Accepting Underlying Causes of Conflicts

By Richard Jacobellis

Before 1974 I hated the world and everybody in it. I was a people-pleaser, until I learned to please myself — that was the key — to know that I was a sick person trying to get well, not a bad person trying to get good. I got into counseling in 1992 because there were underlying causes; I had underlying causes that drove me to obsess: to buy things, to make me happy — but they ultimately never did. They would make me happy only for a while, until I asked God, until I realized that God is the one that gives understanding, that if I asked Him to keep me sober, He is the only one that could do it — for me. And that has worked since 1975. Acceptance of reality is the key to my sobriety. Once I learned to accept myself, and my limitations, I could accept others and their faults.

If someone else had done to me what I did to myself I would kill him. You hope that someone gets the message that staying sober is like growing up. It took me twenty-three years (I was a drunk for twelve years, and I came into AA at 23). I didn’t like myself — I was in debt and I knew there was a god and that it wasn’t me. And they said, ‘you’ll be fine’. My father showed me the program in 1974: he wasn’t drinking at the time, but he wanted to help me. I asked him, “what do I do when I get there?”. He says, “you sit down in front, you shut up, and you listen.” You try not to compare — you identify with the speaker‘s feelings and emotions — everybody has them. When I went in, I thought I was the only one that felt like they had a hole in their soul. It was like doom and gloom, my life was unmanageable and unbelievable. And today, you know, I find it’s more amazing what I can remember, for when I drank I always had blackouts. I was never a social drinker; I never had one of anything in my life. I didn’t care about myself. I hated myself, I hated authority; I knew I was wrong. I knew there was a hell. I realized, after twenty years of AA, that I had to get into counseling to find the underlying causes for what I did. In other words, I had to drop the word “blame” and realize that I was the one who did it to myself, but at the time nobody could tell me.