Blog entry for:

on the two things all members have in common: addiction and recovery.
okay, as much as i resisted becoming a member by denying that i was an addict and that i had a problem with uncontrollable drug use, this reading just fits today. yes a junkie doctor and a felon finding each other and living happily ever after is a bit corny, but does illustrate the point quite well. while my denial kept me apart form, fore the first eighteen months or so of my recovery, what i got when i finally arrive, was a sense of actually being somewhere i wanted to be. for the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time in my life, i was welcomed into a group of people other than those who HAD to be courteous and at least on the surface welcoming, because i was related to them. and yet, from time to time, i wonder if i am really right where i belong.
as i prepare to get hired on, at my new gig, i look so fVcking normal it is sick. i mean i can now answer the background check questions by saying that no i have not been convicted of anything in the past seven years. i can urinate in a bottle without wondering what they may find. i can state with confidence that i am reliable and will show up to work every day and that i am worth every penny that my employer is willing to pay me. i learned hoe to do all of that in the rooms i did my best to disqualify myself from, back in the early days of my recovery. it is from that motley crew of men and women i met those very first days, as well as the parade of addicts through and in the rooms, that i got the lessons i needed to stay clean and learn how to apply recovery to my unmanageable life.
some of those members have come and gone. some have gone and come back, time after time. and some well some leave and never return to the fellowship but still remain a part of my life, for better or for worse. all of them, each and every one, even those who go away and never come back have taught me a thing or two, even if it is that i am unwilling to accept the consequences of using “just one more.”
i got a random text at 3 AM the other morning from a member of the class that is not coming back. i responded and yesterday after about 48 hours so did they. i have to tell you, once they called me, i did my best to not say how terrible they sounded. anyhow, the brief conversation confirmed my fears and assumptions that they were out there, using uncontrollably and their life was becoming far from manageable. it was a very grim and stark reminder of how much i have to be grateful for, even when recovery feels like an unbearable grind and my life feels so predictable and boring. i am in a far better place today than i have ever been before and i am grateful for what that disparate collection of addicts teaches me on a daily basis. lif is life, i am moving on in mine and the time has come to get out of the house and do the next right thing, which is get moving towards Boulder and my home group. and oh yeah, no matter what, just do not use today, after all if i want my job, than i have to give a clean urine sample on Monday morning.

∞ DT ∞