Complaint Stoplight

“Chronic complaining is a useless practice that destroys self-acceptance and self-reliance . . . Instead . . . I can ask myself, “Is there anything I can do to help myself with this?” (For Today, p. 239). Chronic complaining sounds like self-abuse: if I continue to stay in the problem, then I am living in the problem—and living in the past.

I’d been exhausting myself with chronic complaining. More importantly, when I finally realized what I was doing: looking outward at others’ actions and faulting them, I saw how I was stagnant in my own life: the complaining was allowing me to sit on my own to-do list, point my finger at others, and not do anything to improve my life.

Since I was in “high avoidance mode,” I had no idea I was doing this grave disservice to myself. When it slowly dawned on me, I was humbled but also self condemning at first. Then OA taught me to accept my humanness and move past that way of living.

It was difficult and scary for me to take responsibility for my life, to do things I needed to do to improve it. Food addiction brought me to OA, and now OA is bringing me past the addiction to the other work I need to lovingly get to: emotional recovery. Looking at my emotional dirty laundry still takes a lot of work, but the best advice ever in OA is “one day at a time.” I can work on my addiction to complaining one day at a time. I can work on solutions one day at a time.

Now when I find myself complaining, I visualize a red light in my mind. I want to stop and pray and look at possible resolutions that will work for me, which may even mean not doing anything reactive at that time. When the light turns green-forgo, I’ll proceed onward and do something productive for myself.

For this moment, I’m loving myself into OA action.

— Barbara W., Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada