Blog entry for:

through an effort to purge myself of the guilt, is not what the NINTH STEP is all about, and yet, i hear the newest of the new, having the desire to make amends to **fix** the messes they have made of their lives. me, when i was new to recovery, i owned no responsibility and my very first sponsor has to go through my FOURTH STEP inventory with me, name by name, to even start to make a list of those i had harmed. ah, but those “bad” old have passed and i have grown through many different phases of taking responsibility for my actions and the harm they cause, to finally arrive where i am today ⇛ fairly certain the the troubles of the world do not rest on my shoulders and that i am not a human cyclonic storm leaving a wake of destruction miles wide behind me. i am a human, prone to a mistake or three in the course of my daily affairs and understanding that discretion, rather than total brutal honesty is probably a better path for me to follow. amends and using my sponsor to suss them out is an interesting topic, what i heard today, however took me down a slightly different path, more First Stepish than Eight and NINTH, which is to be totally expected, as that is where i am in my current step cycle.
when i consider the amount of time i have clean and start to think that maybe… i realize that i am still as powerless over addiction as i was , the day i walked into the rooms. the denial and my jazz-handed tap dancing for those first eighteen months did nothing if not hammer home the fact that i am an addict and will continue to be one, no matter what. even though my life looks manageable from the outside and yes many of the external signs of active addiction have been removed or ameliorated, there are still aspects that defy any sense of reason. most of those revolve around unchecked emotional responses, fitting in socially with my peers and how the heck am i going to stay true to my spiritual path and be a part of a fellowship in which that does not fit. i am already noticing that i grudgingly pray and do so more out of habituation than a feeling of need. i can see even the tiniest bit of asking to be clean and giving thanks for another day clean, becoming onerous and eventually pitched on the wayside, like a spent cigarette butt. my superstitious adherence to much of my recovery routine, could suffer a similar fate as i find less and less time to take care of myself. the only saving grace here is meditation, as that has grown to be a hugely important and very rewarding part of my life. my FEAR is that relying on something that has only recently gained importance in my life, is setting me up for failure. although i do remember facing that a similar FEAR when i stopped having to be on my knees in periods of formal prayer. that did not kill me, create an intolerable situation in my life or a relapse. so as i look to how i become whole in my spiritual path and the fellowship that has given me this new manner of living, i can be sure that the reservations i have been dealing with, will be shown for the lies they are. on that uplifting note, i think i will sign-off and get moving on down to the road to work. it is a good day to be clean and a little sumthin', sumthin' is not going to make it any better.

∞ DT ∞