Blog entry for:

i am a prisoner of my own mind and condemned by my guilt. there is a solution and there is HOPE for someone like me. that HOPE, at least for me, ONLY comes through the application of the principles i have been taught in the fellowship i call my home.
it amazes me, and i mean really and truly amazes me, why anyone would desire to cross-fellowship, from a program that treats the whole me, to something that is so narrowly focused that the language needs to be changes, just to make it apply. i was there and it almost killed me, and perhaps that is why i see so many of those who have to go to more than one, fail to ever get it. just to be clear, ALL 12 STEP FELLOWSHIPS ARE NOT THE SAME.
okay, i can see you scratching your head wondering WTF does that have to do, with being trapped in my own mind, by addiction, with a jail built of guilt. that thought is at the end of the road of a long cascade of thoughts that were triggered by the reading this morning. what preceded it, was musings about the lessons of humility that i have received in STEPS SIX and SEVEN. which came from the not so fond remembrances of the pain i find in my moral and daily inventories, that are part of my program of active recovery. taken as a whole, i certainly see the way out of being a prisoner and returning to the only promise that my fellowship has to explicitly offer. i am also okay with that, as that was also part of that cascade of thoughts that invaded my quiet time this morning. i am now starting to get a sense of what this is all about and it is coming down to my unfulfilled commitment to work the steps. yes, i have not only camped on the EIGHTH STEP, i am building quite a nice little home here. i have seen what happens to those who do not move to the end of the process and i do not want that consequence. it is now becoming obvious that the pain of doing is getting less than the pain of standing still…
there is another piece to this puzzle, as i watch a friend struggle with hsi feelings about himself. for me, when i am not living up to the commitments i made as part of my NINTH STEP, i feel more than just a little guilty. that cognitive dissonance creates within me, a greater and greater desire to change how i am feeling, yes when offered the opportunity to run away for an all-nighter in Black Hawk the other evening, i was tempted and it certainly felt like a good solution to the mood i was in. today, 36 hours later, i am grateful that i had enough recovery in me, to not run away from what i am feeling, addressing the guilt head on, and stopping the addict within, from changing my guilt into shame. shame is one of the things that seems to take more addicts out, than anything else, and today, well i would like to say i am going to knuckle down, write out my step, call my sponsor and move on, but i am tired of making statements that i may actually have no intention of fulfilling, as that too, can be used by the addict within to pound myself senseless with remorse.
to close the gap between where is tarted this morning and where i ended up, when i was one of those who believed that i needed more than one program to recover completely, because somehow addiction only dealt with substances, i had gone as far as i could. i see that same pattern in others, and yet the insist on trying to do what they have always done, instead of taking the simple suggestion that i denied, that they choose one path and put all their energy into that path exclusively. it was eleven months once i heard that suggestion, before it sunk in, that maybe i could be freed from active addiction if only i did it in one place, where i already spoke and most importantly felt the language. no THEEs or THOUS for this addict and why spend one hundred words when twenty-six expresses it so much better AND most importantly who needs 12 promises when ONE is not only necessary but also sufficient. after all, sometimes less is without a doubt definitely more. anyhow one of the consequences of that single promise is that i get to go out and earn a living, which is exactly where i am headed right now. it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞