โ the taste of humility is never bitter.โ
Posted: Sun, Jul 13, 2008 09:00:33 AM
the rewards of humbling myself by asking for help sweetens my recovery. well, i am off to an early start this morning, sort of. i took the afternoon totally off yesterday, and it is my intention to do so again today. i have finally reached the point, where i am finding that no matter how long and how hard i work, it is just not worth placing my sanity in jeopardy by not allowing myself some real down time. where did this come form? well, it was not from asking another member for help, that would have been far too easy, no it came from tossing and turning my numbers m, my goals and my obligations over and over again in my head, until a solution was spit out that was acceptable to me. yes there will be some sacrifices (like no new iphone or motorcycle), but there will also be some rewards (like a trip to Barcelona), and the trade-off between those two is never one without a cost or two. and so it goes…
perhaps that does not sound very germane to the topic, and perhaps it is not. what i heard this morning was a combination of ideas and directions to move forward into my recovery with today. the most important being, that clean time is no indicator of how much help i need. i have two people in my life these days, with greatly differing amounts of clean time, who are caught in the trap that they are too good to need help from anyone. one has a sponsor, that they choose to ignore, except when they get called on their stuff. the other does not. both remind me of myself, during the periods in my recovery when i was my own sponsor. i was lonely, aloof, isolated, arrogant, condescending and generally a miserable wretch. of course i was also oblivious to any of that, as i blithely went through my life ignoring that i both needed and wanted help from the members of the fellowship. at those times humbling myself , by asking for help was one of the most vile tasting things i ever did. and that was when i got a clue, that i was the problem, and i went sponsor shopping.
these days, it is still difficult to ask for help, but it does feel good when i finally do, the vile taste is gone and has been replaced with the "D’OH" feeling of recognizing the idiocy of my behavior. so do i need some help this morning, perhaps. will i ask for it. perhaps. i am however willing to look at my stuff and see what areas i need some guidance in these days and see how i can get what i need, and maybe even what i want. so off to work out and get a little more physically fit today,. spiritually i am already in the process of doing.
perhaps that does not sound very germane to the topic, and perhaps it is not. what i heard this morning was a combination of ideas and directions to move forward into my recovery with today. the most important being, that clean time is no indicator of how much help i need. i have two people in my life these days, with greatly differing amounts of clean time, who are caught in the trap that they are too good to need help from anyone. one has a sponsor, that they choose to ignore, except when they get called on their stuff. the other does not. both remind me of myself, during the periods in my recovery when i was my own sponsor. i was lonely, aloof, isolated, arrogant, condescending and generally a miserable wretch. of course i was also oblivious to any of that, as i blithely went through my life ignoring that i both needed and wanted help from the members of the fellowship. at those times humbling myself , by asking for help was one of the most vile tasting things i ever did. and that was when i got a clue, that i was the problem, and i went sponsor shopping.
these days, it is still difficult to ask for help, but it does feel good when i finally do, the vile taste is gone and has been replaced with the "D’OH" feeling of recognizing the idiocy of my behavior. so do i need some help this morning, perhaps. will i ask for it. perhaps. i am however willing to look at my stuff and see what areas i need some guidance in these days and see how i can get what i need, and maybe even what i want. so off to work out and get a little more physically fit today,. spiritually i am already in the process of doing.
∞ DT ∞