Addiction, My Shield and Buckler

I don't usually post two days in a row but I learned something yesterday and I want to make sure I understand it and don't forget it.

See yesterday's blog as to the efforts I am making toward recovery. One of the efforts was to go and get my darn hair cut and colored. This I did. My beautician is also my massage therapist. She is multifaceted. As we were sitting and visiting while my hair processed we talked about living life. Sheri does a lot of stuff. She is way involved with her family, her spiritual journey, and physical journeys. She is a great traveler and has been all over the world. Our conversation wandered far and wide as usual because I am intensely interested in her experiences in foreign climes, both physical and spiritual. I told her how brave I thought she was. This label seemed to stump her. "Brave? What does being brave have to do with it?" Now I was stumped. "Well, being willing to take all the risks involved with doing something totally new."
"What risk" she said "I want to live my life to the full. It is a God given privilege to be able to savor all the different experiences it can offer. I am motivated by the opportunity to feel and learn. Why else are we here?" Why indeed.

I most emphatically am not motivated by first hand opportunities to feel and learn. In fact I want to be shielded from opportunities to feel/learn. And this is addiction in a nutshell. The addict wants to be once removed from life. We do not want to experience it raw. We want to know it from behind a buffer. For us each new day only offers new opportunities to be hurt. We strive for the muffled life. My muffler happens to come with powdered sugar. Yours might come with olives or needles or a charge card.

Her response continued. "Do you really want a colorless life with nothing new happening.?"
"You betcha. I want a life I can control." By now she was up and taking the papers off my head. She stopped in her tracks and looked me full in the face.
"Do you really think you can control anything that happens to you?" She was incredulous. "We control very little of what happens to us. All we can control is our response to it."
The synapses in my brain shorted out and I just sat there. What did she mean I couldn't control what happened to me? I am my own worst enemy. Of course I control what happens to me. I have made my life shit. If I had made and did make better choices my life would better. I am completely responsible for everything that has gone wrong in my life.
She patted my hand, "You sound like my teenagers" she said.

What the hell??????

I was and am lost. I have been thinking about all she said since she said it. I don't understand what she meant. And that is addiction. The inability to comprehend/accept the difference between a self controlled life and a God controlled life.

Is this surrender? Response-able only? Is it really that simple? I give up my belief I can control anything?

If I can't control anything is the muffler pointless?

Please God help me to grasp and apply what I heard. Amen

Love Bea