Blog entry for:

but just as no one else can recover for me, so no one else*s spirituality can substitute for my own. i must honestly search for an understanding of God that truly works for me.
well i goofed yesterday and used the same subject line twice -- i am quite the tool, but i digress ---
what is on my mind this snowy Thursday morning is a trip through my early recovery. i have often written about my journey to find the HIGHER POWER concept that i could take ownership of, so although that is what is on my mind, i am hoping it just becomes a springboard for quite a different topic this morning.
i had two major problems with some of the stuff i heard when i was trying to come to grips with discovering a path to a HIGHER POWER, the first was members who said," you HIGHER POWER can be anything even a french fry or doorknob if you want it to be."
crazy as it sounds, i almost bought this line, as i knew that if i chose something like a doorknob, it would soon fail to provide what i needed to stay clean, blowing up the HIGHER POWER part of the program, and freeing me to return to my life as an active addict, as soon as my real HIGHER POWER let me off of probation. i am a master of sophistry, and even in those tumultuous days of early recovery, i could still practice the mental gymnastics necessary to get what the part of me i call my addict wanted, namely out of the rooms and back into the streets!
well after i presented this bit of insanity to my sponsor, he said the other thing that drove me crazy; "well then, use my HIGHER POWER…"
which goes to the heart of the reading -- i complied with his wishes, even adopting the practices and rituals he used, all the time knowing that it was not going to work, all i had to do was hold on for a bit longer and all of this recovery stuff would be a passing phase in my life as an active addict.
the irony of this, is that over time something crept into my head, my heart and yes even my soul -- the POWER THAT KEEPS ME CLEAN. although i spent several years in defining that POWER, it did keep me clean, it did take over the inadequate concepts that i acquiesced to, and it did become something on which i could rely. one might say that the borrowed concept worked for me, as it appears that it did at least on some level. the reality is that it was a change fellowships and a new look at who and what i was that changed my borrowed HIGHER POWER into something more. had i not made the change to the fellowship in which i truly belonged, when my number came up i would have been gone. the POWER THAT KEEPS ME CLEAN AND PROVIDES FOR ALL MY NEEDS was present even in that borrowed form, and i did have the chance to recover enough that when the time came, i chose recovery instead of life back on the streets.
these days when i speak about the HIGHER POWER concept, i am careful to remember what i was like and avoid the opportunity for those who are starting their search to use my words against themselves. i know what it is like to be in recovery for a bit of time without a working concept of a HIGHER POWER, and although i cannot remove that path from any addict, i can be a bit more cautious than those who were in the rooms when i got clean. they did love me, and they were doing what they thought was best, and it nearly killed me. so the time has come to venture into the frozen tundra and see what i can do to further the cause today.

∞ DT ∞