โ my remorse can be intensified by thinking that i cannot โ
Posted: Sun, Feb 26, 2012 06:07:44 AM
do anything about the damage i cause -- because there is no way to make it right.
yes it is way early on a Sunday morning, but i am up for a good cause this morning, part of my effort to pay back the fellowship that has given me the ability to even consider a topic such a using remorse as a tool of my recovery, rather than my addiction. a recurring theme over the past few weeks, is that not only am i powerless over my addiction, i am powerless over the addiction others as well. no matter how sad i feel, no matter how much i beat myself up for not giving them what they need, no matter how remorseful i feel, that powerlessness remains a fact of life that i need to accept. even with an intellectual understanding and an acceptance at a conscious level, i still feel remorseful, thinking that i had not given them enough. what remorse does for me in this instance, is disguise the fact that the real harm was not in giving them enough, the REAL harm, at least in this instance was using my authority position to retaliate for my hurt feelings. by retaliate, i mean i reverted to a behavior, that i am quite familiar with, not only evening the score, tit-for-tat, but making sure i inflicted more pain than i received, getting even PLUS. my escalated response, reminds me of my reality: I AM BY NO MEANS CURED! it is a good thing, that i am working a program, because here is where remorse could kick my butt! by allowing it to simmer within and fester into something nasty, i can BECOME ready to make amends and make them, without waiting for a formal 8TH and 9TH step process. it is true i will NEED to revisit this, when that time comes, but STEP 10 allows me the freedom to clean up my messes as they happen, much closer to real-time. here my remorse is used to clean-up my pile of sh!t, before it gets a chance to turn into a reason for me to decide to use.
so anyhow, the time to hit the road and journey down south is upon me. it is a good day to be clean and following my theme of a sponsee a day, since last tuesday, juts one more day in that chain as well. it is after all a great day to give away what was given to me, and expect nothing in return, nice work when you can find it.
yes it is way early on a Sunday morning, but i am up for a good cause this morning, part of my effort to pay back the fellowship that has given me the ability to even consider a topic such a using remorse as a tool of my recovery, rather than my addiction. a recurring theme over the past few weeks, is that not only am i powerless over my addiction, i am powerless over the addiction others as well. no matter how sad i feel, no matter how much i beat myself up for not giving them what they need, no matter how remorseful i feel, that powerlessness remains a fact of life that i need to accept. even with an intellectual understanding and an acceptance at a conscious level, i still feel remorseful, thinking that i had not given them enough. what remorse does for me in this instance, is disguise the fact that the real harm was not in giving them enough, the REAL harm, at least in this instance was using my authority position to retaliate for my hurt feelings. by retaliate, i mean i reverted to a behavior, that i am quite familiar with, not only evening the score, tit-for-tat, but making sure i inflicted more pain than i received, getting even PLUS. my escalated response, reminds me of my reality: I AM BY NO MEANS CURED! it is a good thing, that i am working a program, because here is where remorse could kick my butt! by allowing it to simmer within and fester into something nasty, i can BECOME ready to make amends and make them, without waiting for a formal 8TH and 9TH step process. it is true i will NEED to revisit this, when that time comes, but STEP 10 allows me the freedom to clean up my messes as they happen, much closer to real-time. here my remorse is used to clean-up my pile of sh!t, before it gets a chance to turn into a reason for me to decide to use.
so anyhow, the time to hit the road and journey down south is upon me. it is a good day to be clean and following my theme of a sponsee a day, since last tuesday, juts one more day in that chain as well. it is after all a great day to give away what was given to me, and expect nothing in return, nice work when you can find it.
∞ DT ∞