Blog entry for:

my current excuses are of a different nature. BUT, if i do not make recovery my first priority, chances are that i will not have to worry about these excuses anymore.
where on the list of my priorities does recovery fall today. the correct answer would be at the top of the list, silly, after all, staying clean is the only thing that is important in my life. well, the correct answer is not always the REAL answer. for me, there are what feels like at least hundred other things to do before i attend to my recovery responsibilities today. after all, i have some time clean, i have no desire to use, and i do have a connection with the divine. i have a tendency to forget where those gifts came from, and most importantly, what i had to do to get them. one of the assignments i just doled out was to read the three disturbing realizations and write about what they mean. so now the shoe is on the other foot! one of them says, "… i am not responsible for my disease, but i am responsible for my recovery."
dang it, that applies even after some clean time. it is not the accumulation of days that is important, it is what i need to do today, to allow that process to continue. do not misread that last line, i am not saying that long periods of clean time are not important, nor do i really subscribe to the ‘whoever woke up first this morning has the most clean time’ theory, clean time is important, and the longer away an addict is from their last use, the more likely it is that they have done a bit of work on their recovery. so yes, i do take a bit of pride of having some days in a row clean, and yes what i needed to do to get clean is not that much different than what i need to do to stay clean. i may not have to go to a meeting every day, BUT i do need to get to meetings on a regular basis, which i have been sadly remiss at lately. i may not need to be a coffee maker for my home group, BUT i do need to by available for my sponsees and share at the meeting i do attend. and i may be able to slide a bit on doing my step work, but i still need to be making progress on my current assignment.
this reading is especially apt for addicts like me. i NEED to remember what my priorities are, and check to make sure i have that list ordered correctly to ensure that i will have the chance to make the choice to stay clean again tomorrow. life happens, as i got clean time, i also accumulated more responsibilities. in fact one of the addicts i went into a service commitment with last week commented on the number of keys i carry. the irony of that comment is, that each of those keys is part of another responsibility. i came to recovery with one key, and these days i have many more, and each of them does unlock another lock, and i know what lock each of them unlocks, for the first time in my life. so off to the showers and into this very light day of work and football.

∞ DT ∞