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i have a disease, but i do recover, however i will NEVER BE RECOVERED! that is for me, a very important distinction to make and one that goes to the heart of STEP ONE. whether or not i accept the whole disease theory or not, the fact is that i am an addict, that except for using that very first time, i am not responsible for being an addict. i am responsible for everything that comes after that admission. i can and have whined and moaned about how the part of me that is addiction victimized me. when is start to do that, my old trick was to treat addiction like some sort of alien outside force, hence shift the blame and allow myself to play the victim.
well that gig is gone, and its quick replacement was the person within, the multiple personality model so to speak. in that model the addict within acts of its own accord and the rest of me suffers the consequences of that action. here too, i GET to shift the responsibility of what i did in addiction and play the victim once more. this is quite a comfortable spot and quite honestly when this whole idea was exploded for me, i was devastated. now the person who caused that harm was me. now the person who wanted and had to use was me. all of my activities were conscious choices to hurt myself. the implications go on and on, and at the end of this painful realization, there is a great simplicity — I AM THE PROBLEM and I AM THE SOLUTION —.
the only tricky part is talking about it. in the third person as the first two models imply, it is easy to share, however once i get into the first person, it quickly becomes convoluted. that is why is say the part of me i call addiction etc. enough about the semantics of this whole discussion, the fact is that i caused myself great harm in active addiction, and the only way i have found to repair that damage is a program of active recovery. i know i throw that term around quite liberally and i wish i could say that i coined it. what i mean by it is that i do my best to live the program, not just looking like i live it. this could be a segue into the object models of my life of those addicts who are the dilettantes, however this morning that is not a place i need to go, they provide me enough input of what not to do and how to not model my life in recovery, that while useful, really provide very little solution. that turns me to the flip side of that same coin, those addicts who are living a program of recovery, the WINNERS so to speak. their actions provide me the object lesson of what i want to be, and i understand that IF i want what they have THEN i have to do what they did. it was form one of this group that the whole idea of separating the addict form me, was destroyed and as a result put me on a different and quite enlightening path through my recovery journey.
so i said that this distinction makes things more simple and it certainly does. taking responsibility for my actions, instead of blaming the so-called addict within, creates a set of behaviors where i might actually consider what i am doing before acting or reacting to situation, feeling or whatever. since i have no place to shift the blame, i have to live in the here and now and THINK and consciously act. when it comes to review my day, i have no addict within carpet to sweep my missteps under. nor do i possess a convenient scapegoat any longer, i am who i am, and it is me that is the source of my pain as well as the solution to my living problem. i have to accept that i am powerless over addiction. i have to accept that I AM insane. most importantly i have to make a decision of whether or not to turn over my will and my life into the care of the POWER that fuels my recovery. from that series of actions all my recovery in the here and now flows.
yes, it is true, that while acting in active addiction i was not a kind, loving warm or even good person. i took what i could and had very few regrets and those i did have were easily medicated away. i can own that this morning and move on. IF i want to continue to become more of the man i have been becoming, i NEED to keep doing those things that foster that change. i am committed to that right here and right now, however that is quite easy, sitting here in my pajamas, in the comfort of my home office. i will see hoe this decision translates in action as this day moves forward, after all more will be revealed.

∞ DT ∞