Blog entry for:

well i am better this morning, not nearly as scattered and the whole sinus thing is starting to resolve. oh yeah, i got to speak last night at our local speaker meeting and that always is a twisty sort of event for me before it actually arrives, and not so much the day after.
one bit of bidness to take care of before i launch into my soapbox spiel du jour:

23 YEARS CLEAN one day at a time,
CHUCK C, Simply Amazing
Thank You for being here when i arrived and showing me how to do this gig

okay that's done, where to…
what i heard this morning took me down two different paths, one that focused on myself and my desire to live in a state of active recovery, and the other being how this reading speaks to a state of living in untreated addiction, while having every appearance of being in active recovery. merging the two, i could see quite easily how i could fall victim to this trap. although the example is a bit extreme, in this case hyperbole is a great device to demonstrate where i can wander from the path i really want to be walking. i know all about living in untreated addiction, as it was and can be the default living state for me. when step work is just too much for me, or when i replace step work with service to the fellowship, i move into that state. i never considered obsessively recycling through a single step could create a similar state. i am surprised i never caught on, after all this fits my modus operendi to a ‘t’, looking like i am in a state that i am not.
sitting here this morning, i see some parallels in my life, certain avoidance behaviors that make me look a helluva lot better than i really am. doing an inventory on them this morning, out here in the wild wile internet is not a task i am quite up to, BUT i certainly see that i may need to examine my current behaviors of taking on sponsee after sponsee, as that may lead to avoidance of doing the work i need to be doing. the case for me right now, and for the past few years, is to answer affirmatively to the question “will you sponsor me?”
as a result i am more than likely sponsoring more men than i should be. it has been my experience, that when i have FAITH in this area of my recovery, the POWER that fuels my recovery never seems to give me more than i can handle. i have 2 sponsees working Step 9, 3 in Step 8, 1 in Step 3 and 1 in Step 1. those are my seven currently active sponsees and two of those men are incarcerated, so my time with them is naturally constrained. 2 others live way outside of my home town, so once again they too get limited exposure to me. which brings me down to 4 sponsees who are currently active, which is the number i have found from experience that i can handle. so when i peel away what looks like way too much, i see that my FAITH is not displaced, and i have the time and energy to maintain all of those relationships, as i desire them to be. you know, building trust, earning respect and sponsoring in a state of learning rather than knowing. i am blessed when i do so, as i have been picking up on so many new twists on the ideas i have been hearing about since i got clean. not that those twits were not here before, it is i am just becoming aware of them, through the eyes of those men i sponsor. how did i get here?
well as the reading suggests doing something that is recovery related, obsessively and not moving forward because of it, is one way addiction can keep me where i am, SICK. i need to look at whether my current practice of STEP 12, was keeping me from moving forward in my own recovery journey. you know Step 12 precluding Step 1. it is something i will have to keep looking at, and perhaps a change in how and who i accept as a sponsee may need to be reexamined and be changed. for now, i think i am okay with moving forward in my recovery and sponsoring the way i am. i will certainly put that thought in the hopper for consideration as i trot around the neighborhood this morning. which means that yes dear readers it s time for me to sign-off and get on to my next task. before i do i will leave you with this thought, ask yourself, ‘am i doing everything i can to work a program of recovery today?’ i am doing my best, how about you?

∞ DT ∞