Blog entry for:

the people i share my life with are sure to notice the change and be grateful that i have come to recovery. i heard a couple of different ideas as i sat an listened this morning, the first being balance in recovery.
i know that working and living a program are two different things sort of like ice cream and frozen yogurt. both of them are delicious and difficult to tell the difference in a blind taste test, but frozen yogurt, no matter how many calories it has, lacks what makes ice cream so delicious, namely all the milk fat. working a program, makes my life look better. i behave better and i am become reliable and responsible, which are certainly good things, in and of themselves, especially when i look to how i was when i walked into the rooms.
well after a brief hiatus to go and take care of some responsibilities, i am back.
so the ice cream, frozen yogurt analogy i was building. working a program and living a program require a lot of the same prerequisites, namely that i am clean, going to meetings and working steps. HOWEVER, working the steps and living the steps are two different activities. i can answer the questions and do the assignments that my sponsor gives, technically correct and with all the right words, but if i do not apply what i feel, as i go through the process, i am only a step technician. i can say that i am an addict, but unless i truly believe it, why would i surrender my will and my life into the care of anything or anyone else but me. i can go on long spiritual retreats seeking the answers, when life gets too much to handle, but a few minutes on a daily basis, everyday, does more for keeping me sane and in touch with the spiritual side of the program. i can fart daisies and sh!t rainbows, when i share, but unless i actually let others know what it is i am feeling, even when it is not pretty, what am i wasting the breath to be nothing more than a bag of hot air.
when i am living a program, i apply the spiritual principles in my life and i just do the next right thing, because i KNOW it is the next right thing. some of the time, the next right thing, just happens to be, paying attention to the needs AND WANTS OF THOSE WHO LOVE ME, AND NOT NECESSARILY RUNNING OFF TO A MEETING OR A SERVICE COMMITMENT. the balance i try and achieve in my life, is hard-won, and without a doubt one of the most difficult tasks i face in living a program, just for today. living a program allows me to have the balance between recovery and home life and <GASP> actually carry the principles of this program into my home life, my professional life and my personal, outside the rooms life, so my affect on the world, for better or worse, is reduced to that of the rest of humanity, at least in my own mind. which is of course, what this is all about.
i did have a second track, relationships with my family, however, i think i have already said it all. do i want frozen yogurt, yummy, sweet, but really a cheat, or do i want ice cream? today, i desire to live a program and not just mouth the words and go through the motions, so i will sign-off by saying, it is a great day to live a program of recovery.

∞ DT ∞