Blog entry for:

of the barriers i built over my years in active addiction. when set free of its restraining walls, my heart holds great power. okay i came to recovery as a closed off person, even after some time clean, i am still closed off. i could take that as a sign that this program does not work, OR as i choose to do today, i can look for progress in my journey to becoming an open person. actually i know that i will never be an entirely open person. there will always exist in me a level of distrust and stuff that i reserve for only a special few. i know this and can accept this today. that is no biggie, nor do i think i that is something i need to disparage myself over. i can accept that as fact and move on. since i will never achieve that goal, what i need to look at this morning is where i am. i do trust people today, but only so far. that limit has been expanded since i came to recovery from practically nil, to far beyond what i believed i was capable of. letting people in, is only part of the structure of the barriers addiction built. showing who i am, and caring about others are among the multiple number of dimensions those walls were built of. i was a shell of a person, and by forcing myself to live without the warmth of human kindness, or least showing any of that warmth, i was protected from the certain disaster human relationships bring. that lack of relationships was a price i was willing to pay, to stay protected in the womb of my drug-induced reality. as others grew up and learned how to be social creatures, i remained as i always was, certain about what i knew, and able to live isolated in a world full of people.
the recovery process has forcefully ejected me from that world, and even though it has taken its toll on me, i am grateful for the change it has facilitated. when i hear other members speaking about life around recovery, and rationalizing the fact that they have not done the work, but speaking to the results, what they do not get, is that all of us can see them for the shells they are. with that in mind, this addict has two paths in front of him today. the first being a withdrawal from the fellowship into the familiar isolation of my past, that way no one could find me out. or the path i prefer, living the steps in a program of active recovery and allowing the results to be out in public.
yes i can let go of those barriers, and yes i can become the sort of man i have always wanted to be. and yes, i can even learn to stop rolling my eyes and sighing when the poseurs start to tell me what fVcking great people they have become, just because they decided to stop using and have decided to hang around the rooms gathering what they can through assmosis.
anyhow, enough of the spew, how i got back on to that subject is a mystery to me, oh yeah, i was working on the idea of becoming true and real, and letting the world see me for who i really am, not who i would like them to see me as. i guess that is part of who i am today, and that is part of where i am do not want to go anymore. of not the judgmental a$$hole, part, that is the job HP to take care of, no the recovery poseur part. been there done that and wrote a book, now available on amazon for the low, low price of $129.99.
so it goes…
since the wind has finally arrived, i do believe i will get my workout in, before it really starts to crank it up. where do i go from here? well into a day being the best person i can be, and allowing my recovery process to destroy those barriers that still separate me from the rest of humanity.

∞ DT ∞