I have been clean for:
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β„˜ i found, when it came time to make amends, that there were many people i had victimized …

Posted: Fri, Jun 18, 2010 08:25:26 AM

many i still so not remember today. with the help of the fellowship, i found a solution to this obstacle. i am working complete these nameless amends by making restitution to my community and doing my best to be of service to the fellowship that has provided me with this new manner of living.
i know what you are thinking, gear up the sh!t detector, here comes the choir boy once more, parroting back the party line. you might be correct if today was just some ordinary day, however there is something else ringing in my head, so just to be politically correct in the program sense, yes i did damage to the nameless, yes i am sorry for that damage, yes i am still working to address and repair that damage through my service efforts to the fellowship and the community at large.
whew, that being done, let me move into what is really on the top of my head this fine and sunny morning.
every time i read on these reading about HOW MUCH DAMAGE i caused in the chaos of my active addiction and in my recovery. yes, that is true, even though i am clean and working a program, and actively working that a program i can and do still cause damage. so every time this sort of reading comes around in the annual cycle, where i go to, is how bad i was, and how damaging i was to the lives of those who happened top waltz into my world. when i started going there this morning, i realized how arrogant and conceited that whole line of thinking was and is. yes i caused damage, and more than likely really did some serious damage. i was however, probably no more damaging than a million little things that go wrong in the course of living on this side of the dirt. while that does not excuse me, it allows me a chance to give myself a break. in my conceit and arrogance, i then move into this whole self-flagellation mode, and i feel; like i have to genuflect, beat my breast and wail about how i am not worthy. well, dear friends, i am worth more than that today, and that is the symptom of my insanity being manifest. the part of me i call addiction seems to use the very tools that provide me a manner of living a happy drug-free life, against me in subtle ways. each time i undermine who i am by allowing this to happen, i become a bit sicker and more prone to allowing it to happen again.
i am learning to become present, and part of that process is to learn when this sort of crap happens to be active in my life. the good news it was detected and through this particular purgative process has been excised from me, at least in the here and now.
in the grand scheme of things i am actually no better or worse than most of the millions of addicts out there, either in recovery or practicing their active addiction. with a sense of my true scale, i can humbly surrender this particular shortcoming into the care of a HIGHER POWER and ask that it be taken away. today, there are enough damaging things happening around me and to me, i DO NOT NEED TO ENHANCE THAT DAMAGE, by doing it to myself. so off into the real world i go. a shower a shave and an e-mail or three and i will be ready to see if i can step out without having a whole bunch of stuff on my daily inventory tonight. it is a good day to be clean.

∞ 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 2

2) It is only by this moderation that there is effected an early return
(to man's normal state). That early return is what I call the repeated
accumulation of the attributes (of the Tao). With that repeated accumulation
of those attributes, there comes the subjugation (of every obstacle
to such return). Of this subjugation we know not what shall be the
limit; and when one knows not what the limit shall be, he may be the
ruler of a state.