IF ONLY’S AND WHAT IF’S

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to live in the present?  I know for a fact that my spaghetti brain may start in the present, but in a nanosecond, I am back to yesterday and in the blink of an eye will probably end up in tomorrow.   I first thought it was a gender thing, because my husband definitely does not have this same struggle.  He has no problem staying in the present and enjoying every minute of it.  Now granted his addict mind restricts a lot of that forward thinking and allows him to suffer some unwanted consequences because of it.  Those in active addiction usually don’t visit the past too much either.  They know how to medicate that real quick and end up with a case of the “I don’t care’s” leaving the family members carrying the huge weight of worry and despair.  My “If Only's” keep me stuck in the past, and my “What If’s” push me into the future, and both places steal my peace. 

I once heard someone in my recovery group say that these “IF’s” as we will call them, can send us straight into crazy town.  So, since no of us want to live in crazy town what can we do?  For me I MUST stay in today.  I know it may sound easier than it is, but this is where our slogans “One day at a time” and “Just for today” come into play.  Things become much more manageable if we look at them in the present.  I am not trying to minimize the concerns that come alongside loving an addict.  The fears are real, and I catch my thoughts heading into dangerous places before realizing it.  Even though I cannot control the thoughts that enter my mind, I can definitely change them.  For me, it is as simple as saying STOP!  I even say it out loud if I’m not in a room full of people.  I CHOOSE not to go there and then I replace that negative thought with a positive one.  I say things like, “I’m safe”, I’m okay”, “everything will work out” or my favorite “shut up devil”.  I cannot change my past nor predict my future so the safest place for me to be is in the present. 

Taking care of today keeps me quite busy, and if I do it successfully, I will be better prepared for tomorrow.  What I do with my day is up to me.  If I want to worry all day, I surely can.  If I want to hand my worries over to God and let Him carry them, I can take that route too.  My counselor had me do an activity where I closed my eyes, and she told me to imagine I had a large empty bookbag on my back walking down a path.  She said every time I say “now” I want you to picture yourself stopping and picking up a large rock and putting it in your bookbag.  As she kept saying “now” I kept filling up my bag until it was just too heavy to carry.  Each of those rocks represented a worry I was carrying.  This was a great visual for me and I realized how much I was carrying that I should have never picked up.  So let me encourage you today to put down your bag, enjoy today, and remember that you are strong enough to handle whatever comes tomorrow!!!