Lori announced at my AA home group meeting yesterday that she has achieved 60 days of sobriety. (Applause!!!) But she was feeling guilty about a temptation. Her parents were at a funeral and she was in their house alone. She knew her dad took painkillers, and he kept them in his nightstand. She went into the bedroom, opened the drawer, and found a bottle of Xanax. She put it back, but felt bad anyway because she had been tempted.
I told her that being tempted is no sin. Jesus was tempted a bunch of times, but he resisted. No harm, no foul, no penalty. My friend Eddie pointed out that thinking about it isn't a relapse. "Don't beat yourself up. It's not how you fall, but how you get up."
Mark told a story about being told not to think about a pink elephant. No matter what, don't think about a pink elephant. Later, the man asked, "Well, did you think about a pink elephant?" Mark said of course he did. In order not to think about a pink elephant, he had to think about the pink elephant. "It's like thinking about not drinking. If you do that you will be thinking about drinking. Instead, think about what you can do to help others."
Lori needed to think about how she could positively influence others, not about Xanax. Nevertheless, she overcame her temptation to use, and that's all that really counts.
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