Blog entry for:

...how do i know if i have truly had one? clueless as to the exact nature of such an awakening as i may be, i have been given the guidance and the love i need to live a fulfilling, spiritually oriented life. of course, there are more than just the two clues that the reading suggests as signs of this sort of awakening that are embedded within the 12th Step, the desire to carry the message and the desire to practice the spiritual principles that i have been given in all of my affairs. it is interesting to me, that desire is once again mentioned as a symptom of getting better, after all, the only requirement for membership was and is, my desire to stay clean. i get that today, and i also get that it is the desire to live the 12th step, that indicates my awakening of the spirit.
for me, i arrived here, with little or no desire to live by anything save my own self-will. the message that i carried was NOT GETTING HIGH was for wimps and feebs. in fact, the day i arrived in the rooms, i did not even have the desire to stay clean, only to stay abstinent for as long as it took to get the world off my back, so i could go back to the life. so sitting here days and days later, it is quite a miracle that i have participated in, and i am grateful that i did not take off before the miracle happened. yes i did live this miracle, and it is because of me, not despite me, that the miracle of an awakening spirit happened for this addict. i know that may sound like the greatest heresy of any 12 step program, but hear me out.
i accept that i was powerless over my addiction and that my life is unmanageable, the preponderance of the evidence to support that statement is far too overwhelming to deny any longer. if i had chose to stop there, way back when, and i have seen many in and out of the rooms who do stop here, i know that i would have returned to a life of using. the miracle staying abstinent would have continued, i would have become more and more miserable, eventually looking for a way out of my misery. the way out, since i chose to stop at that disturbing realization, would have been using substances again to feel better. the way out i chose back then, and still choose today, is to work and live a program of recovery. so as i continue to choose, i continue to grow, as i continue to grow, i have spiritual awakenings, hence i am part of the miracle process of my recovery.
which brings me back to the top. am i really clueless as to the nature of my spiritual awakening? no, not really. i feel it in my daily life, and its most obvious symptom is the desire to choose to participate in the miracle of my recovery, one more day. to participate in that miracle, i NEED to carry the message, and live the principles. the payoff is yet another day to get to choose whether or not i want to continue being a miracle.
i know all of this sounds like smoke and mirrors, and perhaps it is. all i know is that i am happier, more sane, and much less of a burden on the world around me, than i was when i first came to recovery. so if i need a bit of sophistry to justify that, well so be it. i choose to believe that it is because of the work i have done, the strength of the fellowship and a POWER greater than me, that i am where i am today, and that is more than enough to fill up my spiritual tank and hit the road. which i do believe i will do, so long and thanks for all the fish!

∞ DT ∞