Blog entry for:

to grow spiritually is the driving force behind my ongoing life as a recovering addict. i take it to heart that i can continue growing as long as i am living this program of recovery. i know many of my peers misquote the literature substituting the word “work” for “live,” BUT i have seen many addicts who were merely “working” a program, relapse. of course, there are many of my peers who walk away from the program and go on to use without issue, enjoying an occasional glass of wine with their spouses, and still living a life worth having. i have reached a place in my recovery, where i see that maybe they were not addicts after all, and that they came out of desperation, got what they needed and could move on. i know from my experience, that i am certainly not a member of that class, at all. it is a fact of my life that one is too many and a thousand will never, ever be enough. white-knuckle abstinence is not the sort of life i want to live these days.
i am running behind schedule this morning, because i CHOSE to clean-up my saved e-mails. it has been a task that i have been putting off, based on the age of some of them, for over a decade. of course, being the pack rat that i am, i only deleted certain ones that met certain requirements, such as payment due reminders. some day, i may decide to delete everything over seven years old, but that day is not today.
what is really chapping my hide these days, is the expectations that some of those in my life, foist upon me. i am tiring of being expected to show up somewhere four days a week, only to be greeted by a blaring television and person caught up in self-pity and self-obsession. the ten to fifteen minutes i do spend in that situation, wear on my, each and every time i go and i feel bad that i cannot see it as anything more than a odious chore that i have to complete. playing the game of being dutiful sucks big time, and i am exhausted. nothing is changing for the better and perhaps that is what is really wearing me down. i see things getting progressively worse as the “will nots” are morphing into “can nots.” all i can do, and trust me i have tried a whole lot, is to witness that decline and accept that everyone makes choices and some are better for us than others.
today, just for today, i choose to get out and get some exercise. i choose to work at the local smoke-filled room for a couple of hours. i choose to get my brakes fixed,. i choose to honor my commitments, even if i do not want to, because just for today, i understand what it means to have integrity and i choose to be someone who lives their word, just for today.

∞ DT ∞