Blog entry for:

to suit my peers in recovery, no matter how much i DESIRE to look good in their eyes. more importantly, regardless of what i might think, not one of my peers is required to live their lives according to my biased judgement. they, just like me, have the total right to live a program, however they choose to do so. so this little missive to the anonymous interwebs, is seeming to take on a couple of tracks\\, what about me and certainly what about them.
so what about my peers? as i am breathing, i am most certainly judging and i am not one that takes what someone tells me, without a huge grain of salt. sure someone can say all the right words, spit back the clichés and bumper stickers, sounding like a the model of a recovering addict. once they hit the streets though, it is a whole different person that emerges and all those spiritual principles that they just spent five minutes gushing over are kicked to the curb and swept into the dustbin of obscurity. that is certainly not the sort of program i want to live and a s a card carrying member of the fellowship political correctness crew, i want to call them out on their hypocrisy, loudly, in public and shame them into behaving in the manner they tell all of us they do. i am more of a show me how you are recovering and shut the fVck up about how you want me to think you are living your recovery, after all, the reality is clearly visible when one is living a program. what about me, though, do i live as i say i do, or am i as guilty as everyone else in lapsing in my spiritual principles, once i walk out the doors?
the fact of the matter is, no i do not live my program with the rigorous application of spiritual principles that i believe is ideal. i am human and subject to all the human failings that are part and parcel of who i am. an easy rationalization to sweep all my “stuff” under the carpet. the fact is, many a night, as i inventory how well i walked the path to becoming the man i have always wanted to be, i fall short and some nights way short. even if all my peers are keeping track, they cannot kick me out of the fellowship and for that i am grateful. as i shared last night, even when i was doing my best to get “banned for life,” the members who were in the rooms at that time, told me to keep coming back and perhaps i might get more if i stop posturing and shut up and listen to their experience, strength and hope. they flat out told me, that if i thought things were working so well, what was i doing coming to the rooms, after all, no one was making me get anything signed, to prove i was showing up. the result of that eighteen months of trying to get kicked out, only made me realize how much i wanted to fit in. my desire to “fit in,” came with consequences such as taking seventeen years to arrive at a spiritual path, that i knew was the right one for me, on the day i decided to be a member and had grown the desire to stay clean. it also fed the self-righteous beast within me and i decided it was my task to police the fellowship, even if i could not kick anyone out.
what my peers thing and how well i fit in, may no longer be t THE driving force in my recovery, but they are certainly still present, gnawing at me from time to time. i want to be getting better, but more importantly i want everyone else to see how much better i am getting. when i let go of how i look and remember that ordering my life to fit the expectations of others, will always yield unpalatable and intolerable consequences in my life. living a program, to the best of my ability, will yield the sort of results that i desire, regardless of how others see me. looking good may be nice, but just for today, feeling genuine, whole and self-assured is even better in my opinion. with that in mind this member is going to wrap this up and get a bit of a workout in, before i have to deal with work.

∞ DT ∞