Blog entry for:

the defects that have been revealed grow in the shadow of secrecy and die in the light of exposure.
i have been busy this morning and i almost let this particular habit slip to the bottom of the stack of stuff i want to get done today. good thing i had a so-called moment of clarity and decided to write instead of jumping ahead with clearing my desk for the weekend.
so as i consider the reading, the first thought i have is so politically correct that i can sum it up in one word, DUH!
of course, i am only as sick as my secrets. of course i NEED to develop trust in both the recovery process and at least one other person, so i can willingly reveal my secrets. of course, there is a time and place for such revelations and a meeting may not be appropriate.
now that my restating of the obvious is done, i can actually dive into a tangent from this train of thought. since coming to recovery i have been taught that guilt and shame are not the same thing. guilt is a normal feeling based on cognitive dissonance (thanks Rebbecca), that is behaving against my values. it is true, that in active addiction i had another means for resolving these internal conflicts, instead of altering my behavior, medicated my conscience and all its messy consequences away. as a result, when i got clean i had guilt by the boatload.
shame on the other hand, is using my guilt as a tool to punish myself over and over again. while i did many things that i felt guilty over, in active addiction, the substances kept shame at bay, and when it seemed to be overwhelming, relief was just a fix away.
getting clean, however, removed my weapon against guilt and shame, and left me in a world of hurting. the part of me i call addiction., would turn those proper feelings of guilt into the hammer of shame, creating the need for me to use, and leaving recovery behind. since my greatest desire was to be free from the justice system, i HAD TO FIND the tools to deal with my guilt and defuse my shame. my desire to be rid of these feelings was so overwhelming that i had to speak to my sponsor about them. he told me that the steps were the answer, and that he could be trusted with my stuff. since i was far from trustworthy, how could i trust someone who purported to be just like me? so the battle commenced and i started the recovery process for motives far from just having the desire to stay clean. my desire was to be rid of shame and guilt, and not go to prison.
amazingly, i did stay clean. i learned to trust and yes even have FAITH in the recovery process, and have defused all of the shame i had when i came to recovery, through the process of the steps. the guilt? well back to the whole idea of cognitive dissonance. if i feel guilty, i am doing something that violates my values and need to stop doing it, PERIOD! if i sweep those feelings under the carpet, i will suffer the consequences of self-flagellation that is shame. today I HAVE A CHOICE in this matter and only i can make that choice. will i do it perfectly? well not today, but i can and will give it my ‘A’ game. if not, well i am grateful that i have a 10th Step, a sponsor and closed-mouthed friends that can and will help me deal with it. that is the beauty of recovery, there is NOTHING i have to do alone anymore.
it is time to get back to the task at hand, work, work work.

∞ DT ∞