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this is one of my favorite reading, just because it is so simply put, to paraphrase: STOP TRYING TO GET EVERYTHING BACK INTO YOUR LIFE AT ONCE, DUMMY!
the reading puts all sorts of words around that central premise, but that is what it boils down to, and although all that fluff is there and probably something i needed to hear way back when, today, i can survive without that cushion. the truth is, my life does not feel out of balance today, and yet i have not sat at home and did nothing after work for over a week now, and it starts to wear on me, when all i want to do is be boring and chillax. will that desire become reality? well time will tell.
it is at times like these that when i think back on what my life looked like when i was using, i see the contrast. back then? well, i had some sort of balance, a dull monotony of get high, go to work, arrange my next get high, come home and watch TV while getting high, or occasionally leave the house for a road trip to the bars with my friends and acquaintances. the balance was in the fact that nothing changed and i did all that i could, especially towards the end, to insure that it remained that way. change was the enemy of my serenity, such as it was back in the day, and routine was my friend. it is no wonder, why i desire that same sort of “balance” at times in my life, it is comfortable and certainly familiar.
today? well today, although i am on a social whirlwind, there are no biggies in my life, and yet just at the edges, the chaos of addiction is all around. i have two friends that are once again incarcerated and i have people i love being trampled by the incipient addiction in their loved ones. while it certainly nice to be in the eye of this storm, i still feel the effects of what is happening to them, and once again i see the powerlessness in my life, and that fVcking sucks. ironically, i was of the opinion that alcoholics were just lower class addicts when looked at in the social strata of what and how much they used. i can hear the same sorts of stereotyping and assumptions ringing in m y head, as i heard ringing in my ears when i was coming to terms with being an addict. as i sat last night and did my TENTH STEP, i realized that i dropped them into the weak-willed bucket, instead of going to one of the basic tenets of the program i profess to follow: “we do not care what of how much…” they get to say: “well at least i am not addicted too&hellip” while i get to look down my nose and accuse them of denying the true nature of their affliction.
i however, digress. where i was going, was that the damage being caused to my loved ones is evident and without any remorse or respite, and when i think back to the time i divorced my family to keep them from seeing what i had become, i know what it did to them. i see the evidence of that pain today, and although it is the routine of my recovery that allows me the freedom top be here for them, it is also that program that keeps me out of the house, night after night. and it is only through that program i can have a busy life and not feel like the scales are way out of balance. as today rolls on, i will do my best to remember that yes, i have a life, yes it is certainly better than the life i had before recovery and being grateful for what it is, is much better than being bitter for what it has yet to become.

∞ DT ∞