Envy is another one of the Seven Deadly Sins that causes a lot of grief for alcoholic/addicts. We squander time and energy obsessing over the possessions of others. We also do this same thing with things we think we should have. We don’t stop to realize that maybe that person with the big house that we envy went to work for a number of years in order to purchase it. We sit on our couch if we have one, year after year obsessing over what others have and that we don’t.
It rarely occurs to us as we progress in our disease to get a job and save up money. If we did this we possibly may have some of the things that we envy. Some of us fantasize about $100.00 bills falling out of the sky Not going to happen! I have yet to see it rain money!
Some of us become so desperate for material things that we engage in criminal activity to provide these for ourselves. We may come up with all kinds of elaborate illegal schemes to try and make money. We rarely, if ever think of the consequences involved if we get caught by law enforcement while trying to make our scheme or activity work. I may think I need a Corvette. So I go steal one and go joy riding. Finally, I have arrived! I feel like I am an important person now that I have this ride. I may get to keep it for a little while. I continually ride around town feeling like some sort of big shot.
However, the day will come when we see those red and blue lights in the rear-view mirror. We have a decision to make. We can either take off for a high speed chase or we can pull over and face the inevitable consequences. Either way our joy riding days are over. Our defect of envy has really got us in a mess now. The outcome to all this will initially be that we go to jail. We now have a criminal court case to face. All this because we envied what someone else had that we didn’t have.
The end result of this envy is that we will probably end up in prison for a while. We can amuse our cellmates with the story of our joyride and our bigshotism. We embellish the story and make it seem almost glamorous. In reality we now are locked up against our will in a place that isn’t so nice or safe. We also have a criminal record to contend with when we complete our sentence. We take up blaming life and others for our lack of material possessions. We may envy our cellies who have a television and we don’t. Well maybe they didn’t burn the bridges with their families like we did. The family sent them the television. They hadn’t lied to their families or cheated them like we did. So we keep on envying the possessions of others. Maybe someday we will be blessed with sobriety and learn to not envy others. Maybe we will even get a job and save up some money. Miracles do happen!
