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was certainly the easier, softer way for me, at least for the first fifteen years of my recovery. that spiritual laziness, on my part, almost led to me leaving the fellowship that has given me this new way of living behind and striking out on my own. that little adventure has been documented here, time and again, so i really need not go into a whole lot of detail. what was really going on, was that i was afraid to follow my heart and i DESIRED to be accepted, so acting “as-if” i was part of the crowd, was my solution. being spiritually dishonest, certainly seemed less risky than separating myself from the pack and once i made that decision it was years before i ever got the nerve to think about the options i really had.
let me be perfectly clear here, my dishonesty was not the result of what the literature of my fellowship contains, nor from what i heard from what i heard my peers share. no, my FEAR was based in the admonitions from growing up in a religion and the undercurrents that i felt in the fellowship where i started my recovery. where once upon a time it was a good thing to “borrow” my first sponsor's version of a HIGHER POWER, it was notion i could have and should have pitched after staying clean for bit of time. when i stopped “dipping my toe” in the waters of recovery and finally became a member, what i though i knew, was what nearly killed me many years later. the fact is what i heard, i internalized and it became part of my identity in recovery, a part that i was unwilling to part with, so i clung tightly to a notion that never fit and as i finally came to see, would never fit the person i have become.
i really need to state this with any “fluff:” in the past i certainly blamed that first fellowship, my first sponsor, my parents and my peers in recovery, for my dishonest confusion.it certainly was NOT their fault, nor was it the fault of GOD, the priests or my culture. it was me, taking all of those cues and creating a world that was hostile to any sort of alternate visions of spiritual paths. today, as i guide the me who call me their sponsor through the minefield of uncovering their own spiritual path, i am very careful to encourage them to think for themselves and very clear that no matter where they end up, that path is not “written in stone.” as i have discovered, as i grew up in recovery, very little is immutable when it comes to spirituality in recovery and letting go of what does not work, was finally the best step i ever took. it is true, that i had to reach a point in my journey where i was willing to get honest and allow myself to be what i always felt and ridiculous as it may sound, i guess a decade of pretending to be what i was not, was what i NEEDED to go through. just for today, i am more certain about the path i am on.

∞ DT ∞