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second time may be the charm here. there was something weird going on with my browser, so the choice to start again was mine, yes i am a volunteer here and far from being a victim. anyhow, it is very late to be writing this and of course, what i may have written this morning, is probably not that close to what i am writing now, but it is as it is.
the notion of balance seems to try and separate out recovery from the rest of my life. in fact, the reading seems to say that explicitly using service and recovery related activities as different from my job, my family and my leisure activities. this may be well and good for someone else, but for me, the only way i find balance is to look at the entire package, instead of the component parts. i took it to heart, what feels like a million days ago, that recovery was part of my life and must be treated as such. the rest of my activities need to be put in the recovery framework, instead of cramming recovery into my life. subtle and possibly just semantics, however for me, language is as important as anything else when i look at my life. getting clean was nearly impossible for me, staying clean becomes easier all the time, and as a result i have a semblance of balance in my life. i know who and what i am, a human that is also an addict. living in that fact, keeps me on the straight and narrow as it were, and when my sponsee said to me the other day, he did not get, why i stayed clean, i was hard put for a good answer to him. what i did say, after a very pregnant pause, was that i have come to love the life i have been given and more than likely this life could only be achieved through a program of recovery. oh i could run the what-if tape, and maybe i co0uld have achieved what i have, by limiting my use, but the more i think about it, the more doubtful it looks. i was on a path similar to him, and when i decided that i would stay clean to avoid becoming a ward of the state of colorado department of corrections, the world changed for me. that decision, the first good one i had made in many years, lead to the life i am living today and although at the time i was angry and resentful over having to comply with the wishes of the justice system, i got the mercy, the grace and the opportunity to become much more than i ever was. i learned that if i want respect i have to be respectful. if i want others to freely give to me, i have to be willing to give freely of myself. i was over 40 years old, and clueless about life, very little in the way of job skills, not the technical part of any of the jobs i did, the social part and meeting certain expectations, like showing up ready to work on a consistent manner. i was devoid of concern for my fellow humans, and was so selfish and self-centered that nearly everyone who i hung with, found it far beyond the cost they were willing to pay. so my first task was learning how to put my life into the framework of recovery and build from there. i may not have done it perfectly and i may never get it down to an art-form, but i am willing to keep on doing my best. that best today, includes taking responsibility for my recovery and taking care of myself. which means the next activity for me today, will be a power nap on the couch. i am grateful today, that even when the balance leaves my world, i have the ability to find it once again, and that is a result of listening to the three disturbing realizations and understanding what my job is today, living a program of active recovery.

∞ DT ∞