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i can take advantage of the experience of others.  the real question for me this morning, is am i really humble enough to believe that i can learn anything from anyone in recovery? after all, the truth is, everything i needed to know about getting and staying clean, i heard in those first ninety meetings way back when. based on that fact of life in recovery, what else is there really to learn. the same stuff that got me clean and kept me clean through those awful days of early recovery still workks today: meetings, asking a POWER greater than myself for the ability to stay clean, reading the available literature, having and using a sponsor and step work. true, i am not as diligent in doing any of those as i once was, but i am still clean and have piled a bunch of days in a row up, so what else is there to learn?
that is always the question! i could go on and on, about how the newcomers dragging their beaten a$$es into the meeting, teach me what the horror of active addiction is like today, and that would be true. i DO need to be reminded of my fate, should i choose to return to the so-called high life. the frequent relapser teaches me what trying to pile up a few days is really like today. although both of those groups are insructive to someone like me with a bit of time, neither is suffcient to make me think they can teach me soemthing new. i already know and am certain that for me, using will suck and that i may never get the grace, desire or desperation to ever crawl back to the rooms, should i choose to use. even with a minimum of humility there is not a lot to see there, so move along.
that does however, leave a whole class of recovering addicts, with varying amounts of clean time, doing this gig, one day at a time. here is the infinite pool of knowledge and experience of staying clean, just for today, NO MATTER WHAT!
yes it hard for me, to let go and actually listen, as the internal critic prattles on and on about this and that, minmizing and discounting all that may be trying to say. it is true, that there may not be any gems of wisdom for me to garner from the newest of the new, especially when they decide that this is group therapy. when i go there, i MISS the opportunity to hear something that just may save my life today. yesh i know old school party line, the next line i drop will proabably be something about being grateful for being given the chance to hear them share and signing off with an affirmation about changing my attitude to the best of my ability. well not yet, there still seems to be something more than the party line, rattling around my cranium.
itis not necessarily the newest of the new, nor the oldest of the dinosaurs that give the information i need, most it is my peers, the ones that have been doing it day after day, who tell me what i need to hear. they have learned how to integrate their lives into recovery, and are still coming back. they are the ones that keep coming back clean and provide the HOPE that i can too. they may never say anything profound or deep, but that is true for all of us. to turn a phrase one man's fluff, is another man's wisdom. they do not speak of how much power they have, nor how proud they are about their number of days, they talk about living a life full of minor and petty frustrations, without resorting to using. they speak of combatting ennui and surviving a life of serenity and spiritual principles. they speak of dealing with the full range of human emotiona and yes even the major events that are part of life in the real world. that is where the wisdom i NEED to remain in active recovery will come from and that is the well from which i NEED to draw my sustenance. with taht in mind, i feel like maybe, just maybe i can remain teachable, today. it si after all about how i can alter my life to fit my recovery program and not vice versa.

∞ DT ∞