Blog entry for:

today, i will listen as they share their experience, share mine with them.
today, this is one of the easiest things for me to do, because i will be at my home group and chances are, at this particular meeting, there will be no bumper sticker parrots, no one telling me what “WE” or “YOU” should do or cross-fellowsippers. today, there will only be men there, who want to recover and who share about what it is and what it is not, right here and right now.
the crux of the problem comes down to, whether or not, i will be able to suspend judgement, when those others share and identify with them on the level of one addict helping another? the worst part of that statement, at least for me, is why should i suspend what i know to be valid judgements, just in case they really have something to offer? which takes me way back to the start of this journey and my life in early recovery. part of the problem then, and it creeps in from time to time now, is that i did not believe i was an addict, an alcoholic or any sort of “-oholic.” i was not ever going to be one, and everything that was being said, made absolutely no sense to me, as it was based on a very flawed premise, namely that if one wanted to stay clean, one had to seek the power to stay clean from outside of oneself. i was self-sufficient and it was just a matter of relearning the habits i had acquired over the years. so when other members shared, i already could discount all that said as being worthless to me.
although i am now one of those people, an addict, who stays clean only through the intervention of a POWER that fuels my recovery, the echoes of those dark days still persist and color what i hear in the rooms today. it is readings, like this one, that reminds me that i am just a garden variety addict and there certainly is nothing demeaning, derogatory to condescending about that. i need not allow the fact that i am an addict, make me feel any more than or less than anyone else, and i can and will hold my self in high regard, because of that fact, not despite it. today i can be a part of life, and yes the fellowship and allow myself the freedom to question, discern and yes even dismiss, but i have to follow a process, that starts with actually listening to what is being shared BEFORE i start to dissect it for what i need to hear. in that vein, i think i will get rolling on out for what i need to get done today and remember that i DO recover, if I allow myself to hear what i am being told.

∞ DT ∞