Blog entry for:

by working the following steps i can leave that despair behind and discover HOPE, the companion of this recovering addict. of course , by ignoring my continuing step work, and living in a state of knowing, that same HOPE, that provides the impetus for me to stay clean today, can just as quickly be replaced by despair. the problem is, i do not or cannot recognize that slippage very readily. it is a good thing i maintain contact with other addicts who are in active recovery, that can help me detect that subtle change.
what i do not get, is how an addict who has tasted recovery and the gifts of active recovery can allow themselves to slip back into that state. i do not know how many time i have heard that trite but quite familiar phrase “I KNOW!” in fact, i have even heard those words come tripping off my own tongues, without a care in the world. yes recovery is a tough gig, and had i known way back when, what i know today, i am certain that prison would have looked like the easier softer way. that was, however then and this is now, and i am more than grateful that in my zeal to avoid what looked like something more heinous than i could stand, i chose the path of recovery instead of the path of incarceration and continued degradation at the hands of the part of me i call addiction. that choice, as misinformed as it was, was made out of a sense of desperation, that was with me for those first thirteen months of recovery. i did not start to feel HOPE, the HOPE i feel this morning, until that fateful Friday night in GREELEY, COLORADO. it was there that i finally heard the message of what a life in active recovery could give me. it was there that i finally saw and felt the HOPE that fuels my recovery today.it could be that as one of the men i sponsor puts it, “i love my sponsor, because he is sicker than i am.”
being sicker than others can be why i feel the HOPE apparently more strongly than others, and why i am driven to maintain that feeling with a zeal that lacks in many of my peers and acquaintances. it really does not matter, this morning i feel that HOPE and this morning i am willing to go to any lengths to foster that HOPE. i do not desire to sink into that state of despair, wittingly or unwittingly. i desire another day of ACTIVE recovery today, and for this sick pup, i only know of one way to get that result, return to a state of 'NOT KNOWING', and look for the answers in the world around me and my interaction with that world in real-time.
so it is off for the final day of my walk out cycle and into to town for a morning in a smoke-filled room. after all, that is part of living my life to the fullest, one day at a time, and let me see what i can learn today.

∞ DT ∞