Blog entry for:

a couple of things jumped out at me this morning, first the notion of any form of success being unfamiliar to me, and the second being to share my success with an **attitude of gratitude.** each of these notions has its own set of thoughts and before i get rolling with the latter, i need to comment on the former.
what exactly is success? back in the day, it meant that i got high today and still had enough resource left, to feed myself at least once. one would think that was a pretty low hurdle to navigate. one might think that, but i had to shuck, jive and manipulate my way through to achieve that goal on most days. there was never enough of anything and i learned when i was in college how to feed myself on very meager funds, day after day. i truly did not learn much more than that from my college daze, at least the first time through.
when i got clean, that definition of success had to change, after all when i am not getting high, it is quite easy to provide at least one meal a day for myself. 😁 as my goals became readjusted to meet my new reality,. no matter how brief i thought it might be, i started to see, that staying clean just for today, was certainly a marker of a successful day, as it furthered my goal of being compliant with the justice system. i quickly discovered that, for me anyhow, when i do not use, i seem to be less of a criminal of any sort. as the days started to pile up, being clean, while certainly a element of success was not enough either. it would take eighteen months before i came to see that living an active program of recovery, in a single fellowship, was also part of being successful. in fact living clean and living a program, became part of my definition of a daily success. sure there were monetary and material markers along the way. even my best Jedi mind tricks, however, could not really ever turn them into a permanent member of my daily success formula. they came they went, and i got sicker and “weller” as a result. in the end, it finally comes back to staying clean and living a program. oh yeah and looking good as i do it! i am not cured yet! which brings me top the second part of what i heard this morning, my attitude of gratitude and how i share it.
i certainly have an issue with my peers who share that they had nothing to do with any part of their success in life. they attribute it all to GOD, and seem to share about their success with one eye over their shoulder lest they get struck down like JOB. most of that comes from my feelings of being inadequate and socially awkward. being a boor, was the only way i knew how to interact with the world around me, and bragging and lying about what i did, and what i had, was a way of life for me. so sharing with an attitude of gratitude, was a foreign language to me, and one that i have had trouble picking up, across the course of my recovery. it is not that i lack the vocabulary, it was that i lacked sincerity. as a result, when i share about my success, honestly, i feel like a braggadocio, instead of a peer. i feel superior and i want praise and adoration. this last trip through the steps has certainly helped, as i am more confident of my social standing and better able to detect where i really do stand. the result of learning how to do that, is when i say that anyone in the rooms is my peer, i mean it. when i say i am grateful for the spiritual abundance that flows from the POWER that fuels my recovery, i also mean it. as a result, of course, my definition of success has changed as well. it is because of the work i have done and not because like the Israelites, i found manna laying on the ground every morning. i worked the steps and the POWER that fuels my recovery opens ITs abundance to me, when i pay attention, just as that same POWER provides my peers, access to that same well. being successful today, in part means that i have paid attention to the world around me, partaken of the spiritual abundance as it became available and got through today without using or having to step on anyone else to make myself feel better. oh yeah, and stayed clean and lived a program of recovery.
part of that abundance, even though it may not feel like it, is that i GET to go to work, which is what time it is right now, time to make the donuts, and make them i will. can i be a success today? yes i can, and will be, if i allow the program to work in my life.

∞ DT ∞