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once again i am off and running down a tangent to the main point of the reading. okay i see this, before i really get warmed up i will comment on the whole using dream gig. i have them from time to time, in fact i will more than likely continue to have using dreams until the day i stop dreaming altogether. how can i be so sure of this? well the most salient fact in my life is that i am an addict. my natural condition is using or finding the ways and means to use. so it only follows that i will dream about what is the ultimate outcome of my natural inclinations. that is no biggie. i can also do as the reading suggests and look to the quality of my program to determine if i need to step up some facets of it, as a result of having a using dream.
than being said, it is time to get back to the point i started to make, you know take the tangent to its furthermost reaches as time allows. the question i lead off, has haunted me since i first had a glimmer that i need a program of recovery and long before i ever had any desire to seek another manner of living. by haunted i mean it would enter my mind and trip and spin and consume me for what seemed like an eternity. even in those last hopeless desperate days, this question bugged the living sh!t out of me. i so badly wanted to say, “there is nothing to accept, i can and have stopped using before, and when i need to i will once again.” of course, the truth was that even if i could stop using, the misery of living a life without getting high eventually provided me some excuse, rationalization or justification to get high just this once. my obsession with this question nearly drove me insane.
today i have no problem saying i fully accept that i cannot now, nor will i ever be able to stop or control my using. that simple answer is the driving idea behind why i stay clean. if i had even the smallest shred of evidence that i could use ‘socially’ you know that i would be using for certain. in fact, i would be using socially all the time! it is evident that i have no concept of what it means to be a social user, even now when i say that sort of stuff it sound so friggin ridiculous that i crack myself up and end up rolling on the floor. the irony here, and i find it quite delicious, is that a dyed in the wool addict is contemplating life as the sort of person who can walk away from a using situation and never think about it again. amazing but true, that truly was never possible for me, nor will it ever be part of who and what i am. i can live in the world of recovery. accepting what i am and what i will be.
thew upshot from all of this? i have a manner of living that replaces all of this speculation with a practical and yes fulfilling and enjoyable means of living. i would be lying if i said i have no regrets about coming to recovery. inside of me there exists a the desire to return to using. if i allow myself to go there, i am certain that with very little effort i could dream up some sort of lie to tell myself that would allow me the freedom to use once again, fulfilling those disturbing and bothersome using dreams. that knowledge, along with the acceptance of the fact that it is easier to stay clean than to get clean, keeps me working a program and seeking a manner of living that allows me to be more than i was yesterday, and with each passing day, make that part within, that part that drives me to using a little less powerful.
so the time has come to jump in the shower so i can get done all the stuff i want to accomplish this morning. it is a good day to be in recovery and an even better day to step away from the computer and spend some time relaxing.

∞ DT ∞