Blog entry for:

my successful recovery, is allowing myself to **grow-up** in the program or is that allowing myself to grow old?
i was far from a pup when i first came to the program and very set in my ways. one might argue, as i often did that my childish behaviors and attitudes were “child-like,” to reduce the sting of reality. yes i was a master of semantics, especially when it came to describing myself and shifting responsibility and among the rude awakenings i had, when i got clean, was that words may create an illusion, but really did little to change what was going on. the fantasy that relief was just a “turn of a phrase away,” persisted until way after i became a member and actually started to work the steps with a sponsor in the fellowship that has become my home.
yesterday i spoke of an event i witnessed where someone was incapable of placing a cigar in their mouth on the first try, i said it was a metaphor about how i lived and quickly jumped off the track about how i would behave. if i thought someone else saw me “miss my mouth.” the idea i had then and has come back to me now, is that even with some time clean, i dread anyone seeing me incapable of doing something that is automatic and do my best to dismiss that as fantasy, after all, i have been doing this recovery gig for what seems like a very long time. getting others to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” and focus on all the smoke and mirrors, has been the foundation of how i have lived my entire adult life. learning to allow others to see my flaws and shortcomings, even when i am doing the actions that should come automatically, is part of growing up in the rooms. coming out of the fog of fantasy, is not an easy task, at least for this addict.
what else is on my mind? well i have the test for my nicotine consumption on Friday morning and the notion has already come into my head, that i would “celebrate” that completion by smoking something dammit! not to unusual for an addict of any type and certainly not for this one. if i believe i can “get away” with something, i will certainly give it a whirl. i certainly have a bit more work to do to “grow up” in that department, but just for today, i am clean, nicotine free and grateful for the life i have even though it is far from perfect. maybe, just maybe i will grow up, just a little bit more.

∞ DT ∞