Blog entry for:

today, i will trade in my misery for the benefits of recovery. i could comment on the irony my misery, after all, i am only miserable when i think i am miserable. i could comment on the people i run into, who seem to be miserable all of the time, and how i see them, but that is not what i heard this morning when i sat and listened. of course i could whine about not being able to log into work to see how the little changes i pushed through yesterday came out. all of that and much, much more is where i could go, instead, after running through the list of stuff i choose not to write about, i will do this shout-out:

Tim M,
Congratulations on 11 years clean
Thank you for being part of my recovery
Hope to see you soon!

yes, i understand being miserable, i have seen it in my life as well as in the lives of others, for me, i have discovered that most of my misery comes from the rising tide of my unmet expectations. yes, you read that correctly, when i live in a world of expectations that do not match reality, i get miserable. as my expectations become more and more outrageous, i get more and more miserable. the real trick for me, is to realize that no one, and i mean absolutely no one, ever promised me a life in recovery would be any better than a life in active addiction, or even a life of abstinence. what they did promise me, is that i COULD stop using, lose the desire to use and find a new way of living. when in start going beyond that and expecting more benefits from recovery, i get into trouble. as medical science advances, i have no doubt that they will discover a cure for addiction, at least the physical aspect of it. IF addiction for me, was all about my physical need to use, than i would have been cured a long, long time ago. the major part of addiction for me, is what goes on behind my eyes and between my ears. as much as i try to deny it and rationalize it away, the truth is that addiction colors my thoughts, my feelings, my actions and my reactions. pride, conceit and self-righteousness are part of that and result from a belief system that at its core, states that i am entitled to certain inalienable rights, not the least being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. taking that one step further, i realize that the self-centered nature of the part of me i call addiction, uses the pursuit of happiness part to justify and rationalize all kinds of nonsense and in the end, i end up stewing in misery and wondering how the fVck, i ever got here. when i look back, the road is so clear that i can almost kick myself for not looking at my decisions, yes MY DECISIONS! when i decide, consciously or subconsciously to live in an expectation, i end up seeing my choices start down the funnel back towards active addiction, where every step limits my choices more and more, until i reach the place where i make the terminal decision, because it looks like not only the BEST choice, but also the ONLY choice left to me. I USE!
that needs not be a foregone conclusion, when i choose to accept the many benefits that recovery offers, the first and foremost, is a source of strength beyond my wildest dreams, the infinite power to stay clean that comes from the POWER that fuels my recovery and is given to me through the people who make up my life. through that conduit, all that i need is given to me on a daily basis and is there for me to use, when i choose to see it, and that is of course what this all comes down to, making the choice to stay clean today and accept the help i am given, in order to do so.
simple and yes even easy, when i look at it in that manner. so before i cloud up my thinking by thinking to deeply i think i will say it is a good day to be clean and get off to the work that is on my desk. life is good today and yes i need not be miserable, unless i choose to be.

∞ DT ∞