Red Hot Ruby's

From the Big Book of AA, I was inspired to paint this piece which I call “Choice”. 

It would be lovely to read all of chapter 2 as the author is talking about that fleeting moment between thought and action. The buildup is good!  The context is helpful.  But there’s a sentence on page 24 of my version of the Big Book that stopped me in my tracks.  It says, “The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer (insert your drug of choice here) do not crowd into the mind to deter us.” 

But what if they did?  What if that crowd of reasons showed up when we experience that little chill of temptation?   What would that crowd look like?  What would the crowd say?

We always reach a point, many points in our lives where there are both a crowd of reasons to relapse and a crowd of reasons not to.  The amazing thing is that these crowds have many similarities: Grief, confusion, happiness, heartbreak, growth, beauty, the unexpected.  Ah the paradox of living in recovery.  What was once a relapse trigger is now a joy.  What used to confuse us is now inspiration.  Everything is a freaking lesson!

The Big Book also says that “the fear of people will leave us”.  I would expand that to say that the fear of triggers will leave us because we learn the power of choice.  We learn to trust, first by trusting the process, the teachers, the text . . . then we realize we can trust ourselves.  We stop pretending like the crowd isn’t there, instead, we turn around and look.  We listen. We’ve made friends with our crowd.

When I was drinking, I used to imagine how wonderful it would be to hire someone to follow me around and make sure I would stay out of trouble.  I didn’t know then what is obvious to me now: that person is me.

Because that “crowd of reasons” is right there.  All the time.  It’s always been there.  We just haven’t thought about them, looked at them, honored them. 

But we can.  We can choose to. 

The crowd doesn’t change much.

But we can. 

Words and art by Ruby Karen A. Wilcox, this original is for sale here: Choice. Original OOAK Watercolor Painting. Unmatted, Unframed. – Etsy

I am accepting new zoom clients for my Life Coaching practice, beginning in January 2026. I would LOVE to support your journey! Please reach out to me via email at redhotrubys@outlook.com.