The other night, I had a weird “reaction” to things here at home. Let me explain the way things have been lately first.

I know that I let the kids get away with too much. I know that I let them take advantage of me. I also know it needs to stop. I have been really working with them on respect and attitude. I guess there are just times when they expect me to do things for them because I always have. Things that they can darn well do for themselves. Most of the time I do it because I am up and don’t mind. Sometimes it is a reflex and I do it simply because I always have. Honestly, I am really working on getting them to do more for themselves and being more appreciative when I do things for them. I do not want a bunch of spoiled brats here.

Well, on Sunday, one of the kids was just giving me complete attitude. Being demanding without any appreciation. Just total expectation that I will just jump up and do whatever he wants. When I called him on it, I got total attitude.

It broke something inside me. I stopped what I was doing, looked at my husband pleadingly (as if to ask him if I was overreacting to the attitude). When he shook his head no, that I was not, I just felt so defeated. So upset. I grabbed my keys from the table and told him I would be back later, that I needed to get out. And I left.

Here is where it got unusual for me. I totally reverted to an old reflex. I jumped in the car. Down went the windows. Up went the volume of the radio. And I was off. Driving with no destination with the radio about a decibel shy of blowing the speakers. The next thing I know, I am in the parking lot of the group where I sobered up.

I have no idea what propelled me towards that place. I hadn’t been there in well over a year. Was it coincidence? Was it just an old habit that came back when I was upset? (Sidenote: When I was first getting clean and felt the need to use again or was so upset or “wrapped around the axle”, I would jump in the car and go there to be reminded why I didn’t want to numb those feelings. I went to be “talked off the ledge”, so to speak.) So what made me go there? Are my old feelings and reactions resurfacing? Was there an underlying desire to use so that I can numb that awful feeling of uselessness and frustration?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am not really asking you the answers to these things. They are purely rhetorical. But, the very fact that the questions popped up bothered me. I guess when you have 3 1/2 years behind you, you think that you have addiction beat. You are queen and will suffer no more!

It is probably a good thing for it to jump up and bite me in the ass once in a while to remind me that it will be with me forever. That if I ever get so arrogant as to think that I will never need to worry again, then I will surely slip back into that pit. A pit so deep and so dark that I never want to visit it again, let alone live in it.

I am choosing to take the reaction as a reminder rather than as a forewarning to where I could be heading. Something to remind me of where I was. I don’t want to think that I could be standing on the slippery slope of my addiction again. Maybe a wake up call to stop stuffing the negative things and stress I feel down inside, but to work them out.

I’m not even sure why I am sharing all of this with you. Maybe just so I can see it in black and white. Maybe so that I can work it out. Maybe just because I write about everything and this fell into that category. Who knows. Who cares. I just thank you for reading it.

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