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thankfully, my sponsors have never asked me to stop thinking for myself. i made the strangest discovery last night. someone i generally respect and thought had some wisdom along with a very significant amount of clean time, shared some truly, in my opinion, idiotic views, the last few times i have heard them share.
what i heard in those shares was a twisting of what the conventional wisdom, the party line, as it were, into something it does not seem to be, and than railing against it.
growing up does NOT equal not enjoying life.
romantic relations ARE discouraged for the first year of recovery NOT ALL relationships.
what brought me to this point this morning, is that my relationship with my very first sponsor, was very important to me, and that man, put me on the road to recovery, via a short detour through another 12 STEP fellowship. my current sponsor, has opened my eyes to the possibilities of a life where addiction is not THE driving force of my life. the man in between? well he gave me a solid grounding in the principles of recovery, that serve m,e to this day. he was the first person in the program, who taught me to be more than a bumper sticker and slogan junkie. he taught me to think for myself, to critically assess the program being offered to me, and to listen to what others share, for the piece of the puzzle i need to survive today.
a quick confession, i was at the meeting last night BECAUSE it was Wednesday and not because any one addict happened to have a clean date anniversary. i really do hate being lumped into to a collective “you” or “we”. i was going to go into a tirade about using social media for this or that, and decided that discretion is the better part of valor.
the men who have sponsored me over the course of my recovery, actually encouraged me to think for myself, even that very first one, although i could not hear that message at the time. slogans and party line shares are fine, for others. for me, well i am certainly more than like, something i paste onto the back of my car. the party line, keeps me clean, and i abide by it 100%. there really is no “my program,” there is only THE program and honestly when i hear those on the margins sharing about taking what works and leaving the rest behind, i get the impression that they are talking about the program and not the opinions of the addicts who choose to share. that is the safety in a bumper sticker share, one can never be wrong, as most of those slogans are in the literature.
i do not practice these principles and do my best top live them, to be one of the sheeple. i certainly may be one of the great unwashed masses, that are the strength of the fellowship where i get my recovery, but i certainly can and do think for myself. i do not stay clean to please anyone else, and although the program i practice is personal and has evolved over the years, it is still THE program and not some hybrid of pop-psychology, new age wisdom and self-help gurus, tacked onto the parts of the program i personally find distasteful. i have the men who have sponsored me to thank for becoming the man i am today and i can only hope that instill a similar feeling in the men who choose to allow me to sponsor them. BTW, please pay attention to the very gender specific language i used, i also ascribe to the suggestion that i share the same gender with my sponsor and the recovering addicts i sponsor, and it really has nothing at all to do with sex. it is all about gender and i have found that i am incapable of understanding the opposite gender and that they certainly look at the world in a totally different way than men do. there is no way a woman can guide me on the path to becoming the man i always wanted to be, hence my sponsors have always been men, and will always be men, as only they have the insight into what it takes to reach that goal.
enough of the soap box this morning, i do have to get ready to head on over to work. yes, showing up for a paycheck is part of growing up, but working is not necessarily an evil i have to tolerate, i can and do contribute to my employers bottom line and i can be part of a team and have some fun as well.

∞ DT ∞