Blog entry for:

of hope.
take two
i was messing around trying to get my car cds made for the week and got lost in the process. some days, especially today is just like that. which brings me back to the Eleanor Roosevelt quote i started with earlier:
“great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
bring this up, because today i have only been at beat an average mind, when i aspire to have a great one. it is the same principle as when i was first getting clean, when i was clean but not in recovery and when i finally became a member. i have been through that long and tired story far too many times, to rehash it now. need less to say, pedestals, rainbows and rose-coloured glasses were the norm for me. it was not until in my second step cycle, when i lost my sponsor, that i began to see how human everyone, even those with a decade or more clean. could be.
that event, and the way i moved on to my grand sponsor, allowed me finally to stop being intimidated by members with clean time and see that like me, they were also very, very human. in my human state, i felt i was often not worthy to stand in the shadow of those who had clean time. part of it was that i felt dirty, coming around the program and not actually wanting to be clean. part of it was the inherent low self-esteem that i created across the course of my addiction. most of it however, was a return to the small mind standard that i quoted above. it was all about people and not the ideas they espoused, and clean time was my measure of those people.
as i grow i can certainly discuss the events of my life, such as the one that drew me to my current sponsor. or the whole set of circumstances that got me into my little mood today, but all of that, while illuminating of how human i may be, really does not serve any good purpose for me.
no what does server a good purpose for me. is the fact that i can see where i once was -- an event; where i am now --yet another event; and identify the process that spans the gap -- certainly an IDEA! that is the process of recovery, where i see my human nature and what has been distorted through addiction and seek a path to becoming a better human, even if all i can manage is an average mind!
it is true, that i developed a friendship, sort of with mu sponsor, before we developed a sponsor-sponsee relationship. it is also true that i have friends who i also sponsor, those relationships are built on respect and trust. i also have friends i do not sponsor, and sponsees i am not friends with, that is all well and good as well. i can say this, those sponsees who are my friends are the result of being respectful, so i could earn respect. being friendly and steadfast, so i could receive that as well. and believing that no matter how bad of a day they may be having, i can offer a word or two of encouragement.i also know that they two, can and will often do the same thing for me. i am wandering all over the map here, so i guess all my humanness is showing after all. it is a good day to exercise my great mind, and hopefully everyone i interact with, the rest of the day will be in a similar mind set.

∞ DT ∞