ΞΌ a daily Tenth Step keeps me on a sound spiritual footing ΞΌ
Posted: Tue, Aug 26, 2008 10:04:10 AM
so once again, preaching to the choir. exactly what do i mean by that? well for one, i am one of those who believes that daily maintenance is important to stay spiritually fit. i could extend the metaphor to being physically fit, but until recently i pretended ignorance to what i needed to do in this respect. not that i did not want to be fit, in the physical sense, i just did not care. i am lucky that i have never been one of those who has multiple health issues that needed to be addressed, my health concern are minor enough to ignore most of the time. a physical back in May, woke me up to the possibility that perhaps if i wanted to enjoy my life, that i would need to do something to get into shape, and form a relationship with medical professionals to have something more, a better quality of life.
in the spiritual sense, however, i was sick when i came to the program and i had to find a new manner of living, or life would become intolerable to me. so after trying it my way for several months, i came to the conclusion that the freak show that was the fellowship in which i was seeking recovery, offered me my only hope. not that i did everything perfectly and adopted all the suggestions, at least not at first, in fact it was my second set of steps that convinced me to do daily maintenance, and to develop a daily pattern of recovery based activities to replace the daily pattern of active addiction. even though i had already had some foundation, i did not see the need for a daily inventory, and most days, there is not a whole lot to inventory. that is a gift of recovery, as i live a program, the need to fix things is less and less, but that does not remove the necessity of doing the inventory and the rest of the activities i have developed over the course of time.
so now, when i am facing a FEAR, the wonderful gift is that i have a way to get the support i need. this morning, my FEAR of pain killers has lessened, mainly because i fell back on what i know. i called my sponsor, shared my concern with others and have decided to ramp up my meeting attendance, in preparation for my possible descent into the influence of mind and mood altering substances. this morning i have FAITH that i will find what i need to come out of this experience, stay clean and continue the progress of my recovery. FAITH replacing FEAR is a wonderful thing for this addict and i will go with that, at least for now. time will tell but that does not alter my plan one jot in the interim.
so anyhow, off to get some work done and deal with the real world, it is a good day to walk in FAITH.
in the spiritual sense, however, i was sick when i came to the program and i had to find a new manner of living, or life would become intolerable to me. so after trying it my way for several months, i came to the conclusion that the freak show that was the fellowship in which i was seeking recovery, offered me my only hope. not that i did everything perfectly and adopted all the suggestions, at least not at first, in fact it was my second set of steps that convinced me to do daily maintenance, and to develop a daily pattern of recovery based activities to replace the daily pattern of active addiction. even though i had already had some foundation, i did not see the need for a daily inventory, and most days, there is not a whole lot to inventory. that is a gift of recovery, as i live a program, the need to fix things is less and less, but that does not remove the necessity of doing the inventory and the rest of the activities i have developed over the course of time.
so now, when i am facing a FEAR, the wonderful gift is that i have a way to get the support i need. this morning, my FEAR of pain killers has lessened, mainly because i fell back on what i know. i called my sponsor, shared my concern with others and have decided to ramp up my meeting attendance, in preparation for my possible descent into the influence of mind and mood altering substances. this morning i have FAITH that i will find what i need to come out of this experience, stay clean and continue the progress of my recovery. FAITH replacing FEAR is a wonderful thing for this addict and i will go with that, at least for now. time will tell but that does not alter my plan one jot in the interim.
so anyhow, off to get some work done and deal with the real world, it is a good day to walk in FAITH.
∞ DT ∞