Blog entry for:

of past experiences. i am free to discard the ideas that inhibit my growth. i am capable of stretching my boundaries to encompass new ideas and new experiences.
after an exchange of ideas over the course of the past few days with a member who has "substantial" clean time, i am grateful that i have found a new way to look at things. i am sorely tempted to take his inventory, but that would put me smack dab in the middle of the problem, leaving the solution behind. what i will do is look at how i can allow myself to grow beyond the limitations of my past. when i remember my past, especially parts of my past that i do not like, i draw back into a cocoon of intellectual masturbation. i spend my energy seeking justifications and rationalizations for feeling the way i feel, and often seek those justifications by pulling out a line or two of our literature, so i can wrap my ideas into a blanket of spiritual camouflage. the more i withdraw, the more cynical and self-righteous i become, and the spiral down into active addiction starts. today i am a member of the fellowship that provided me a new life, because i have made a decision to be a member, and i meet the only requirement for membership ... the desire to stop using. being a member, and having some clean time does not make me immune to the limitations of my past. somewhere i was told and internalized that i am not worth recovery or success. that tape still plays today, albeit not nearly as loudly, nor as often as it did in my early recovery, but it is still there. i can choose to whine and moan how unfair it is that i am saddled with this belief and that it colors all of my interactions with those around me, or i can choose to accept it as fact and do something about it. do not get me wrong, i understand that this is not a self-help problem, nor am i under the delusion that i can change who i am by self-willing myself to becoming a better man. no what i can do, is what has been suggested for me to do since the day i decided to be a member, work the steps, do the next right thing and allow a loving HIGHER POWER to make the internal; changes that i desire. so sitting here this morning, pondering my reactions to the exchange of ideas i have had over the past few days, i see that i have plenty of work left to do, DAMMIT! i am not cured, nor will i ever be. i do have object lessons of what i do not want to become, and was sorely tempted to just trash the entire exchange of e-mails so i could move on. what i believe i will do is to archive them into their own folder, so i can use that knowledge and experience to free myself from the limitations of my future. i do not want to become a bitter, cynical member. i have already done that once or twice. i want to remain a passionate, growing member of this fellowship and the only way i can do so is to remember that disagreements are part and parcel of everyday life. i do not have to stereotype and pigeon-hole those with whom i do not agree, even though that is a limitation that comes from my past. judge, stereotype, then discard anyone who disagrees with me, i no longer have to play that out to the end, after all, today i am teachable and i am willing and if i choose to be i can even be open-minded. so i know this rambling probably makes little sense to anyone but me this morning, so it goes, this is after all, ALL ABOUT ME! :)
so off to work i go!

∞ DT ∞