Blog entry for:

well, i am up a bit early today, and for once that is not a good thing as this is a very long run morning. there is also a bunch of work on my desk that needs to get moved on to the internet in one manner or another. for some reason i am curiously energized after feeling so unmotivated over the course of the past few days. my weekend was fuller than i would have expected given my level of ennui. i attended to service meetings, went out for dinner twice, worked with a sponsee, went to a recovery meeting and still found some time to play my silly little game. this morning a few things that were shared by the old-timers at the meeting last night are ringing in my ears. both of them said that the will referred to in Step 11 was self-will and both of them spoke of God's will as being part of Step 3. instead of correcting them, or even questioning this interesting twist, i thought it would be better to keep quiet and allow myself the freedom to ruminate over their statements at leisure. having done so, i can move on, realizing that my twist on the whole whose will is it anyway discussion, may not be as mainstream as i once believed. as such, it is better for me to return to a state of learning in this instance instead of a state of knowing, which was where i certainly was at the meeting last night. one more thing that struck me was one of them told me i was trudging the path to happy destiny. i know where that comes from, and it is not part of anything i am coming to believe. i do not trudge, when it comes to walking the path of recovery, nor do i stalk, slink, plod. i proudly march or walk this path, and as i am still a person with a mind of my own, i do not believe in destiny or predestination, the use of such trite clichés borrowed from another fellowship irks me, and is still there this morning. HOWEVER, i am not ready to discard the messenger because the message he carries is mixed at best.
what i am working up to, is that even though i have some clean time, and even though i am consciously embarked upon my journey of recovery, i can still find the ways and means to feel different and isolate myself from those who just might have something to teach me. it is true, that i have been clean for a period that is greater than half of the time i used. that realization struck me the other day with a certainty that i am on the correct path for me. still when i hear anything that falls out of the party line, especially when it leans towards outside fellowships, i instantly want to discard anything that was in the same container, as if it is all poisoned by a single drop of something different. quite truly, that act is part of my current form of insanity, and as my assignment is to define the face of sanity for me, right here and right now, i see that i have finally stopped rolling the idea around in my head and i am starting to take some action. i do not want to be one of those old-timers who has to rely on the ideas as they were presented to me, back when it was tough to string together 24 hours. it is true that those ideas are still as true for me today as they were back then, BUT how i implement and think about those ideas is a process that morphs them into something more today for this addict. staying clean has become choosing to recover for me. choosing to recover is living the steps for me. living the steps has become a process of constant change and a mystical journey that was inherently abhorrent to me when i walked into the rooms. taking up my first sponsor's definition of a HIGHER POWER, i now see was the only path for me, because if i could see where i am spiritually today, way back then, i would have run from the rooms, yanking my hair out and used until the end, regardless of the consequences. i am starting to understand why the only sponsee i have ever fired is having difficulty allowing himself to become a recovering addict, he has seen the face of his future in us, and it scares the living sh!t out of him. better to use and deal and be the person he already knows than face a unknown future full of change and uncertainty. i was there myself, and i certainly can be once again, especially if i adopt the 3 step maintenance program and leave the whole idea of sponsorship behind. i need to keep working all 12 steps, in order, one at a time, to deepen my recovery. i need a sponsor to continue to guide me forward. most of all, i need to see the face of active addiction, and the only place where it is readily visible is at meetings for me these days. so yes i want something different, and i know i have found it here in the fellowship i call my home!
so as promised off for a five or six mile trot around my neighborhood.

∞ DT ∞