The Most Common Symptoms of Emotional Insecurity (Step 4 continued)

The most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and depression. These stem from causes with sometimes seem to be within us, and at other times to come from without.

This paragraph, the first full paragraph on page 52 of the 12 and 12, is so full of meaning and importance to me that I want to go through it slowly. The first thought here is that my (for me) most frequent character defects, my most frequent excesses of negative emotions, are worry and depression. Big emphasis on worry. When I’m worried, I’m emotionally insecure.

I believe that. I know that fear is an instinct and it keeps me alive, but I frequently fear situations that aren’t actually dangerous. But reacting to danger and trying to mitigate it are worthy goals, and not a defect. It’s the worry that is a toxic thread, and toxic brew that goes through me, too frequently. It robs me of serenity and it lowers my quality of life. It makes me less useful to the situations around me and brings down the people around me.

So someone made comment that I didn’t publish. It said how I seem way too negative, too unhappy, too sick to have all this time sober. That I should be better by now. I just want to record here that I’m writing about the fourth step, frequently in this blog, which is concentrated on my character defects. I’m going through a very stressful time in my life, and I’m feeling a backslide as far as serenity and happiness go. I’m turning to the steps. Mostly I think it’s the transition from working to not working. Too much time on my hands. But I go through most days happy, content, grateful, helpful, and yes a bit too worried. I constantly try to relate what I’m going through to the steps and the program. I’ve been writing this blog for many years now and I hope that if I look back I will see that this truly is a stressful time, and other times have been more serene. But I’m not going to look.

So the causes come from within me and from without. Getting old is a privilege and a gift denied to many and I’m extremely grateful to be here now, able to do all I can do, which is a lot. But. It’s not easy. I take five medications now, where three years ago I took none. Again, grateful for the medications and my access to them and to the doctors who prescribe them but they treat conditions I’d rather not have. It’s so hard for me to describe what’s wrong knowing at the same time that I’m lucky and blessed but here I am. My ears are ringing, my hearings not the greatest, my back, hips, knees feet and ankles are hurting. I have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I didn’t used to. I’d rather not!

My mother is elderly (as she keeps telling me) and I’m grateful she’s here and as healthy as she is but seeing her frailty is difficult as well. Politics, the state of ……. things. These are external stressors from without.

So here I am, with 38 years of sobriety, reconsidering the fourth step again, to go deeper and do better. I’ve always found the answers here and I believe that I always will.