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being myself and truly being myself, two concepts that are no different than trying to carry on a conversation in Aramaic to me. i know that someone is talking to me and by their body language i may even be able to tell when to nod affirmatively and negatively, but i am clueless as to the content of what they are saying, and it is impossible for me to respond in any sort of verbal manner. well at least that is how it was when i came to recovery after years of active addiction. it took a while to get better and this is not one of those exercises in trying to appear more humble than i really am. honestly, i saw through that bullsh!t when i was one day clean and although i participated in it after i GOT some recovery, today i see it as being just another gig to make my outsides appear different than my insides. i could tell early on, who actually had recovery and who had just had clean-time, and although i wanted to be like those who actually lived the spiritual principle of humility, i gravitated towards the others, as they were the sort of folks with whom i was the most comfortable hanging with, in those days.
to extend the metaphor i started at the top, over the course of my recovery BECAUSE i decided to work steps to the best of my ability, i am learning the language and now can actually understand and speak it in a childlike manner. i also know that if i continue to work steps, my fluency in the language will increase, proportional to how much i allow the process to actually work on me.
the reason trying to be myself is such a foreign concept to me, is that in active addiction i was obsessed with being who i needed to be on a minute by minute basis. after all, i NEEDED to get what i NEEDED to use, and being fluid in how i acted and what i put out to to the world allowed that to happen, at least until i was so warped by addiction that i finished my withdrawal from most social situations. early recovery was not much different. i so wanted to fit in here that i mimicked the behavior of the most popular members i saw. most of that behavior consisted of false humility and people-pleasing, which were two behaviors i was intimately acquainted with from the repertoire of behaviors i brought with me.
all of that changed when i finally accepted what i was -- an addict!
everything i thought i knew and had learned in those first thirteen months was quickly subject to revision, although it took almost six more months for me to get moving on the second set of steps. be that as it may, today i GET to be myself. that is a gift of recovery that flows directly from the POWER that fuels my recovery. what does that mean? well for one, i am no longer clueless to who i am. it also means that i understand and can choose to behave in a manner that is true to myself. i can also live in FEAR and choose to behave like the man who walked into the rooms all those days ago. the steps and the recovery process give me the FREEDOM to decide which paradigm i wish to participate in today, and the best part is I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE!
so am i truly humble? not by a long shot. i am however moving in the correct direction, and if one of the destinations of this recovery journey is true humility, and i tend to believe that is the case, then it important for me to focus on that journey and use the STEPS to get there, one day at a time.
i owe, i owe, so off to work i go!
it is a great day to work on being who i am.

∞ DT ∞