Blog entry for:

before starting this journey i though reservations were either places that the indigenous americans were warehoused or something you made at hotels, restaurants and airlines.
in the 12 step tradition where i started the recovery process, this issue was neither identified nor broached, sort of like the elephant in the living room, everyone sees but is afraid to acknowledge!
i have now seen first hand the destructiveness of not looking at reservations, places in our individual programs that we reserve to relapse. the reading this morning gave some of the most obvious ones, and the literature of our fellowship provides other striking examples, so i will not consume bits and bytes parroting what is so elegantly stated elsewhere, rather i will express those reservations i see in myself right now!
the largest one i feel today is that somehow, someday i will be 'CURED,' that i will be as right as rain and just like other normal people be able to use substances responsibly, without hurting myself or anyone else. i will be able to use only occasionally and in moderation and that after such infrequent periods of use i will be able to go back to my 'normal' life and not obsess about the next time i can use again.
as i write this i begin to see how absurd and insidious this reservation is. it allows me to deny that i am like others in the program, that somehow i am different and unique and can learn to do something that i have never been able to do. it creates the illusion that although i have seen the destruction of the lives of those who have gone before me when they go out after years of recovery, that somehow through some innate difference i can be successful where everyone else has so fatally failed. so at its root this reservation works on separating me from my peers and guides pulling me away from what i know is good for me and back towards the path of destruction of self. leaving me without defenses for the time where i am presented with an opportunity to use, while out of sight of those who love and care for me.
and here it is in all of its glory, for the world to see following the guidance of the literature i have come to trust from the fellowship that has given a chance to rise above and remain free from the HELL my life had become.
so will this keep someone else clean today? i do not know. it certainly will allow me another day of freedom from active addiction.
∞ DT ∞