Blog entry for:

...i must maintain the foundation of this life: my recovery program.
and for the second day in a row i am thinking about the foundation of this wonderful new life that i have been given. so i could once again inventory my daily step work but i would not put anyone through that particular exercise two days in a row. nor will i go through the litany of the stuff i have been told to do to keep myself clean today. instead i think i will fly off on a wild and crazy and see where i land....
someone once told me that the reason affirmations work is, that if i told myself something enough times i would eventually come to accept it as fact. i know that when i was using, i would tell myself that it was not a problem and the negative effects of my unmanageable life were not the result of my actions. my denial was built on the daily affirmation that using drugs was not my problem, they were my solution to dealing with life in general. when i was in treatment my counselor kept asking me if i believed i was worth recovering and my response was always the same " uhhhh, sure!? "
i could not really understand what the question was about and how it applied to me, after all drugs were not my problem. my problem was the people and institutions in my life that would not let me live my life as i saw fit. so as i finally came to see the reality of my situation -- that using drugs was just a symptom of a greater and more insidious process, that i had affirmed my way into denying and i was finally ready to move into a new direction and do what i needed to do to have a life worth living. i do not need to make daily affirmations about whether i am worth the work it takes to maintain the foundation of this new life. i believe that with all my heart, what i need to focus on, is remembering how i got here and where i will go back to, if i choose to make other things more important than maintaining my recovery.
so where have i gone down this tangent? well the only affirmation i need these days, is that if i want to continue to grow, all i have to do is maintain my program and my life will change in the manner it needs to in order to fit my new circumstances -- namely that of an addict choosing to recover!

∞ DT ∞