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i cannot recover on my own, is a symptom of learning to be humble. once again, i end up writing about humility and what it means for me today. last night, at the meeting there were two ideas that i walked away with, that struck me as something to ponder. part of my journey towards humility, is when something strikes me as odd or not the way i understand things to be, i need to allow myself the freedom to open my mind and see if that is something i NEED to add to my understanding, or lack thereof, of how things work.
the first on was a misstating of the Law of Attraction. as it was alluded to during the meeting, the speaker seemed to think that in the physical world “like attracted like.” while i could have quickly corrected their lack of knowledge about how things work in the world of science, that like never attracts like, in fact like charges repel each other, the strongest molecules are formed by elements that have what each other need, a vacuum can only be maintained by expending energy and that the chaos reigns supreme and order can only be imposed by willful effort. i chose, instead to do a bit of research and what i discovered was that the scientific claims made by those who adhere to this manner of thinking are not at all based in the world of physical science. going a bit deeper down that particular rabbit hole, what i cam up with is that for me, the implication was that thinking about being clean and believing i was in recovery could be a substitute for actually doing the work to remain in recovery. by thinking recovery based thoughts and believing in those thoughts, i would be recovered and would not need the program or my peers, to point out the flaw in my thinking. i know i have a tendency to overthink the crap out of everything and this is no exception, so as part of my 10TH STEP last night, i decided that even though that sort of “magical” thinking may work for others, for me, not so much and i can walk away from that notion, filing it into my spiritual bit bucket, as it were.
the second notion that bubbled up was that some substances are different than others and maybe if i did just a little bit of one that was never a problem, i was not in relapse. that came form a conversation with one of my peers and in my conversation with them, i twelve-stomped them pretty hard, instead of saying why i had my concerns. i am always seeking a loophole and when i look at my recovery as recovering from a set of addictions, i start to think that each one, in and of itself, will not be a problem. the evidence is that i could substitute one for another and totally walk away from a substance or a delivery method. that is the nature of my denial. it was only when i realized that i am an addict and not addicted to this or that, that i finally started my recovery process, for real. when i had multiple clean dates and kept this and that in all sorts of separate buckets, my recovery was shaky at best. there was the difference that kept me apart from my peers and allowed me to foster the dangerous belief that i could do this gig, on my own.it was only when i finally saw that addictions were not my problem and that i was beaten down by ADDICTION, did i finally start my journey towards any sort of humility. in this instance i had to stop doing my inventory and explain to my victim, why i was concerned and add all of what i “should have” said, in a very lengthy text, as that is what i do these days. whether or not they “got” what i was saying, is not my stuff, i admitted where i was wrong and corrected my lack of completing my thoughts.
today, on my last day away from the office, at least on my last day of not checking in, i am okay with how i am living my program and the life i have been given. yes i could do better and with the assistance of my peers, i may just do so, just for today.

∞ DT ∞