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HOWEVER, the heart of this recovery program is the Twelve Steps -- in fact, they are the program! well as i sit here this morning i have a number of competing thoughts, there first is that today i can talk about working the steps, and instead of using some form of past tense, i can say i am currently engaged in formal step work. more on that a bit later as i need to clean up some of the other trains of thought.

TY P, congrats on 15 years clean today!

Derek R, thank you for the call last night, it was nice to hear from you, and i hope i can help you find your way back to our fellowship, speaking only for myself, i do miss you.
so where was i? oh yeah in the here and now, and actually formally working a step. now that i am done with my distractions i can get down to brass tacks, so to speak. i have always been puzzled how my peers who choose not to work steps stay clean. not that i am any whirlwind through the 12 steps myself. after taking a four month hiatus between step cycles, i can see how it is done, one day at a time. there is that bit of sophistry that i work steps 10, 11, and 12 everyday and it takes a quick trip through steps 1,2 and 3 to get my day started, so i am actually always practicing the program, therefore formal step work is not that high of a priority. i get that, as i have just lived that. it is true that i was not entirely nuts as my maintenance program is sound BUT i also did not GROW as much as was possible. when i stop growing, i start going, going anywhere but in the direction that is my own true will for myself. so as i started working the step one the other evening, i was struck about how blind i was to the latest and greatest manifestation of my addiction. i am not quite ready to share that yet in this forum, but that day will come as i lance that particular boil on my spiritual backside.
anyhow, i am grateful that i have become willing again, i am excited about where this new step cycle will take me, and quite honestly i am more than a bit scared of what will be revealed. all of that aside, it is where i want to go, and it is what i want to be doing, actively participating in all phases of my recovery, one day at a time. so off to the streets then to the doctor’s office for my annual physical, then who knows, it is after=er all another day in the life, and so far a good one to boot.

∞ DT ∞