Don't Do That

This is the new slogan for women with more than ten years of recovery.

In earlier stages of recovery we learned, “Easy Does It but Do It” and we learned “Feelings Are Not Facts”. We learned “Look Back but Don’t Stare” when we had to consider issues of our past. And we were reminded that “Under Every Skirt’s a Slip”—my all time favorite slogan--from old timers who knew that romance and sex had to handled carefully.

But last week talking to my friend Stephanie—who also has double-decade sobriety—she was telling me about something she does to undermine her happiness and I said, “Don’t do that.” Later in the conversation I was bemoaning a bad habit of thinking myself into misery and wondering how to change it and she said, “Don’t do that.” And it hit me: “Don’t Do That”—anymore. Whatever “it” is, don’t do it anymore. Don’t shop with credit cards; don’t eat cookies at 11 at night; don’t say yes to the volunteer commitments you know you’ll resent.

After ten years we do know some stuff about ourselves. The road is long and there are surprises at every turn but many of us know the things we do that make us miserable and for many of our issues what we most need to do is, “Don’t Do That.”