Blog entry for:

even though, i did not know i was desperate way back when. i do that today, it is desperation that provides the impetus for me to move forward on whatever i am balking at doing. the longer i stay clean, the less desperation is a driving factor in my recovery process.
how can those disparate statements be true? well to reconcile them i have to go back to the time before i came to recovery. a time when i had all the trappings of a recovering person except the ability to stay clean. as long as i thought i was getting over on the justice system, my treatment counselors and the fellowship, life was cool, i was cool and recovery was just an act to be played out on the stage of life. not a drop of desperation or humility ever crossed my mind in those days. and yet, under the surface there were changes going on. i guess you cannot attend one or meeting a day, do treatment and talk the talk, without something happening. when i finally got caught and had to reluctantly confess to all the world what a fraud i had been, i was desperate. desperate not to go to prison. desperate for a way to eventually use again but barring that desperate for the bone-crunching obsession to use to be lifted from me. well i got what i wanted, even though i could not put a name on it, FREEDOM FROM ACTIVE ADDICTION.
as i stay clean, and as i open my ears and my mind to what is being offered to me on a daily basis, i find i naturally tend towards the spiritual path suggested by those who have walked this road before me. there are times when i actually do step work, because it is the next right thing to do, not because i am desperately trying to fix something, or relieve some feeling. although i often say, recovery or prison was my choice when i got clean, that little bit of hyperbole is just one more demonstrative of how messed up i was back in those days. had i really been making sane and rational decisions, i would have opted for the 3 year prison stint, as that would have ended a long time ago, and i could have went on my merry addict way, down to the final ends of my active addiction. i chose recovery instead, and spent the next two years staying clean because of the legal sword that was poised above my neck. because i was tired of feeling the way i was feeling, i also gave myself over to the recovery program i was being offered, and i desperately clung to the life preserver that was tossed out to me.
five thousand days later, it is tough to feel those feelings again. the powerlessness of being caught in the web of the justice system. the siren's call of “just one more.” all of that is a fading memory, because i like most humans, choose to discard the memories that are unpleasant and seem to serve no purpose any longer. what i wanted then and what i want today, is really not that much different: THE POWER TO STAY CLEAN FOR THIS SLICE OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. what i get is so much more, and when i accept all of those gifts my desperation fades and i create feedback cycles within my life that DO NOT REQUIRE desperation to be sustained, even though it was desperation that kicked off that very first one.
it is what it is, as i often say, and today i am not desperate but i am thirsty for recovery and becoming more of the person i have always dreamed of being. the irony in that statement, is way back when i had no clue that was what i really wanted and it is amazing that one day at a time that is what i am getting.
my desperation is being replaced by gratitude, and as a result my desire to get more increases daily, gratitude that is, although i know i can also get more desperation if i really want to. i know how to dpo that as well. so early as it is, it is time to hit the streets and get moving into this busy, busy Monday.

∞ DT ∞