We all have experienced our mother’s intuition, especially as children. They always had the ability to take one look at us and sensing that we had been up to something. That something was more in the line of a Dennis the Menace something. You know, the kind of look that messaged “Yea, Mom, I did break that antique vase given to you by the President.”
In our 12-step program of recovery, we read the Promises of AA at all our meetings. And of the thirteen lines or so, there is one of the Promises that I have been thinking about this past week. A member of Depressed Anonymous and I have been sharing our thoughts with each other about these Promises. Here is the sentence that I find to be full of hope for our recovery. “We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.”
The dictionary defines intuition as “The direct knowing or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning: immediate apprehension or understanding.”
It has taken me some years to realize, without even thinking about it, that there was something that really baffled me, was powerful and cunning. I am not talking just about abusing alcohol, even though the three words apply to addictive drinking, and how the thought to drink suddenly popped into my mind and I thought one drink wouldn’t hurt. The one drink did matter.
Now that I have been in recovery, I have learned that there is such a thing as “red flags” which automatically pop up in my mind and my thinking starts to slide down into that slippery slope which always brings my mood down and my feelings aching. In the past I could not stop these thoughts from pulling me downward. Now, I get “red flags” warning me. intuitively, that no good is going to come from going down this path.
Like any addiction, which once enslaved us, the thinking, as messed up as it was, suddenly threw me down and put the shackles on my mind.
Now I intuitively know, recognize, that I will not be overpowered, or let these old tapes, old playbills, take over my mind, my body, and soul. When the old deadly thoughts come knocking at my door, I know, no heavy-duty thinking, no conscious reasoning about what is available, I just know. DON’T GO THERE!
I do know this for a fact when an addictive thought starts to take me to where I know I cannot go, I have enough warning now, a “red flag”, where I don’t even have to think of the consequences–I intuitively know that there will be hell to pay if I start to go through the “should I” or “shouldn’t I” internal dialogue.
Hugh