Blog entry for:

i need to remember that my recovery program is the foundation upon which my new life is built. each day, i must renew my commitment to recovery, maintaining that as my top priority. complacency yesterday and priorities today, either the committee that wrote this part of the book were lazy or maybe the influence of a HIGHER POWER was at work. either way it does matter. i know when i was just getting clean, the entry from yesterday really did not mean much to me, in fact since it specifically mentioned five years, i wondered what my program of recovery would look like when that time arrived.
the first time i read this sequence of entries i was not in recovery, yes i could mouth the words, and yes as far as my probation officer knew i was clean, after all, my urine test were coming back drug free. that summer was my last gasp, and i got away with a whole bunch of sh!t while attending meetings every day, calling my sponsor occasionally and pretending to work steps in intensive outpatient treatment. so basically i blew this off, that summer since i had no intention of surrendering to any sort of program, much less one that insisted that i keep coming back and come back clean.
the second time i read these readings, i had nine months clean, and was actually beginning to surrender to another fellowship, the one my first sponsor found, and where i had to alter my language and their language in order to fit. and since i really, really wanted to fit and fit in, i made the accommodations i needed to make, i worked steps that were dealing with a specific substance and i learned to act like i had a substance abuse problem and not the disease of addiction. i surrendered to the fact that like it or not, that was going to be my home for as long as i was in any sort of program. now i had hope that no matter what my program looked like today, perhaps at five years things would be different, but all i wanted was another day clean.
the third time this cycle came around, in my life, i was in the final quarter of my second year. i had found a new home. no longer did i have to hide things under the carpet and no longer did i have a problem with substance abuse, no for the first time in my life, i actually fit in somewhere, and in this fellowship i had found my home. i was an addict and not addicted to… i drifted away from my first sponsor and had yet to find my second, so i was self-sponsoring and doing a DAMN good job of it NOT! how i stayed clean, i do not know, i was stuck with a HIGHER POWER concept that far from adequate, i had some clean time and a bit of recovery but was unwilling to go sponsor shopping where i knew there were plenty to choose from. the hope grew stronger because in this fellowship, they understood me, and i did not have to qualify or speak about the horrors of my active addiction in order to get them to relate. they understood that stuff and asked me to share about how i stayed clean today. i was finally moving from a lifetime of misery to a daily reprieve from active addiction, and the hope was there that one day at a time i would see five years clean.
i could continue on this little exercise, but the point is, that after i got clean and accepted that recovery needed to be part of my life, i became willing to make a daily program of recovery my top priority. yes i went on to school, made some career changes, found a soul mate and developed a life after active addiction. that life is based on the premise that as long as i do my utmost best to do what i need to do today to live my program, i can continue to receive the promise of FREEDOM FROM ACTIVE ADDICTION. so as busy as i am or am not these days, being reminded that complacency is my enemy, as well as avoiding complacency, by keeping my priorities straight are a good pair of readings for me. so off to the races to see if i can meet a deadline or two today!

∞ DT ∞