by society, by my environment, nor by my alcoholic parents, on whom I blamed my many failures and my mental and emotional problems. I was my own judge and jury, my own jailer. I built my own scaffold and was my own executioner, inflicting punishment upon myself at every turn.

One evening, about sixteen months ago, I put down a glass of vodka and announced aloud that somehow I had just decided I never would take another drink, that I had chosen between life and death. I said I wanted life--but only if I could learn how to live happily.

My sole friend and confidante, a nonalcoholic woman, encouraged me to call AA the following morning. My call was answered by two female AAs, one of whom drove me to meetings for a month. Grateful to be accepted as a member at my very first meeting, I read the Steps through blind, unfocused eyes. I listened as best I could, and I began to understand that these people were sober--and happy! And so I did what they suggested. I did it slowly, to be sure, but believing in them and AA. By the grace of God, my compulsion to drink left me early, and my addiction to pills was overcome by hard work with some fine sponsors and other AA friends.

After a few months, one of my sponsors said that when I was ready to take Step Four, I might head my list of character defects with "self-destruction." I was surprised and shaken at this prospect, but it propelled me to begin my search for the truth about myself. First of all, I discovered that, though I was physically sober, my behavior was still self-destructive. Through studying our AA program, attending many, many meetings, and receiving my sponsor's "first aid," I learned that my thoughts were actually the first stage of the self-destructive action. Each day (including today), I asked my Higher Power to give me the strength, courage, and hope to stay sober for that day, and to help me uncover my deeply implanted and instinctive thought processes, to make each and every thought conscious. By taking it one day at a time, I began to realize the tremendous power of my mind when working on a conscious plane with my Higher Power and the AA program. Little by little, I was able to catch those negative thoughts which invariably preceded the self-destructive action, so that I could nip them in the bud.

One day about six months ago, after a particularly upsetting incident, I found myself jotting down these words: "I couldn't accept my self-destructive feelings or actions this time around. I tried to, because it was an old, proven method of dealing with the situation, but I could not accept it. I feel gratitude for God's love and the helping hands of AA."

On the day I wrote those words, I realized that a new life had become mine. A brand-new set of attitudes and values had been born out of one fruitful year of working the suggested Twelve Steps. Difficulties do occur, but now I know that they are a part of living and, more important, that the answers to them are to be found in our AA program.

AA has given me the beautiful gift of life, with tools--the Steps--for building and maintaining happiness. I now truly enjoy my art work and oil painting, and my personal life is pleasant and gratifying. I know there is help in AA any time I reach out, as my closest AA friends have proven time and time again.

I also know that every once in a while a self-destructive thought will creep up on me, but now I recognize it for what it is, and I have learned, with help, how to deal with it. When an old negative thought does come, I tell it, "You can visit, but you can't stay!"



D. E.
Oregon