Blog entry for:

as i needed to convince myself that i could stay clean.
so i had a strange question yesterday from the man who once was and may once again be one of the men i sponsor. whew, quite a mouthful. anyway, he asked if i had seen anyone with his experience actually ‘get this whole recovery gig?’ what he was referring to was the length of time he had been noodling around with the program. you know the whole ‘i have been AROUND THE PROGRAM for 20 years BUT i only have 30 days clean’ spiel. i told him yes, and after i hung up from his collect call, i was hard put to identify one name that actually met that criteria. as part of my TENTH STEP last night, i had to go over that conversation in my head and decide was i really honest, or was i flat out lying to give an addict HOPE. these days, the ends, even one as noble of maintaining HOPE do NOT justify the means in my life. so of course, this was an issue i had to explore in the context of a TENTH STEP. this morning, i can think of three addicts who finally got this after years of the same experience, two of them i sponsor, one of them is a grand-sponsee, so my off-the-cuff statement yesterday in the limited time i had, was not a lie, nor even being disingenuous. it simple was a statement of fact based on intuition. it only took clearing my head and examining what i knew in respect to what i felt to see i was not wrong, i DID not use specious means to an noble end and i do not need the corrective part of the TENTH STEP, in this matter anyhow.
which of course brings me back to the top, so i can actually start to write about what i heard this morning. when i say in a meeting that the last place i thought i would end-up, is where i am today, i am being honest. even though i could not admit it way back when, i had no HOPE left for anything resembling a ‘normal’ life. since i could not admit that fact, i had rearranged reality to fit the notion i did not really want anything resembling that life, i had exactly what i wanted, a life of using and abusing that is active addiction. the more i told myself that particular lie, the more i believed it, and that lie colored my world to such an extent, that i did not even realize what a gift a life freed from active addiction really was.
today, i hear these questions niggling in the back of my skull, do i really want a life that has the trappings of being normal. or even worse, since my life looks so normal these days, might it actually be true, that i have been cured of addiction. these thoughts go back to that old perception of reality, that comforting lie i NEEDED when i had abandoned all HOPE. if i choose to go back there, what make me think my consequences will be any less severe than they have been for the man who would be my sponsee? yes, my criminal record has been inactive for much longer than his. yes i have accomplished some things in my life BECAUSE i have chosen to live a life of recovery. and yes, it has been longer since the last time i used. those differences are quite minor in the big scheme of things. as i have seen time and time again, my fate as an active addict is hellish life in the twilight from which there are only two ways to escape, recovery or death. the pain of recovery, is a small price to pay to be free from active addiction, and today i CHOOSE the life of a recovering addict, i WILL do whatever i NEED to do to stay clean, and i will allow the program and a HIGHER POWER to work in my life.
the decision to restart that particular relationship? well the jury is still out on that, as i told him yesterday, i am waiting to FEEL the answer, and i have asked for guidance from the POWER that fuels my recovery on this very issue. what i am FEELING right now, is it is time to get a workout done and move forward into what i need to do today. so off to the races, literally i go.

∞ DT ∞