Blog entry for:

with little more than a chip on my shoulder, and an enormous amount of rage at having to be there at all. 5377 days after my last use, i still keep coming back and even now, sometimes, i feel that chip and the rage. no i did not want to be an addict when i grew up. i was not sick and tired of being sick and tired, and the drugs still did their magic, albeit, not nearly as well as they once did, but they still worked. no had it not been for a misadventure with the 20th judicial district, i have no idea where i would have been today. if one needs to find miracles in recovery, the fact that i am still here is certainly one for the books. i am, as the cliché a bottom-line sort of guy. IF this was not working for me, i would have gone back to using, a long time ago, and yet once again, i am still here. i have lost the desire to use, i have direction in my life and i have the ability to dream and strive to make those dreams reality, today. none of that was reality when i walked into the rooms and went to my first meeting. none of that was possible as i continued to use and went to meetings. and none of that was true on that fateful day, when i was betrayed by my body to my probation officer and was given my final chance to get clean.
the reading this morning, brought those days back to the forefront of my mind. 15 years ago, i was starting the last month of my work release sentence, i had figured out how to use as often as possible without getting caught and had the therapists and the people in the rooms pretty much snowed under the pile of bullsh!t i was dishing out on a daily basis. i was pretty smug and figured i had this whole justice system gig down pat and would be able to skate through to the end, using just enough keep sane and not having to worry about much of anything. well that is not what happened and there finally came a time, when i had to take staying clean, seriously. so my mind had finally started to crack open and could see that recovery, might just be an option that i would desire to choose. it was another 13 months before my heart arrived and i finally entered recovery, but it is a great thing that here in the fellowship clean time counts from the day we first stop using. today i have no problem with the program, or as i fondly refer to it, as that freak show! i am among good company and even though it was never anything i wanted, i am grateful i was forced to stay, until my thick skull, could absorb a little bit of what was being offered and actually start to do the work that i needed to do, to live a program of active recovery, it was still almost another six months before that miracle happened, but it did happen and i do not regret any of that today.
yes, i kept coming back, and because i did, i am deeply entrenched in a program of recovery today, and quite grateful as well.so i have to make my lunch and head on down to Denver, to earn my daily bread, as it were, for that gift the desire to be self-supporting, is something i am deeply grateful for today. i have the means to sup-port myself and when i do, i realize that it is a privilege that comes from recovery and not a burden that is imposed upon me. i am after all, not entitled to anything more than the chance to stay clean today and from that chance flows all the other gifts that are my life today.

∞ DT ∞