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that recovery was for me, i found much to criticize. although the reading goes on to give a few specific examples, the one i zeroed in on, all those days ago, was not quite one of those examples. i saw the rooms of recovery as a place for losers and lightweights, after all, if they could not handle using and its attendant consequences then they were better off quitting, and sitting in a room whining about having to quit was really a huge waste of time.
it took another seven months before i finally got clean, and was ready to possibly give this lifestyle a whirl, even though i really did not think i has a problem, my problem was everyone else in my life telling me what to do, and if they would leave me alone things would be just dandy. coming to recovery, got those folks off my back, and i liked that instant result and started to apply myself just that much more.
all of that in ancient history as i sit here a few thousand days away from that fateful event. part of what i heard this morning took me back to the day i got clean, and also to the day i finally landed totally in the fellowship that has become my path for living. as much as i hate to admit it, and i still cringe to this day, i NEEDED those freaks i met way back when, and even though i did not hear what they were saying in the between times, i felt it, they knew me, and they felt like i did, and they were ready to accept me for who i was, if only i would let them. it was me who blocked myself off from that empathy and needed to go on in angry suffering for another seven months.
so when i share these days, when i carry the message, i remember the feeling of pain, that my self-imposed separation from those in rooms who were reaching out to me. those memories stir in me a sadness, that makes me ask that more ready to help the addict who still suffers. if only they can feel instead of listen, i hear myself thinking, then like me, they too will find a way to live in recovery.
as i grow up in the rooms, i begin to feel this more and more , and i began to think about this less and less. this last set of steps has brought me to a place that being present for what i am in this moment and acting appropriately to that knowledge is becoming easier and easier and moving from conscious to an unconscious choice, below the level of my mundane existence, or perhaps it would be better but as above the mundane, as it really is touching a bit of the divine.
so anyhow, i need to work out, go to the dentist, go to the massage therapist, a noon meeting, get some work done and hit the book club, today. so i better get cracking. until next time -- i am going to practice the language of empathy.

∞ DT ∞