Blog entry for:

the obvious suffering of a newcomer, and their overwhelming desire for help. even better is watching them stick around and actually start to get better. it is amazing to see the changes, and if i had my way i would make certain that the all GOT IT, the first time. before i get rolling, i need to acknowledge someone who has done the deed and can celebrate another year clean:

12 years clean
Amazing my friend
Keep coming back Reese.
i NEED you in my recovery

honestly, i did not get to see that addict when he came into the rooms. what i got to see, was someone on the verge of deciding that this recovery gig, was not working for him. by the grace of a HIGHER POWER, he stayed around and decided to try something different and i GOT the gift of being part of that something different. sharing his struggles and turmoils, as well as his accomplishments and triumphs, makes my life richer.
for me, this is what it all about, getting to see the newcomer grow into someone with clean time and find this new way to live. this morning, there is a certain balance in my emotional state that i lacked yesterday. nothing is that much different, in fact my car is in the garage, getting far more work than i wanted. i am on a bus where the driver is far from smooth and the bus is full. all of that aside, inside, i feel good, and most importantly, i feel i am on the correct track today. which, amazingly, i could not have said, back in the day. certainly not in early recovery and in many long streches of my clean time as well, it is good to be awake and present this morning. it is amazing that i can stop and send a text to a friend, congratulating him on another year of one day at a times. you know, if i looked at the life i had today, way back then, i would have run away screaming. i never wanted to live in Longmont and work in Boulder. i never wanted wanted to be a college graduate, have a car i wanted to maintain, own a house or celebrate a day at a time clean. all i wanted was to survive until i could get really high again. all i wanted was enough to not have to feel. all i wanted was the bliss of not caring, and in the end, even that was starting to slip away. so i get it when someone walks nto the rooms, and they have no real desire to get clean, all they want is a way to get out of whatever it is that looks the most threatening, be it chiild services, the justice system, a divorce lawyer or bankruptcy. i get it when they think they GOT IT, and walk away thinking that things are now different. most of all i get it, when they come crawling back, tail between their legs, feeling shamed and less than. i also get it, when they, like me, find out that the problem that drives them to recovery is addiction and not the judge, the social worker, the wife, or the bank. when that realization came upon me, things changed and that was the day i started to be more than just clean, that was the day my actual recovery started. from that day forward, i had a choice i never had before. i GET to choose what my life will look like today: active recovery, active addiction or somewhere in the miserable in between. today i choose more! more serenity, more balance and more self-awareness, and i certainly have the opportunity to get it, more that is.
so as the bus is approaching the station, i need a quick proofread and will wrap it up by saying, i am grateful that the stream od=f newcomers, seems never-ending these days, after all they are my future.

∞ DT ∞