Blog entry for:

while i cannot forget the past, i do not have to live in it.
so this morning i slept in, and did my normal Sunday stuff, and now i feel like i am way behind where i want to be. i NEED to accomplish all kinds of tasks today, and if i take a minute and look at where i am, i can see, that although it feels like i am way behind, in reality i am pretty much where i need to be, literally and figuratively.
for me, the past is often the club i use, to pound myself senseless, with regret and remorse, over what really is spilled milk or water over the dam, to mix in a few clichés.
i should have… i could have… if only…
those are the warning signs, that i am about to dive into that pool of self-abuse and regret. the truth is, and it is a very big chunk to swallow, i am where i am today, BECAUSE of all that stuff in my past. seeing my past as the building blocks of this new way of life, takes most of the sting out of it,m and yes diminishes the effectiveness of my self abuse. so much so, that it really does not do, what i think i want it to do. as a result. i see the events that have created this person, in a whole different light and the addict within, takes that in a new direction: hmmm, that means i should have been a whole lot worse, as if i was destined to be on this path anyhow, i could have done a whole lot more, and that would have made my life in recovery, that much richer. a nice twist, when i consider it! i just am so amazed how cunning and subtle the part of me i call addiction can be from time to time. the foil? well for one, destiny and pre-destiny are not part of my belief system. they were not back then, and they certainly are not now. besides, even if that was the case, there is absolutely no guarantees, that i would have made it out of active addiction alive, if i had taken the rest of my impulses to the extremes that this line of thinking suggests.
so as i start to lose focus, i can see, that yes i am a product of my past. yes, i need not live in that past any longer, i have the STEPS to put it into perspective and give me the gift of my experience as just that a gift that i created as part of living a lie. i can also give that gift away, one day at a time because i have also been given this day as a recovering addict as well.
time to move forward into this date and take care of what needs to be done. it is after all, a great day to use the gift of my past to become a better me.

∞ DT ∞