Blog entry for:

i MUST look at who i have been and who i want to be.
who i have been and who i want to be? man that is a tough bit ow knowledge to swallow. is this not a day at a time program, and is it not said that focusing on anything but the here and now is a destructive and dangerous manner in which to live? or at least that is how i try and dodge this bullet, using the language of recovery to keep me from the action of recovery. this is part of a set of behaviors that i am quite familiar with, these days, as they have been in practice since the day i first walked in that treatment program 15 years ago. part of what i learned early on, is that the way language is used in recovery programs and related industries, can seem like a mass of confusing contradictions and irrelevancies. what it actually is, especially on the path of recovery that has chosen me, is the best description of a process that is truly beyond explanation, fighting a malady that defies categorization.
all that being said, so what is it here and now, past and future? the answer is sometimes both. how can i ever HOPE to get any better, if i cannot see who i might become, and who i was and what i did. the continuum that is my life, sometimes needs to be sliced and diced under the microscope of a thorough and fearless inventory. sometimes, i have to set goals, state my dreams and allow myself to glimpse at what the man the POWER that fuels my recovery, has designed me to be. sometimes i GET to see the wonder of who i am through the lens of how i was and gasp in awe at who i am becoming, and yet through all of that i NEED to live in the moment and allow myself to be present for what is going on in my life. GREAT WORK, WHEN I CAN DO IT!
yes 15 years ago i was in jail, 14 years ago i had just ended yet another consequence of active addiction, 13 years ago i had started to creep towards the program that has given me a way of living through the smoke of self-sponsorship. i could continue that litany of progress up until the here and now, but it really is futile. having worked FOURTH STEPS and moving forward with my current FOURTH STEP, all of that knowledge about who i was and what i did, gets put into perspective and integrated into becoming the man i will be tomorrow. knowing where i sit on the path of my life is not a bad thing, in fact knowledge may not be wisdom, but it certainly can lead to a better understanding of how i tick and yes even a moment or two of sanity and wisdom. ignoring where i have been and where i may be going, serves no purpose except to take me down into active addiction and that is not a journey i wish to commence today. with that said, it is time to hit the showers and get rolling down to work, i can be grateful, that today, i have the means and the desire to make myself useful and get some cents as a result. it is a good day for me to just be present with where i am, by knowing where i have been and dreaming about where i may be going, after all, i am clean today, so there is always hope.

∞ DT ∞