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and alone and was far from certain that anything would ever relieve that feeling, when i came into the rooms. unlike some of my peers, i was incapable of letting anyone know how i felt and believed that if i kept my feelings in check and complied with all the powers that were telling me what to do, i would make it through to return to the way of life that i had come from. controlling the situation and managing my image, were the two tasks i had on the top of my plan of the day, every single day. there were some, who were already in the rooms, who kept telling me to stick around and apply myself, one of those members deserves a shout out this morning:

Margaret C
Congrats on 23 years clean.
Thank you for showing me how to do this.

moving forward into what is going on today. not a whole lot of pain, but certainly a reaction to the trauma my body went through on Monday. just feeling “meh” this morning and i decided to work from home again. yeah, yeah, yeah, i know any excuse not to commute and perhaps that is the case, really does not matter as i am already working and staying home for the duration today. the topic at hand, however is FAITH and how i came to find a manner of living that relieved me of feeling weak and alone.
back in the day i was fearless, and had convinced myself that i was a loner by nature and that being alone was better than dealing with others, life was better when i did not have to worry about how others saw me, or at least could get high enough to delude myself into thinking that i did not care. when i was forced to stop using, totally and not just 28 days out of each month, i lost the ability to delude myself about what i was feeling. i was disillusioned and far from ready to admit that i had any FAITH, let alone grow some. i saw the members who were to become my peers, and their actions seemed to feed my belief that everyone has something to hide. i was certain that they were all just putting up a front, after all, IF they were anything like me, it was inconceivable that they could be moving through their lives, bumps and all, with such grace and serenity. so my solution was to draw away, cross-fellowship and pretend to live a program. the plan was eighteen to twenty-four months to FREEDOM and all i had to do is hang out long enough for the winds of justice to move elsewhere.
i was not all that wrong, at eighteen months, things did change, i finally saw that ADDICTION was part of me, and that when i was not using, but hanging out with using friends, i was doomed to a life of misery. the seed of FAITH planted in my earliest days, started to take hold and grow. re-examining what i saw when i walked into the rooms, i saw what i missed the first time. sure those members may have had something to hide, but they were not the ones preventing me from growing a spiritual program and learning how to be strong and connected, it was me that was the problem and if i wanted something more, i certainly would have to do something more, like actually work a set of steps, instead of just going through the motions. when i asked to be sponsored by a member of this fellowship, my life changed and i finally realized it was not my uncontrolled desire to use, that was the issue, it was something deeper and darker that needed treating.for me the steps and this fellowship were the path to follow to treat what was wrong and part of that path led me to the FAITH i have today.
the question then becomes, how does someone like me, who has a spiritual practice outside the norm, build FAITH? for me, it was the process of coming to my current spiritual path that provides me the FAITH, that this program works and that IF i am awake enough to see what is going on around me, i will get everything i NEED to stay clean and thrive in my recovery. i have the FAITH that doing what i have been doing, will allow me to continue to do what i am doing. is that a self-fulfilling prophecy or a tight feedback loop? it does not matter what label i put on it, what i get on a daily basis is another day clean and another opportunity to better myself and grow into the person i have always wanted to be. my FAITH sustains me in my darkest hour and shields me from my desire to do that little bit of sumthin', sumthin' to ease the pain of living and silence the part of me that says it is okay to escape the so-called real world, back into the delusional world i came from. the preponderance of the evidence, physical, emotional and spiritual is overwhelming and i no longer question if recovery is paying off, it is!
anyhow i have work to do. a shower to take and a life to live, so i will will wrap this up and say my FAITH in the program is what sisutains and gives me the connection to the POWER that fuels my recovery.

∞ DT ∞