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sometimes, though, in the daily routine, i lose track of how much i have been given. so on first reading, this would look to me like a gratitude inventory kind of reading. perhaps it is, or maybe it is a reading about looking at how much FREEDOM i have received as a result of living this program, which brings it back around to a gratitude reading again. or maybe, it is just meant to make me stop and reflect on what and how much i have been given and acknowledge how deep i am indebted to the fellowship that provides me a manner of living beyond my wildest drug-induced fantasies. of course that would also lead back to gratitude, so here i am trapped in a circle that i cannot logically argue my way out of, so what is there to do? surrender and go with the flow. i spoke about what FREEDOM meant to me a few days ago, although i did not go into detail, it does suffice to allow an entry into a different train of thought, specifically exactly what am i FREE from today!
i could do a long list, but at the top would be active addiction, although goes without saying, i know many members in the program, with varying lengths of clean-time who are not FREE from active addiction. they may not be using, but they behave as if they are. i am grateful, that i have chosen to do what it takes to maintain my FREEDOM in this sense, for me, it is the only way i can maintain abstinence, i know that i am powerless over the obsessive compulsive use of drugs, so total abstinence is the only path for me. hence, the FEAR about the consequences of surgery and the footwork to allow me to have the FREEDOM to choose the day after and beyond. what else does the FREEDOM from active addiction give me? well for one, the FREEDOM to choose where my life is going to go. no i am not talking about destiny or major alterations in my current life situations, but i can dream, dreams and take the steps i need to take to help them come true. my dreams are no longer tethered to my next get high. so if i want to go to Europe next summer, i can plan and save my pennies to make that dream come true.
i could go on and on, but after even this brief inventory, i see that without the program and the fulfillment of its single promise, i would be no better off than i was over four thousand days ago. and during those days, i have grown beyond the limits of my self-imposed life sentence to active addiction. those constraints have been lifted and today, i am FREE to be the sort of person, i have always wanted to be. and that gift fills me with such a sense of gratitude, that i am overwhelmed and speechless.
so on that note time to sign off.

∞ DT ∞