How do you play the game?

I was listening to a speaker talk about how life is often spoken of as a game. I haven't felt that it was much fun playing the game of life until I came to Al-Anon. In thinking about my life and the stages that I've gone through, several things come to mind as to how I've played the game.

1. Don't play at all--just give up. During the last few years when things were so bad and I felt hopeless, I came as close to giving up as I could. I simply had enough of the anger, moodiness, emptiness and depression. I had thought about suicide or doing damage to myself but these were mainly things that I would mentally flirt with. I know now that giving up is a state of hopelessness and not one that I want to revisit.

2. Drop out and just do whatever substances you can eat, shoot, drink or inhale. I didn't do much of this or make it a career but I did hang out with people on the fringes when I was in college. I dabbled in this or that but never found that any substance I used made me feel any better.

3. Deny that you want to play, yet you really do. I've made a real habit of this for much of my life. Never feeling apart of anything made it easy to deny that I wanted to participate when asked. I really did want to be a part of things but was blocked by my fear of rejection.

4. Give it everything that you've got and keep at it no matter what. This has probably been my most used strategy in the game and one that co-dependents do well. It's also another way to define insanity by doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results.

I've determined after being in the program that the best way to play is to have a total awareness and just enjoy life. I also try to live each day with gratitude. My revelations about life occur in the now.