Blog entry for:

...that sometimes arise in the fellowship. if i decide to be part of the solution instead of the problem, i am headed in the right direction. of course, whether or not i am part of the solution or the problem, is subject to interpretation. there may be some who will tell i am a dis-unifying force, because i will not bend to their particular vision, or manner of doing things, and there may be some who believe that everything i do ios part of the solution. i understand this, and know that the actual truth is somewhere in the middle. i also know that at times, i have and probably will be again a force that is part of the problem. i am after all only human, and my ideas, bizarre as they may seem to some, are just that ideas that have the right to see the light of day and not be dismissed like they are something from the pits of hell.
but enough about what others think, i am not quite a healthy as i may like to believe these days, if i give others that much power. so it goes.
so how do i work at being part of the solution? well for one, i can understand exactly who i am, just another addict who wants to do nothing more than carry the message to the addict who still suffers. with that beginning, all my clean time. time in service, service resumé is totally irrelevant, i am an equal to those with whom i serve, and can start to be part of the solution. do not get me wrong here, all of that counts in expressing my opinion based on my experience, what it does not count for is an elevation in status due to longevity or happening to be anywhere when the fellowship got started. i have already participated in believing i knew better than those who have less clean time than me, and less experience in service and did a very good job of almost destroying my former home group. yes, it is true that i was one of the two members who helped get the fellowship rolling in my home town. and yes it is true, that the two of us sat there along with members who are no longer in around, waiting for the newcomers to show up. and yes year after year, the two of us stayed and served the group, BUT i got it into my addict brain, that somehow i was something more than just a member. where that notion came from i do not know, in our fellowship we do not revere our founder with pictures and shrines. in fact, many members these days have no clue who Jimmy K was, and you know, that is not necessarily a bad thing. so these notion that somehow i was more came form elsewhere. i can name lots of examples of members with time, that think they are somehow dialed in on what the fellowship needs to be doing and use every second of service to bully our fellowship into thinking the way they do. i used to respect those members, bus as i grow, i find that the behavior they model, and that i emulate is far from unifying, and does more to destroy that which i purport to be building. today, i want to build through a common effort, with my thoughts, ideas, passions and experiences being part of a whole and not standing out like some sort of beacon for the service-challenged members of the fellowship that has given me this new way of living.
yes, i have a way to go. i have models of behavior, both good and bad who i can choose to emulate or use an examples of how not to behave, and with those tools and my own experience in mind, i can go forward and be a positive force. so off to the streets to work out a few of my kinks today. -- it is a great day to be in active recovery!

∞ DT ∞