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in and of itself, however, knowledge never helped me stay clean for any length of time.
for some reason, this is a theme that has been popping up in my head a whole lot lately. i see all around me the effects of how thinking i KNOW about recovery and how to stay clean, works for other addicts, and for the most part, the consequences of such knowledge are not ones that i find acceptable today. i may have been around the rooms for sixteen years but i have only fifteen years and some months clean, and even less of that in actual active recovery. the SINGLE piece of knowledge that helps me to stay clean, is knowing what i am, AN ADDICT.
yes there are times, when maybe for one hour or so a day, i want a vacation from being an addict. recovery is a full-time job, and being able to quote chapter and verse, while certainly a nice skill to have, will NOT keep this addict clean. in fact, when i start to pull passages out of context, i can find contradictory passages, that support any sort of argument i may wish to advance, and the newer members coming into the rooms fresh from treatment, give me even more ammunition form their well-meaning but clueless professionals. terms such as slipping and lapsing, while protective of my fragile ego, certainly have no place in my vocabulary. IF I USE, I LOSE PERIOD! sugar coating it and telling myself it is alright and i have not lost anything but my clean-time, are traps for me, as the next turn of the card is after all i am only an addict, and addicts use.
ironically, when i was talking to another addict yesterday i said i ask “HOW” instead of “why” these days when my sponsor gives me an assignment and they replied that something had certainly been removed from me. interestingly enough, i can agree with that this morning. what it is that has been lifted, i still am not certain. i still have a healthy dose of cynicism, and i certainly have a burning social issue, that i am trying to sort out before posting about it, so what it is that makes me question everything when it comes to my recovery and what to do next, is something i DO NOT know, nor is it worth chasing down, at least today. what i want these days is not knowledge, i have plenty of that, it is the wisdom to apply what i have learned in my every day life. ion order for me to apply this program and the spiritual principles in my life, i have to find the practical means to put theorems and hypotheses into action. to test them, as it were, and see if they hold up to the crucible of life on life's terms. one that has stood the acid test, is that if i stay clean today, no matter what, the obsession to use, does not exist within me. one may argue, cause and effect here, is it because i stay clean that i do not have the obsession to use, or is it because i do not have the obsession to use, i can stay clean. if this was describing a closed system, that sort of argument may actually be enlightening, as it is, this is not a closed system, there are all sorts of external inputs that interact within my life, in seemingly random ways, with hard to detect patterns. it therefore is up to me, to do what i can, to keep this system in balance -- which means IF i do not use, i will not have the obsession to use. when i have begun to sell myself on the notion, that because i do not have the obsession, maybe i am not an addict after all, knowledge will not save my dangling a$$. for that i NEED an external influence to add something to the equation. that influence is the POWER that fuels my recovery and that POWER is expressed through the human beings that are part of my life.. it really boils down to that in the long run.
what i do know today, is that it is time to get in the shower and head out to the plains, to see a friend who cannot come to see me. after that? well some work, some football, an injection of recovery energy into my system by going to a meeting and whatever else happens to come down the pike as i live another day in active recovery. this addict has the ability to stay clean today, because i ask for it and accept it into my life, why do i do so? because the alternative is not one i choose to visit today. more importantly HOW do i do so, one day at a time.

∞ DT ∞