Blog entry for:

to the experience of addicts who have found a way to stay clean and live clean. i would love to say, that i accepted all that i had to do, to stay clean and find a new way of life, way back when. the sad truth was that i was, to put it mildly, more than slightly resistant to what i had to do. back in those days, i had yet to come to accept that i was a plain, garden variety addict, who needed any sort of help, or even had the desire not to use drugs. i was on the margins and “I KNOW” and “WHY,” seemed to be my two favorite expressions. i did and could not see how owning the fact that i was powerless over addiction, was at the core of my problem, after all, i stopped using lots of times, in the many years i was in active addiction, well almost stopped, there was always something on the side, most often a legal and socially acceptable substance, that carried me over, while i fooled myself. yes i was certainly in denial, and that i was powerless, was the last thing i was ever going to admit, why the fVck, did i have to be powerless, in order to get this gig? ironically, i sound like my parents when those on the margins and newcomers ask me the same question and i reply, “because that is just how it works.”
yes, asking why i have to be powerless, why i have to surrender, why i have to come to believe and on and on, does nothing to advance my state of recovery. i have finally come to see, that those things just are. they are necessary for me to continue to live this program and receive the benefits of being in recovery. it really is that simple, and take it from someone, who tried to half-ass my way through the steps. yes that kept me clean for thirteen months in the wrong fellowship, but it did not give me anything more than a desire to do something different and landed me where i truly belonged in the first place. no amount of fellowship hopping, drug replacement therapy, or acting out, can give me what i have today. i have certainty in my life, if i do what i have been taught to do, by those who walked this path before me, i will get another day clean and quite possibly a life worth living. it certainly is a blessing, not to be committing a felony on a daily basis, no matter how one slices it.. i do however, need to start my journey across the frozen tundra to work, so i will leave with this thought, perhaps not knowing is better than certainty, but in certainty, i find comfort. so the longer io stay clean, the more i DO have to learn.

∞ DT ∞