Blog entry for:

from the procession of newcomers has become my favorite exercise in rationalization and justification these days. ii really is not all that surprising, after all, i have seen so many come and go. that fact and my predilection to avoid getting hurt, create the perfect storm for mew to stand-by and allow my peers to pick up the slack, and me say, “well i am just not on of those ‘new guy’ kind of guys.” my excuses for being that way can fly and the story i tell myself varies from the nearly plausible to the most outlandish and have become my never-ending tale.
that is the reality of my state of being, grim as it is, it can be tempered with a bit of HOPE:

Alan S
19 years (6939 days) clean!
Keep coming back my friend!

moving beyond why i do not reach out to the FNG and into a question that has been on mind for the past five days. i have heard it twice and finally it popped off the “let me think about that” stack. although i say it is last-in, first-out, there is actually more than a little bit of randomness that i attribute to what i NEED to be looking at, as is revealed to me, in my daily periods of conscious contact. the question that popped up this morning and took over my quiet time, is simply this: “why do i stay?”
for a long time, the answer was, so i do not have to suffer the legal consequences of what brought me to the doors of the rooms. that worked for a bit of time and i can see my fate being tied to the justice system,. if i chose to return to that lifestyle. petty crimes and my inability to stay clean, creating a situation where every jailer in the local lock-ups know me by my first name and had lost any hope that i would ever “get” what i needed to stay out of the system. that little bit of comic tragedy was removed form my life many moons ago, and i repay that debt through my conscious choices of where i serve the fellowship that has given me this life.
for many days after that was lifted, there was my strong and probably unhealthy fear of the relapse boogie-man, waiting around every corner to pounce and drag me down to living out of a dumpster and stealing junk food from a convenience store. that fear together with an out-sized ego and trying to look better than i really was, kept me clean for years on end. what would i look like and could i accept that consequence was why i stayed. as sick as that may sound, it got me to a place where i could start to appreciate what the program had to offer me and look for something more. so why do i stay today?
the answer is simply this, because i have a life that is worth living and is generally devoid of the chaos that i brought to it, in active addiction. i am confident in who i am and have FAITH that even though the destination is shrouded in the fog of the future, the journey makes each day worth living, even the bad ones. the average newcomer may not be able to relate with that, but that should not keep me from carrying the message that no matter what, staying clean and living a program has given me a lifestyle that i never dreamed of having, full of all the gifts that the other 85% take for granted -- career, family, education, relationships, material possessions, self-worth and self-assurance.i like getting those things on a daily basis and the ONLY way i have found to get them, is sticking around one of these 12 STEP programs and learning to live the steps. my message to the FNG, would be top keep coming back and come back clean, because what you may find is something more than you were looking; something better than mere abstinence, a new outlook on the world itself.

∞ DT ∞