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however as i grow i begin to realize that a Higher Power can work through me when we share my past. that possibility is why i am here, and its fulfillment is the most important goal i have to accomplish. quite honestly, the last thing i want to think about this morning is the regrets i have over the decisions and action i undertook in active addiction, or even in recovery. yes, i know as the sage once said, "those who cannot remember the past are CONDEMNED to repeat it."
remembering my past and regretting my past are not the same, regardless of how i want to spin it.
YES, I MADE MY SHARE OF MISTAKES AND POOR CHOICES!
be that as it may, this morning i can accept that and move into how my history, both wise and unwise, can help someone else in recovery. i am not all that enamored with the whole predestination thing that the reading could suggest, and even though i used it as my seed, i have not come to believe that i made mistakes in my past, solely to be of service to those i encounter today. i do believe that my past and my regrets can be used as a tool to help those with whom i share my life and my recovery. in fact, some days, i get a little itchy just thinking about being a tool of a HIGHER POWER, and i get more than a bit rebellious. yes the whole authority complex gig is still a part of me, even though i have some time clean and have practiced a program of active recovery. i am severely averse to being used by anyone or anything for any reason, as well. so i get intro these mini-frenzies when i encounter reading like this.
what do i have to do? well the first thing is to examine my belief system. since i have come to believe that the POWER that powers my recovery, speaks to me through others, using them for that purpose, why should i be immune? i understand that i am just another addict who is enjoying a life in recovery, if they can be used, i guess i have to grudgingly admit, that so can i. BUMMER DUDE, i lose my uniqueness with that last statement and once again i am, as my sponsor is wont to say, just another dime.
the implication of all of this, is that i made choices in my past, good ones, bad ones, and mostly indifferent ones. each of those choices had a set of consequences, that for this addict, brought me to the place where i am today. that path, fraught with visible and invisible hazards can be used by others to perhaps make their journey less perilous. or it may just provide the spark of HOPE a struggling traveler needs to go one more day without using. i know that it is the past experiences of those who walk before on this path, that provides me the HOPE that it is paying off. that reward? the choice to recover again today, and the opportunity to make that choice again tomorrow, when it gets here.
when i put it into that perspective, being used as a tool of a POWER that provides the opportunity for others to recover is not such a bad thing, and my petulant frenzy fades away into a bit of gratitude, after all, someone was here to provide me the means to identify and give me HOPE that i too could be like them and live a day clean. most of all, that i was not doomed to failure and the abyss of active addiction. so as i have much to do, i do believe i will get cracking and allow myself to be a tool of that POWER that fuels my recovery today. off to the races i go!

∞ DT ∞