We only have today. If you’ve been in the rooms even for a modicum of time, you’ve heard that familiar phrase. Keeping it in the day was the one I really liked but both are first cousins and carry plenty of meaning even for our earthling friends. Too often we get caught up in what was and what might be. It is rarely that our focus sits right here right now. I won’t get off on a tangent with the new age didacticism of “being in the now” because this alcoholic has little patience for psychobabble. But “keeping it in the day” and “we only have today” are the true meaning of freedom for those of us afflicted by the lash.
When we keep it in the day we are not guilt laden by what our story was and since the wreckage of our past is hardly a place we want to linger unless we are engaged in Step 4 or Step 5 the present is a safe place. And neither do we want to spend our time daydreaming of what might lie in store for us because for some of us the past is likely to catch up from our prior transgressions. These may make us pay some sort of price but this is life on life’s terms. We are accountable but not responsible and so if we are okay right now then we must allow ourselves to keep it in the day because my friend today never comes around again and our yesterdays are history, and tomorrow may never come.
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It is all well and good to live in the present . Neglecting the immediate future may not be wise. Explain to me how you come to the conclusion that you are not "responsible" for your actions, or have I misunderstood?
ReplyDeleteI know you must be an earthling when you pose this very poignant query. To say that alcoholics are not responsible refers to the disease of alcoholism rather than the consequences of that behavior. We are accountable however to that behaviors consequences. Did I answer your question?
ReplyDeleteDo you mean alcoholics are not responsible for drinking? I guess I am not privy to the private lexicon of alcoholics. I thought alcoholics were people like the rest of us earthlings and spoke the same language. I'm sorry I should not have commented.
ReplyDeleteComments are always welcomed. It might be a debatable concept that alcoholics are not responsible but it refers to the premise that alcoholics have a disease. Some do not believe this and claim that drinking alcoholically is a choice behavior but not a disease. However, semantics aside it is a way for us to navigate further deprecation that we are not responsible but are accountable. It does not excuse us from the consequences of our behavior. Some are sicker than others might be another topic to delve deeper into.
ReplyDeleteUncle
ReplyDeleteFinely parsed, Jack. Perhaps too easier-softer for me. My prints are all over it...CSI's got me dead to rights.
ReplyDeleteSorry it took so long to figure out the URL thing. An OCD trait is making things more complicated than they are.
I came to the conclusion Mike that many things escape my memory and its not simply the damage done but simply my obsessive nature.
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