Our first daily formal meeting and authority figures

We had our first daily formal meeting today. It’s safe to say that no matter what or where you are in the world there’s always one. There is one in the group giving me negative energy at present and I need to park it. He is out to ruin the next eleven weeks for everyone. I need to remind myself yet again that this is a selfish program. I cannot control others. I’m not sure if it is a gambling trait or a drinking one but I’ve always been attracted to control. I need to accept that the only thing I can control is myself. I cannot control the behaviour of anybody else. I think why today hit me so hard is because they are behaviours I would have had myself throughout my life. I struggle with authority figures a lot. Particularly male authority figures. I have over forty previous convictions for being intoxicated, to my knowledge only one of them is from a female guard. I believe the problem with authority figures stems from my childhood, our primary school principal was a nasty piece of work. I was and still am so confused as to how to define the abuse I experienced. I was one of the lucky ones though. I had a friend Shannon, the only black pupil in our school at the time. He was severely punished and abused by our principal. He would sellotape his fingers to radiators, it was sick. Shannon would go on to do long prison spells and end up killing himself. May he rest is peace now. I firmly believe if he was given some compassion in primary school things would have turned out different for him.