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does not necessarily mean i make the same choices about HOW i do it today, as i did in days past. i have a friend who has been **around** the program for over a decade. during that time we have had a few different relationships, in addition to friendship. last week i got a call from my friend and they said they were certain that i wanted nothing to do with them, implying that i had abandoned them to their fate. when offered a solution, they hemmed and hawed and told me why it would not work. hopefully they found a different way to deal with the issue. my silence to their renewed requests for contact, has been misinterpreted by them, but i am okay with that and did little to correct the misjudgement of me that they made. i could rationalize and justify, but in the end what it comes down to is our differing opinions on what friendship entails, and my unwillingness to pay the price, emotionally and materially, of being their friend. that currency has been long since spent down to nothing and i am quite certain that i am unable to live up to their expectations. today, i CHOOSE to define what it means to be a friend, when in the past i believed that doing everything that was asked of me, regardless of the cost.
i use that as an example of what living a program of active recovery really means. i do not attend a whole lot of meetings these days, in fact on a good week, three seems to be my limit. i do not attend the meetings that i once did, either. i go where i find what i think i need, and that DESIRE often drives me out of my local meetings. i do not work steps with the same speed that i once did. i am, however, passionate about the steps and am currently working on my THIRD STEP. today i get to CHOOSE when and where i serve and after a month off from one of my service commitments, i have come to the place where that i may need to step back a bit from that commitment.
CHOOSING how i live my program is a perk of having a bit of clean-time. where once i lived in FEAR of the relapse boogieman, now i walk in the light of FAITH in the program of recovery i have been given. i know, on any given day, i can choose to use something to alter how i feel, even today. i also know that i CHOOSE to live my program, i will be able to see through what looks like a solution to how i see my life today. i am not living on the streets, struggling to stay clean and using drug replacement therapy to do so. i have not drained my friends and family members of everything i can extract from them. those days are far behind me, as i live each day clean. one of the choices i get to make today, is how i live my program and show up where i am expected to show up. that means the time has come to get moving on down the highway towards work and see what value i can provide for my employer, just for today.

∞ DT ∞