I was recently listening to a podcast where they were discussing this, “Why is this happening?” and, “What’s going on that THIS was able to occur?” and, “How did we get here?”
My mind said loud and clear as I was listening to him talk, “FEAR.”
Then, the guy started talking about fear. He said, “Fear clouds critical thinking” and then he said, “There is another concept called “willful blindness,” which is turning a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, or reduce anxiety and protect prestige.”
That is the denial we experience with addiction when we are active in our disease—
Fear and Willful Blindness
When we take the drug or alcohol out of the picture, we can still have our obsessive thinking working overtime to protect us. Which is also a lie, but we don’t know another way of thinking OR behaving. We think the way we are doing things is working just fine—until it doesn’t.
The fear and willful blindness is still there underneath. We need to retrain our brains with healthy thoughts and behaviors to be able to, not only see the truth, but live the truth in reality.
I heard a woman say in a meeting, “It’s not the drinking, its the thinking—Its the obsession of the mind. My mind tells me fake news and then I spend all day fact-checking on social media, ha ha.”
Funny but true. The thinking is the most critical part of sobriety. How we frame our responses to life in our brains.
I had to learn how to be vigilant in my sobriety. To be like an investigator looking for evidence. I can either look for the evidence that proves that I am a bad person or I can look for the evidence of God’s handprints on all that happens…whether it’s in bad circumstances or good. Retrain my brain to look for the choice that supports my sobriety and wholeness.
We are not bad people. We are good people making bad choices. We can choose differently going forward each day.
Today, I will be vigilant and look for God’s handprints on what is happening.
Eyes wide open.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32
Click on my books below to buy.
