Blog entry for:

...recovered, maybe? not hardly. BUT SOMETHING DAMMIT!
certainly sounds familiar to me, a refrain i hear over and over again. of course, the litany of whys continues: why do i have to keep working steps; why do i have to go to meetings; why do i have to do service; and why do i have to sponsor? and on and on and on…
that is when i need to get a BIG dose of reality because the answer is the same -- SILLY BOY, YOU ARE AN ADDICT! addiction, may be considered a disease, but unlike cancer, five years in remission does not equal cured -- as a matter of fact neither does 10 years or 20 years or even <GASP> 30 years. the experience of those who have walked this path before me is, that addiction is omnipresent once it is manifest as such needs to be treated by the application of a rigorous maintenance schedule. does that mean i am doomed to fail and start using again at the drop of a hat? well maybe not, i am unwilling to take that chance, i have seen what happens to those who have what may be considered **significant** clean time use and then try to find their way back to the rooms. their experience shows that for recovering addicts with some clean time, it is easier to stay clean then to get clean again.
so the next part of this discussion is since i have some time clean, maybe just maybe i can use like a **normal** person. after all, it has been more than a decade and maybe the need i felt, the obsession to find the ways and means has been fixed by all the work i have done in recovery, after all, the object lessons i had about members with time, were always not doing something that i have been doing for quite some time. so maybe i am different…
different? hell NO!
i know where all of this springs from, it springs from the part of me i call my addict. that part longs for the time when i could participate in one of, no belay that statement, THE activity i MOST enjoyed in the world of active addiction -- getting HIGH! even today, i still see that i i loved to get HIGH, and even after almost three step cycles, and hundreds of meetings, and service work up the gazoo, and sponsees and being sponsored, i feel a certain thrill and joy when i think about getting HIGH.
as i have said before, getting HIGH worked for me, right to the end, and without a doubt would probably work for me again, it all comes down to choice. do i choose to return to the twilight world of medicated numbness? or do i continue to live in the real world of night and day of life on its own terms, with a full range of emotions, and the ability to be responsible and present for whatever goes on. my choice is the technicolor world of the here and now, at least for today, i can return to the twilight world at any time i choose. when i consider the difference between those world i am struck by the scene in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy opens the door to her house and Munchkin land is revealed. gray and drab -- but medicated OR technicolor and vibrant -- but REAL. quite the choice and as a person who is recovery i choose the latter this morning. so off to hit the streets and get a bit of stuff accomplished, life in the real wor;ld does require my participation.

∞ DT ∞