Blog entry for:

sitting here this morning after a walk and getting some of my stuff done, i can muse about FEAR and how it has ruled my life and what i have done to replace FEAR with FAITH. ironically, i could say and actually believe that i was FEARLESS for my entire adult life. a more honest statement would have to be, that i clueless as to how much FEAR i lived in and the use of substances helped to build the fantasy life of looking like some sort of brave heart. the nice part of living in substance-enhanced denial, is the fantasy very seldom ends.
of course in my case, instead of drifting off into the sunset, fading day by day into a life that never had to face reality, i GOT a very rude awakening, the worse part of that awakening was i was minimally involved in the crime that “everyone needed to pay the price for,” and ratted out by a “friend” because he had ongoing legal issue dealing with his taste in very immature women. i have long ago forgiven him, as i know that just like me, back in the good olde days, he exhibited all the classic symptoms of untreated addiction. even with all of that, there is a part of me that still tastes the bile of the end of those days. to be quite honest it was FEAR that got me to stay clean, instead of trying to keep gaming the system. FEAR of prison, even though if i had pushed for a prison sentence i would have been off paper a whole lot sooner than i was. such is the beauty of hindsight and there is a bit of gratitude i feel today for my naiveté as FEAR of that unknown world kept me clean long enough to want to be clean, for myself.
it was FEAR of being different from my peers, that kept me locked in a spiritual path that was not mine for all those years. it was FEAR of relapse after the legal sword was removed that motivated my acceptance of what i need to do on a daily basis and out of that FEAR grew the habits that foster my ongoing recovery today. sitting here today, i can see that learning to face my FEAR has built the FAITH i have in the program today. i have FAITH that if i continue to do hat i have done, i will remain in active recovery. i do not have to hide my defects of character and my shortcomings behind a wall of rationalizations and denial. i have FAITH that if i pay attention to what is happening around me, i will get the opportunity to get all that i need, just for today. it is not the FEAR of GOD or hell that drives me to do the next right thing, even though i was cultured into believing that lie. i do not believe that morality needs to be FEAR based. just for today, i think i will allow FAITH to replace FEAR and find a new manner fo living.

∞ DT ∞