Temptation is Ever-Present

…But a Spiritual Reality Houses My Everyday Living

January 23, 2012

The health with which my life is now infused is directly proportional to the work I’ve undertaken to remain sober. When I think about it — when I think about how close I come to acting out when I’m triggered and the ease with which I can jump off the wagon — it’s sometimes frightening. I can act out; I can always act out. But not if I want a healthier, sane life. I can at any time, but I don’t want to anymore.

There is a spiritual reality in which I’ve housed my everyday living; I have finally understood that I’m a spiritual being having a physical experience. The more I can sustain my work in recovery, the more I can grow my sobriety, the better I comprehend that the ephemeral, physical pleasures of acting out are terribly unhealthy, unspiritual, and simply not worth the agony.

Which is not at all to say that I’m not still tempted. My addiction radar is pinged all the time. All. The. Time. Not only because of the broken nervous system which I have spent these two years repairing, but also because of the physical world I live in.

Temptation is ever-present. Drive past a billboard, glance at a beautiful person, turn on the TV or the internet. I am not built, physically or psychologically, like so many of my friends and relatives outside of fellowship. I receive all this stimuli, all this pop-cultural white noise, in a far less innocuous way than they do. And so, I must rely on my spiritual makeup — which is growing stronger and healthier by the day — to help me through those pings and triggers.

Thankfully, it is now more in my learned nature to smirk (sometimes ruefully) with bemusement and compassion, at what little sips my addiction wants me to take of the unhealthy imagery out there. Almost as often, it’s not even outside influences but my own chemistry playing parlor tricks on me. I have been as triggered on seemingly happy days as I have on depressive or anxious or angry ones. I think it’s just the nature of the beast of addiction.

By putting my program into practice over and over, it becomes not only more rote, but less uncomfortable, to say “No” to acting out. More and more, I have this amazing perspective of coming out of hell and realizing I never, ever want to go back.