Some memes

recover physically, mentally, or spiritually overnight. yes i am still suspect to fall victim to bouts of what many in the rooms call **old behavior.** i find that term so ludicrous and such a cop-out denial, that i almost choke any time i hear someone use it. i know why i used that word, and i am fairly certain g the motives are similar for others, who continue to pop that phrased into their languages, but i am not one to judge the motives of others, this morning, and i will stick to my motives and mine alone. i adopted that phrase, fairly early in recovery, to soften the blow, that recovery is a process, and it WILL NEVER meet my expectations on how fast that process transforms me, into the person i have always wanted to be. by saying, “old behavior,” i could switch the focus off of the here and now, and on to forces beyond my power to control. in fact, what i wanted to do, was act-out, know that i was acting-out, and sooth my guilty conscience by bemoaning the fact that i was in my so-called “old behavior.”
yes, labeling a familiar behavior as “old” allows me to deflect any attention away from me, after all i know better, so there must be something else going on, otherwise i would not behave in such a manner. as it is plain to see, the topic of the reading this morning, has been used by me, to justify all sorts of nonsense, because with a sweep of the hand, a flash of light and a poof of smoke, everything that i do, that steps out of the bounds of the program can be swept away with the phrase, recovery takes time and i am just not there yet.
that little trick, part of a very familiar repertoire of less than spiritual behaviors that i act on, once has a very good purpose in my life. it helped me to protect my ever so fragile self-esteem, before i learned who i was and started on the process of accepting that man, just as he is today. just as almost all of my defects of character are survival skills and assets warped beyond recognition by addiction, so the fact that i do not recover overnight becomes. rather than being a blessing to stop the self-abuse, it becomes a curse to continue doing thing i no longer need to do. it becomes a convenient excuse to shift the blame and responsibility elsewhere, diminishing the impact of the third disturbing realization and keeping me sick, when i could be getting better. yes the tools i used to protect myself in active addiction, including using language to deflect the pain, are still present in active recovery, i am still an addict, BUT addiction is gradually losing its sway over how i think and behave, bit by bit.
yes the process is life-long but it is also a series of events, some that are defining. each day i stay clean and live in active recovery, i have the opportunity to get that much better and look at myself that much less harshly. i also get the opportunities to make familiar behaviors, old ones and have them removed from me, by the POWER that fuels my recovery. for me, that is the HOPE and the PROMISE of active recovery, one day at a time.

∞ DT ∞