I have been clean for:
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ยฟ when the going gets especially hard, i am tempted โ€ฆ

Posted: Wed, Dec 23, 2009 09:46:10 AM

to follow the path of least resistance and live by my old ideas again. i forget that my old ideas were killing me. well that may be a bit of hyperbole there. after all, the evidence is, that i did make it to recovery, i did survive active addiction and i am working on becoming whole again. of course, that may be a bit of minimization. there is other evidence that i did not consider when i go down that path, evidence like driving home with no memory of how i did it. using a dose big enough to cause convulsions. climbing rocks without any safety equipment because i was high enough to not care, or perhaps because i just wanted to show how fearless i could be.
so depending on my mood and the the alignment of the stars in the firmament above, i could swing either way about the true outcome of my old ideas. now i remember why i was such a tough sell, way back when i first started to come to meetings and before i decided to get and stay clean. quite honestly, with debates like that going on in my head, it is amazing i made it past the removal of the judicial sword over my head. something must have happened in the period between when i decided to surrender to this program and when the judge kicked me free and reinstated me as a citizen. the pat answer is that somehow, against all odds, i allowed a new idea or two to be forcibly inserted into my closed mind. the process was similar to using a jackhammer to break up concrete. i had to be pounded, continually and without respite to allow those first new ideas to get in and today i am grateful for those who were here that applied the force necessary to get me to finally see the light, even if it was not enough to really guide me.
as i sit here many days later, i see what a fool i am to believe those old lies that i can mistake for great ideas. even today, there are times when i think taking the easy way out will not hurt anyone, especially if i can do so without anyone else knowing. the whole if i can get away with it, why not paradigm. so where do i go from here? well the snow has been moved for the first time today, the second and third and so on snow removal opportunities will happen across the course of today, so i get to take a day off from my usually scheduled workouts. i have some work to do to generate some income. most importantly i NEED to do whatever it takes to foster my recovery today. so with that agenda in mind, i do believe i will jump into the shower and venture forth out into the cold and snow.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

The grandest forms of active force
From Tao come, their only source.
Who can of Tao the nature tell?
Our sight it flies, our touch as well.
Eluding sight, eluding touch,
The forms of things all in it crouch;
Eluding touch, eluding sight,
There are their semblances, all right.
Profound it is, dark and obscure;
Things' essences all there endure.
Those essences the truth enfold
Of what, when seen, shall then be told.
Now it is so; 'twas so of old.
Its name--what passes not away;
So, in their beautiful array,
Things form and never know decay.

How know I that it is so with all the beauties of existing things?
By this (nature of the Tao).