“He is like the retired businessman who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)
I’ve been a great complainer in my life. Complaining, grumbling, whining, self-pity, case-building, catastrophisation, self-reproach, reproach of others, contempt, cynicism, disappointment, despair, disillusionment, depression.
When I’m engaging in these, it’s like going and gambling away in the casino all of my hard-earned earnings: all of the goodness that comes my way thanks to working the programme is thrown out of the window by verbalising such thoughts where I’m not actively called upon to critically assess a situation. Even where critical assessment is required, it can be performed impersonally, neutrally, and economically. Otherwise, switching back and forth between complaining and ‘working the programme’ is like performing an act of self-harm, going to hospital to have oneself disinfected and stitched up, and then going home and opening up all of the wounds again.
The thought level is hard to deal with: one can’t control the complaint thoughts that come into the mind. By learning to spot such thoughts at the point of entry, one can resolve not to entertain them. If I refuse to believe and entertain complaint thoughts, they do no harm.
The spoken level is different, however. The impetus to speak comes from me. There’s a hurdle to leap before the words come out of my mouth. It is quite possible to enact zero tolerance of complaint speech (in all its forms) in a far more consistent way than zero tolerance of complaint thoughts. Thoughts can be front-of-mind or back-of-mind, precisely articulated or vague, worded or wordless. But spoken language is unambiguous: either I’m complaining or I’m not; it’s perfectly clear.
The task, therefore, is to enact the same zero tolerance one would expect of oneself when it came, for instance, to shoplifting or spitting chewing gum onto the pavement.
This gives the Steps a chance of actually working, by not undoing on one side the good work I am doing on the other.