Blog entry for:

for my recovery and my decisions does not come naturally to me, or better put did NOT come naturally to me, way back when. why on Earth should i assume that my peers in recovery are any different in this respect.
more than once i have had to face a disturbing realization that i had exempted myself from the ongoing process of recovery. more than once i had the desire to lash out at the source and build a story about how wrong that source may be. and more than once i walked around in sullen silence to show the world how f*cking pissed off i was. what did all that waste of time and energy get me? absolutely nothing. in the long run, i had to back to the source and ask for more information and use it to get back on the road to my ongoing recovery process. the facts are, i am the worst judge of how well i am doing, as i am quite vulnerable to crafting stories that exempt me from what i NEED to be doing in the here and now. BTW:

Nathan W
Congrats on SEVEN (7) years clean.
I know it has been a rough one and hope to see you soon.

i can say for certain, that learning how to take responsibility has become a never-ending story. yeah i would like to say that every decision i make is carefully thought out and dropped into the context of whether or not it will affect my recovery. although the examples of taking medication for pain or attending a party where there will be alcohol served, have long ago been looked at and dealt with does not mean that i am anywhere close to home free. what it means is that the decisions i make today, are more subtle and their effect on my recovery is not nearly as obvious. after a few days clean, the gift of being able to make decisions, should be one i can celebrate and yet the story i have crafted speaks to what an onus and burden it is for me. learning to live life responsibly was not what i was looking for when i got clean and more than once i have had the notion to use a little drop of this or that, to spin me back to the time where living by default and blaming everyone else for the problems in my life was not only acceptable to me, but expected. the fact that i toughed it out speaks more to the program of recovery than any innate trait or desire within me. one, such as myself, might even choose to “blame” my peers and their deeds for making me responsible for my life. quite an interesting proposition and just for today, i think i will go forward with that and see how this day plays out.

∞ DT ∞