โ there is the disease itself to consider -- โ
Posted: Fri, Aug 18, 2006 07:14:26 AM
the chronic self-centeredness, the obsessiveness, the compulsive behavior patterns that express themselves in so many areas of my life.
in my experience, the longer i stay clean and the more work i do, and the less the disease expresses itself in my day-today life, the more i find activities to replace the number of meetings i find i need to attend.
of course then i start getting the idea that somehow i am getting cured. and it follows that if i am cured than perhaps a whatever or two certainly would not cause any harm. well the truth is i am never cured, at least in the brief time i have been doing this whole recovery thingy.
the apparent symptoms have been diminished in my life, in fact someone who saw mw after a bit of time in recovery even said at the meeting the other night he had trouble at first seeing me as sick as he was. he quickly followed up with after some exposure to me and my many manifestations of addiction, that i was not as well as i appeared. and i am glad he put on that strong caveat, else i might have taken it as permission to start the spin down into the morass of using again. i know some of the people in the rooms with whom i share my recovery believe that using is not an option for them today, and that is good for them. for me however using is always an option, and for me to believe anything else is dangerous.
yes i may have the appearance of being better than i am, outward appearances have always been important to me, even when i was going to the edge of life in my addiction. that obsession with how i look has yet to leave me, and attending meetings provides me a constant reminder of what my internal landscape looked like when i got here, dark, bleak and desolate. today things are not that extreme and although i may have the ability to use gain, i doubt i have the fortitude to start another period of recovery, so i guess for today i will continue to go to meetings and do what is put in front of me!
in my experience, the longer i stay clean and the more work i do, and the less the disease expresses itself in my day-today life, the more i find activities to replace the number of meetings i find i need to attend.
of course then i start getting the idea that somehow i am getting cured. and it follows that if i am cured than perhaps a whatever or two certainly would not cause any harm. well the truth is i am never cured, at least in the brief time i have been doing this whole recovery thingy.
the apparent symptoms have been diminished in my life, in fact someone who saw mw after a bit of time in recovery even said at the meeting the other night he had trouble at first seeing me as sick as he was. he quickly followed up with after some exposure to me and my many manifestations of addiction, that i was not as well as i appeared. and i am glad he put on that strong caveat, else i might have taken it as permission to start the spin down into the morass of using again. i know some of the people in the rooms with whom i share my recovery believe that using is not an option for them today, and that is good for them. for me however using is always an option, and for me to believe anything else is dangerous.
yes i may have the appearance of being better than i am, outward appearances have always been important to me, even when i was going to the edge of life in my addiction. that obsession with how i look has yet to leave me, and attending meetings provides me a constant reminder of what my internal landscape looked like when i got here, dark, bleak and desolate. today things are not that extreme and although i may have the ability to use gain, i doubt i have the fortitude to start another period of recovery, so i guess for today i will continue to go to meetings and do what is put in front of me!
∞ DT ∞