Blog entry for:

landed me in trouble, however i am coming to recognize the need for me to change.
this reading certainly took me back to the day when everyone i encountered was an a$$hole. that was before i realized that i had to live by the more than two a-hole rule. that rule? if i encounter one or two unpleasant people in my daily affairs, the chances are, it is their problem. if i encounter MORE than two of them, then it is more than likely something that needs to be addressed within me. which of course is directly addressed by the reading this morning, well sort of, anyhow.
what i heard was that those around me do not really change. they still are who they are, and my job is to learn to love them as they are, PERIOD. the only way i can do so, is to grow spiritually and emotionally. the path to that growth, at least for me, is the STEPS. the psychobabble of the mental health community, the spiritual mumbo-jumbo of the religious community has never worked for me, EXCEPT to provide me loopholes in my ongoing recovery. there really is no mystery here for me to reveal, the a$$holes in my life depart the second i place them into a spiritual context that only the STEPS have provided for me. that is not to say, that for someone else may find a different path to tolerance and love, i am just speaking for myself here. in fact that reminds me of one of my pet-peeves and i think will head out on that particular tangent.
why is it, that those who have been “around” the program (read professional relapsers) are the ones who want to lump me into the collective ‘WE’ or addicts everywhere, and provide me an endless stream of how “we all should be” doing it? IF they actually listened to what is being said, they would not have to salve their oh so fragile self-esteem by trying to claim what they cannot achieve, namely long-term recovery and abstinence from using. can they really be so clueless as not to realize that those of us who are working a program whether we have 1 day or 1000 days clean are already doing what they themselves cannot or will not do, and their advice, suggestions or experience is really not relevant at all? i often wonder whether or not it would be a kindness to them to say shut-up, you are only showing everyone how ignorant you really are to what recovery is all about. not that i have all the answers, not will i even claim to have those answers, what i know is that IF i want to stay clean and IF i want to recover, and IF i want to continue to get the gifts recovery has to offer THAN and only THAN so i have to do what those members who have walked the path before me have done. it really is that simple, no magic pills, no hocus-pocus, no mumbled self-affirmations in the mirror, just plain old LISTENING to what is being said, OBSERVING how they do it, ASKING for help or clarification when i need to and APPLYING this new knowledge to my life. this irony, that those who have the least to offer, are the ones who are the loudest in trying to give it away, is so ludicrous that perhaps amusement rather than frustration would be better reaction for me.
well i am sure that there is a step for that, and i am sure when i am ready, i will be given what i need to work through this as well. if my experience in recovery has taught me anything, it is that what i know today, is subject to revision at any time, and allowing that to happen is IN MY BEST INTEREST. so off to the races and into the so-called real world.

∞ DT ∞