ยง anyone may join, regardless of... ยง
Posted: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 08:46:06 AM
well it is just 7:15 and i have already completed all my morning stuff. plus took care of a few issues that were smoldering in the background. i am certainly off to a sprint this morning, so now i get a moment to stop and consider what the reading brought up for me this morning.
it seems that every time i read this i am reminder of the quip that Groucho Marx once made,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
after all, if the members of the fellowship were really as like me as i suspected, than they were the last people on earth that i wanted to have to depend upon. i came to recovery being unreliable, untrustworthy and certainly dishonest, and because the members that were here kept saying things that i knew were true, i suspected that staying here might be a grave mistake. from the point of view of the addict within me, it certainly was a grave mistake, BUT from the vestiges of humanity that i still retained, it was and continues to be a decision that saves my life.
so after that first reaction, i get to go a bit deeper into what the reading was talking about, the whole regardless part of the fellowship. i must confess that i was and still can be one of those who can easily judge and pigeonhole another person, by a quick glance or withing the first 39 seconds of talking with them. this ability served me well in active addiction, and was probably one of my best survival skills. today, especially in the rooms, it is more like my tonsils or my appendix, mostly useless vestige organs that end up needing removal, because they are making me sick. stereotyping a someone based upon outward appearances or behaviors prevents me from getting what i NEED to stay clean today, as it has been my experience that i NEVER KNOW which member will utter that gem i need to hear right here and right now.
the irony here, is that part of me i call addiction, while once so prominent in my living day to day, has been reduced to ta vestige of its once mighty power, and the man within, that was grasping at life lines, has taken over. yes i know it all sounds like a trip through Sybil, and sometimes when i try and separate out what is addiction and what is recovery, the going gets more than a bit complicated.
what does this all mean? it means that when i allow the addict within to separate other members out based on whatever criteria i happen to be enforcing in that moment, i am cheating myself out of the breadth of recovery i NEED. it means that it is up to me to allow those members to be a part of my life. it means that i cannot allow myself to disqualify myself from any recovery, as each and every member has something to offer me, even if it may be an object lesson in what does not work.
with the reading still ringing in my head, i can see clearly what my task of today is: foster the man i am becoming by listening to what the POWER that fuels my recovery is telling me. i never know who will be carrying that message.
it seems that every time i read this i am reminder of the quip that Groucho Marx once made,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
after all, if the members of the fellowship were really as like me as i suspected, than they were the last people on earth that i wanted to have to depend upon. i came to recovery being unreliable, untrustworthy and certainly dishonest, and because the members that were here kept saying things that i knew were true, i suspected that staying here might be a grave mistake. from the point of view of the addict within me, it certainly was a grave mistake, BUT from the vestiges of humanity that i still retained, it was and continues to be a decision that saves my life.
so after that first reaction, i get to go a bit deeper into what the reading was talking about, the whole regardless part of the fellowship. i must confess that i was and still can be one of those who can easily judge and pigeonhole another person, by a quick glance or withing the first 39 seconds of talking with them. this ability served me well in active addiction, and was probably one of my best survival skills. today, especially in the rooms, it is more like my tonsils or my appendix, mostly useless vestige organs that end up needing removal, because they are making me sick. stereotyping a someone based upon outward appearances or behaviors prevents me from getting what i NEED to stay clean today, as it has been my experience that i NEVER KNOW which member will utter that gem i need to hear right here and right now.
the irony here, is that part of me i call addiction, while once so prominent in my living day to day, has been reduced to ta vestige of its once mighty power, and the man within, that was grasping at life lines, has taken over. yes i know it all sounds like a trip through Sybil, and sometimes when i try and separate out what is addiction and what is recovery, the going gets more than a bit complicated.
what does this all mean? it means that when i allow the addict within to separate other members out based on whatever criteria i happen to be enforcing in that moment, i am cheating myself out of the breadth of recovery i NEED. it means that it is up to me to allow those members to be a part of my life. it means that i cannot allow myself to disqualify myself from any recovery, as each and every member has something to offer me, even if it may be an object lesson in what does not work.
with the reading still ringing in my head, i can see clearly what my task of today is: foster the man i am becoming by listening to what the POWER that fuels my recovery is telling me. i never know who will be carrying that message.
∞ DT ∞