Blog entry for:

of the lives of those around me, experiencing empathy for the first time.
although that may sound a bit extreme, it is nevertheless true. i had no clue wast empathy was all about in the end days of active addiction. in fact i confused sympathy and pity, for empathy. i was certain that i was doing the right stuff and feeling what i was supposed to feel. if not, well there was always a dip into sumthin', sumthin' to fix that.
it was not like all of a sudden when i stopped using, i started to feel empathy, that was a long way off. no what i felt in those early days was anger and disgust for those i saw in the room. oh yeah and a shoulder to cry on, when my grandmother dies when i was 2 months clean. oh yeah, and an ear to chew on, when i whined about the unfairness of the legal consequence of my last use. honestly, not much of anything had changes, i was miserable, angry and still looked to others to fulfill what i could not for myself. my borrowed concept of a HIGHER POWER, was not all that powerful, in fact, now that i think about it, It felt more like the Great and Powerful Oz, lots of smoke and fire, but just a weak and feeble person, that manipulated everyone into fighting Its battles for It. all show and quite a bit of sham. i ran with that as well. i thought even if i could not believe, or could not feel, i might as well pretend that i could and i was encouraged to do so, by those who were in the rooms of that wrong fellowship, when i got clean. or at least that is what i thought they were encouraging me to do!
after 13 months of faking it, but staying clean, the change finally started to manifest within me. it would be another 6 months or so, before i scared myself sh!tless enough, through self-sponsorship, before i would actually reveal what a fraud i was to myself and take on a sponsor from the fellowship that has become my home, but most of you have heard that tale of woe, previously.
when i finally arrived in recovery, 20 months clean or so, it was amazing to see that i had developed all sorts of feelings that i should not name, much less begin to understand. one of those was empathy. for the first time in my adult life, i actually cared about how my actions affected another and i could feel what they were feeling, when i saw that confused look of pain on their faces, after i said or did something. i later learned that as well as growing a conscience, i had also grown all sorts of new capabilities, or better put excavated from my soul the feelings that were buried after years of runnin' and gunnin'. i get it today, that my actions have affects on others, and although i am not responsible for their feelings, i am more than responsible for my behavior. i feel their pain and i strive to become a better person because of it. so when my sponsee ends up wherever he ends up as a result of him doing or no doing what he ought to, i will not have to smugly say “i told you so, ” as he will already know that and i will his pain as he once again grapples with the consequences of where his active addiction takes him. anyhow it is getting really, really late this morning, so i will say that i am grateful that today not only do i know the difference between pity, sympathy and empathy, i can feel them all!

∞ DT ∞