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can i find relief from those things that cause me shame. although i looked at my writing from a year ago, i did not read it and have no idea, what i wrote about way back then, i can tell you the thing that was causing me shame, was my inability to earn a living and the fact that i did not know how i was going to pay the September mortgage payment. worse in my twisted mind, was how was i going to tell the woman i loved, that i was broke and incapable of keeping up my half of our partnership. talk about shame and doing whatever i could to save face!
so after working full-time for nearly a year, i find myself in a similar situation, no longer having a steady income, but having enough savings tucked away to carry me over and enough work to keep me rolling, in a albeit, more frugal lifestyle, but hardly in the desperate straits of 12 months ago.
i am also on the other side of a FIFTH STEP, where i divulged a family secret to my sponsor, and he helped me see that it was not my shame and guilt i was carrying for all these years. my anger had been used by the part of me i call addiction as a tool against me. my misguided desire to keep the family secret, locked safely in the vault, became the key to that shame and kept me from letting go of the anger within, that was always simmering and ready to boil over at the drop of a hat. that event, the explosion of anger, was something i mistook for passion. when i got angry, and most of the time it was appropriate, my reaction to that feeling was so far out of proportion, that when i look back at it, it frightens me today. what would this had been like if i had not been doing my best to work a program of recovery?
the questions and the recriminations could go on and on. i want to get an early start on my paid tasks for today, so i believe i will wrap it up there with an affirmation that shame and the secrets that cause me shame ARE deadly, and i am grateful i have a sponsor and closed-mouth friends with whom i can share to release that fatal shame.

∞ DT ∞