Slippery Slope

I have no idea how to express how I am feeling right now. I’m not sure I even want to…not to myself, and certainly not to whoever just might happen to surf by and read this. But when I start running from my feelings it’s a dangerous place for me. When I start hiding how I feel because I am afraid of hurting someone or losing someone or something, the situation is even more dangerous. It doesn’t help that I am in pain and probably not thinking too clearly.

My two 12-step meetings that are the most important for me to make are tonight, and I don’t want to go. I have a good excuse not to. I can’t walk more than a few feet without a drum solo of throbbing pain starting on the stage of my ankle. I folded my ankle completely sideways yesterday morning. Nothing serious. The injury is only a bad sprain, I can’t walk and hurt, but I’ll be fine in a day or two I’m sure. In the meantime, the pain is distracting and an easy excuse to do nothing.

But a few minutes after telling a friend I might not be at the second meeting tonight, I knew I wasn’t being honest. It would be best if I can admit that to others, but I must admit it to myself. I simply don’t want to go tonight. Thanks to my ankle blowing up on me yesterday morning I missed doing some things I really wanted to do. Now I feel like I’m playing catch up.

But I need to be careful. I’ve been too close to the edge lately. I have a hundred excuses to use within easy reach. I am afraid of letting things slide to the point where I am tempted to look for one of those excuses, where I begin to listen to the siren call of my addiction, where my spiritual condition becomes to poor to continue to keep me safe. But I am tired. I am confused. I am afraid. And I feel I need to address the situations, yes plural, that are causing those feelings and not just run and hide from them. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to do both. At least not at the same time.