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ฮผ when i first found recovery, i felt shame or despair at calling myself an **addict** ฮผ

Posted: Mon, Mar 24, 2008 09:03:20 AM

the past may seem inescapable and overpowering, it may be hard to think of myself in any way other than the way i always have. i do not know whether it was shame or despair that prevented me from accepting that i was an addict, since i was so disconnected from my feelings back in those days. i do know that i was certain that this was not the path that my life needed to be on, and that although i could not stop using, even for a day, i just had a perception problem and not one that ran as deep as the term addict implies. well i was correct in those days, i did have a perception problem, and i am grateful that the members who were in the room when i got here, helped me to see that denial was killing me, and keeping from becoming something more than i had always been. toady, as i look back on hard i fought the notion that i was an addict, i wonder how different my recovery would have been, had i accepted that fact right from the start and moved forward. the answer i get, is that i would not have probably come as far up this path as i am now. i would have been denying my **true** self, and once again became something i was not, just for appearances. yes, it would have been a whole lot less painful, and yes it would have made profound changes in my life form the start, but would i really have been ready to accept those gifts with my whole self? who knows, and since the reading is about letting go of my past, i will move forward from here. that part of my recovery is in my past, and it is part of my experience. by being one of those stubborn ones, i learned a different appreciation for this path i am continuing up these days. the sum total of all my experience has brought me to who and what i am today, and none of it can be discounted. i had to go through it all, DAMMIT!
so when i look at who i am today, through that lens, i have HOPE that i can become the man i always wanted to be. i have HOPE that the process is still active and will continue to work on me, so that i can once again decide not to use no matter what tomorrow. yes the past is part of me, but it is a part that i can look at, evaluate and put away. after all, there is nothing i can change and i can let go of the power it may or may not have over me. that is my choice today! and i choose to live in the HERE and NOW! so TA-TA for now and into taking care of what i need to take care of so i can maintain my life today.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain.