Blog entry for:

i run the risk of assuming control of my life. after phoning in my musings on the reading yesterday, this morning, i have all sorts of time and not a whole lot to write about, at least at this juncture, as i get into this we will see.
this is one of those reading where i can quite easily say d'oh and move on. i was not one of those thirty day wonders, and i did not float out of recovery in a pink cloud, in fact, if i had a pink cloud at all, it was so short i cannot remember it. so when i see other members relaxing in some sort of pinkish haze, i have very little to offer them in the way of my personal experience. what i can offer them however, is what i have observed. since i started sticking around, i have seen countless addicts float out of the rooms as soon as their lives got just the tiniest bit better, only to come back days, weeks moths and sometimes even years later, in worse shape than when i first saw them. the sad part is that one of the first gifts that i got from recovery was the better health and feeling better in general about my life and the world around me. that was the extent of my pink cloud. for me, the feelings i had anesthetized away for twenty five years soon came crashing down upon me, and i really NEEDED the rooms just to stay clean another minute. i might have been and possibly still am sicker than others, but that was my experience. so when a member, a peer, or a sponsee starts to talk about how wonderful everything is, and stops doing what they have been doing, i get concerned. after all, the part of me i call my addict, often tells me that drugs were not my problem, and now that i have some time clean, well…
yes, it is true, the denial of the horrors of addiction is still part of me and my internal dialogue from time to time. i understand how seductive that particular siren's song can be, and i USE the tools i have been given to lash myself on to the mast, so i can avoid the rocks of relapse, to extend the metaphor to its conclusion.
while i enjoy a life free form active addiction, i know there is a price to pay. it is true, that staying clean these days is easier for me than getting clean may be, that is something i believe on FAITH and have no desire to test out. i also know that the person i have become and the person i am in the process of becoming, is a result of the removal of active addiction from my life and filling that void with active recovery. i am also more than certain, that process can be arrested and reversed if i choose to step away from what i have been taught to do. so for me, yes i am a member of that choir today, the easier, softer way, is to do whatever it takes to stay clean, live an active program and allow myself to be present in the here and now for what is going on around me. this morning it means hopping in the shower so i can get my car emissions done and my tags updated. it is after all, part of living in the real world, one day at a time. so long and thanks for all the fish!

∞ DT ∞