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i will accept personal responsibility and pay my own way today. the sin of being self-entitled enough to believe that i am OWED a living or yes even recovery, just because i how up. this has been a theme in my life lately and one addict in particular has been tripping all sorts of crap off in my head. i certainly would like to judge him and perhaps i will continue to do so, or i will just see the lesson in his behavior as it applies to my own. i will say this, i GOT to see it in action once more last night and although he asked for a different set of prayers for a particular outcome, not all that long ago, i am praying that he sees his way out of the fog of deception and entitlement he currently engulfed in.
which quite neatly, or maybe not so neatly, brings me back to myself. i certainly have a tendency to believe that i am OWED something and that if i do grab it, someone else will. addiction too this little quirk, for lack of a better term, to great heights and that belief became engrained in all i did, every waking moment of active addiction. so, yes, i was certainly surprised by the notion that i was responsible for my own recovery and putting bread on my table, and my own step work and the host of a thousand other things that comprise life in the real world. i quickly got confused about the self support and mutual dependence dichotomy of the path of recovery i have been set upon. after all, i rely on a HIGHER POWER to keep me clean. i NEED the members with whom i share my life with, to give the answers to the questions i face every day. BUT, they are also telling me i NEED to pay my own way, did i not earn my seat through the days upon days of pain that was my active addiction. YES i did earn my seat, but that is all the further it goes. i earned my place in the fellowship by my past, and no one can ever take that away from me. I AM however, responsible to work my own steps, provide my own service, get my tired a$$ to meetings, go to my own job, pay my own bills and all of that. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH, just because i am a recovering addict. i CANNOT be force fed recovery and expect to ever be anything more than someone who noodles around the edges, and life on the edge is not a comfortable place for me these days.
yes i need to rely on the POWER that fuels my recovery for all that i NEED, but i all i ever get is the choice to take those gifts and integrate them into my life or decline them, there is no manna from heaven in this addict's life and i am grateful for that today.
Steven i hope your niece is recovering and they have figured out what is going on, my best wishes for her recovery and yours. today, i can be a part of a fellowship and offer my support to other self-supporting addicts who are in my life.
time to make the donuts, as it were, but before i go, i see that when i am responsible for my own support and when i rely on the fellowship and the POWER that fuels my recovery to give me what i NEED to support myself, i am walking in the will of the POWER that keeps me clean today.

∞ DT ∞