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only when i made recovery my first priority did my need for these excuses begin to change. change it did, the excuses morphed into excuses for not participating in my recovery in an active manner. i still hear them ring in my head when i do not want to do service, or go to THAT meeting or work THAT step. what it boils down to is that i say, " i am too busy to…" when i do not want to do something. i know that this is the voice of the part of me i call addiction, or my addict if you will. although i am loathe to subscribe to the theory that my addict within is some sort of separate entity over which i have no control.
that sounds suspiciously like i am saying that i have POWER over addiction, and quite honestly i do! no it is not something that is inherent in me, no it is not something i have developed over my days clean. that power comes when i practice active recovery and only when i do so to the best of my ability, in the here and now. when i practice active recovery, then the excuses cannot stand up to the scrutiny of the man i have become. when they start to fly, i know them for lies, and i NEED to get down to what is really going on. do i not want to do service because i am tired of being bullied or manipulated? do i not want to go to that meeting because there is a member i know who is attending that i do not want to see or speak to? am i avoiding doing my step work because i am afraid of the pain it may cause?
as you can plainly see, in this stage of my recovery, excuses for not participating my active recovery are covers for the part of me i call my addict to separate me from the rest of the fellowship. as i get better, i get better at tricking myself into not doing what is really best for me, and the worst part, the lies become more subtle. after all, if i have to work to meet a deadline and miss my regularly scheduled meeting as a result, it ‘feels’ a whole lot better to place the blame on work rather than to look for my true motivation. as i have discovered, even after four thousand four hundred and sixty five days clean, i still can live in a self-created delusional world. that world is protected by the part of me i call my addict and is threatened every time i step out of the role of the long-suffering addict to take control of my life by surrendering once again to recovery and the will of the POWER that keeps me clean.
so time to trip down to the basement to work-out on this frigid, snowy morning. after all, like recovery, fitness requires daily work and attention, and if i want to keep what i have, i have to do what i have been told to do, by those who have come before me.

∞ DT ∞