8.19.25
Some days I feel like I’m barely holding it together. Today was one of those days. My patience was stretched so thin I could feel it snapping inside me. My chest got tight, my jaw locked, and I could feel the heat rising in my face. That old part of me—the part that wants to lash out, to prove a point, to scorch the earth and then deal with the fallout later—was screaming to be let loose.
What set me off wasn’t subtle. It was dishonesty. Self-seeking. People thinking the rules don’t apply to them, acting like they can get away with whatever they want. Something in me takes it personally, like their behavior is an attack on order, on fairness, on respect. And my default reaction is rage. The kind of rage that burns hot and fast, leaves wreckage in its path, and then leaves me drowning in guilt after the smoke clears.
That’s the cycle I used to live in. Say something sharp, slam a door, unleash the storm, and then spend the next day—or week—apologizing, making amends, and feeling ashamed. I don’t want to live like that anymore.
So today I used my program like armor. I prayed, even though part of me didn’t want to. I forced myself to pause, to breathe, to sit in the discomfort instead of firing it outward. I asked myself the hard questions: Am I trying to make this better, or am I just trying to feed my ego? Do I want peace, or do I want to be right?
None of it felt good. It felt like swallowing glass. But I didn’t explode. I didn’t add fuel to the fire. I didn’t create another mess to clean up later. That’s progress. That’s growth.
It still amazes me that not reacting is harder than reacting. It feels like restraint is weakness, when really it’s strength. Strength I didn’t have before recovery. Today, I got through it. Tonight, I won’t have to write another amends.
Some days test me to my core, and this was one of them. But those are the days that show me my program is working. Not perfectly, not easily, but enough to keep me sober, sane, and moving forward. And I’m grateful.
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