Blog entry for:

that my lost dreams can still come true. more than a little ironic, looking at my lost dreams, or better put the dreams i gave away to my active addiction. once again, using a sponsee as a model and the seed for my musings here, all he wants to do is spend a birthday, not locked up in county jail or prison. quite a simple dream, but for him, it is one that he may actually achieve, next year. it is like he forgets where active addiction takes him, all the time and once again gives his very simple and doable dream away for the immediate gratification of not having to feel.
i get that, as that is how i lived my life, not caring whether or not i could have a long-lasting romantic relationship or any friends. not caring if i would ever be anything more than a leech on my family business. not caring if i would ever own a house, a car or a college degree. in fact, as time went on, and the possibility began to fade that i would ever have any of that, i just gave up and surrendered to the fact that getting high was what i liked and what i would do the rest of my life. scraping by was not that bad, as long as i had my survival substance.
no i did not “lose” anything, contrary to popular recovery culture, i GAVE it all away, one bit at a time. with each compromise i made to my active addiction, i became that much more shallow, withdrawn and isolated in a fantasy world where everything bad would just go away if i waited it out. in the end, my dreams were not the only thing i gave away, i gave away my identity, my values and most importantly who i was at my very core.
it is not like one day i woke up and BOOM all of that came back, in early recovery, my only dream was to learn how to use, without it affecting my freedom and bringing me back under the thumb of the justice system, sort of like my sponsee. as i stayed clean and decided that being miserable was not good enough, i actually did a bit of the work that was suggested, stayed clean, and waited for the “miracle” that everyone was talking about to happen. after all the cliché says “do not leave five minutes before the miracle happens.”
i will tell you now, that little bromide created such a resentment in me, that i actually HAD to work some steps to figure out what the fVck they were talking about. i know for a lot of my peers in recovery, those trite little bon mots are what keeps them clean from day to day. for me, however, they were never enough, i needed results, tangible and concrete, not just some platitudes about this and that. i got exactly that: RESULTS! those results were not the product of wishing nor were they the product of going to lots of meetings, they were the product of me, knuckling down and doing the work. that work is ongoing, as there is no destination that i will ever arrive at, so i might as well focus on the journey to nowhere. well not really nowhere, more like becoming the man and person i always wanted to be, in fact the man i dreamt of being way back before i ever picked up for the very first time. that is the dream i am living now, and unless something severe happens inside my head, that is the dream i will live today, becoming more.
anyhow, the hour grows late and i want to get some yard work done before it gets too hot. i will end on this note. if an addict who used for a quarter of a century can have the life i have today, there is no reason anyone else cannot follow the path that was laid before me all those days ago. i no longer need SETTLE for anything as i did when i was using, the good dope is there for me to sample and use, and it is called living a full and productive life as a member of society and not just getting by, anymore. TTFN!

∞ DT ∞