Blog entry for:

to stop being an addict and meeting attendance, on a regular basis helps me to remember that fact of life. as often happens when in my day, what i **heard** when i sat this morning and what i **feel** as i sit down to pound this out, has changed. when i sat down to put this down, before my walk, i was going to write about what a good little addict in recovery i am by still going to three meetings a week, after some clean time. the next part was going to blah, blah, blah how meetings keep my recovery fresh and so on. all of that is good and perhaps would have been a great message for the anonymous dozen or so who read me on a semi-regular basis. it is not what i am feeling now and with that in mind, time to move into that little bit of my reality.
during my walk i ran into a friend who was once a peer in recovery. they asked me where i was going, and i said home. of course that answer made no sense to them, so they asked if i had moved. how do you explain to someone that does not know where they are sleeping tonight that some one such as myself walks five and a half miles for fitness and because they want to do so. i walk because i have the desire to walk and i like the results. the fact that i HAVE a desire to better myself, because i find myself worth doing so, is a result of living a program of recovery, which include regular meeting attendance, a fact of life that my friend never seemed to get, their lives were too “full” to go to meetings. i have often wondered what it is that kept me coming back, when my life got too “full.”
i can say that back in the day, going to meetings for this addict was all about looking good. i want to meetings nearly every day for the first eighteen months, even though i lacked the desire to stay clean. after i grew a desire to stay clean, it was about catering to a crowd and meeting attendance and sharing at every single meeting as a form of performance art for me. i learned my audience, their tastes and crafted what i shared to meet their expectations. i stayed clean, i went to meetings but i am not sure what sort of message, if any, i carried to the still suffering addict. when i thought i was not getting the respect i deserved, i moved on to different meetings to ply my trade, sure i stayed clean, met all kinds of new people, but i was still missing the point.
right here and right now, i need to wrap this up. i can say without any reservation, that i share what is on my heart. it may not be wrapped in a bow, or be all daisies and rainbows, but it is who i am, dark, often twisted and definitely a cynic. if anyone expects more than that, well they will need to check their expectations at the door, because that is all they are going to get, just for today.

∞ DT ∞