December 15
The First Ten Minutes
Bad news arrives, and for the first ten minutes our mind writes the whole future. This will ruin everything. People will leave. Nothing we have done will matter. Before we have learned much about what happened, we have responded to a lifetime of imagined consequences. A message sent from inside that first rush may create a second problem beside the original one.
Step Ten's attention to restraint is especially practical here. Waiting to speak does not deny the news or forbid a strong feeling. It gives the facts time to become clearer and our judgment time to catch up. Perhaps the situation really is serious; careful speech matters then too. We can let another person hear our fear without making immediate declarations to everyone involved. A little time will not answer every question, but it may keep us from adding words we will later wish we could retrieve.
What future am I treating as certain before I have understood the present facts?
The message can wait until we have caught our breath.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Ten, pp. 90–91.