« my best thinking, it is often said, »
Posted: Mon, May 5, 2014 07:44:25 AM
got me into the rooms of this fellowship, or did it? it was not my best thinking, that led to the chain of events that finally landed my ass into the seat i still occupy today. actually it was some of my worst, had i just shut-up, kept quiet, ex someone out of my life, and laid low, well chances are good, i would not be where i am today. even though i took a seat in the wrong fellowship, way back when, i am grateful for the path that has led me to where i am today. any lengths, today, means something totally different than it did yesterday.
it is weird to hear what i write here, come back to be shared at a meeting later in the day. not that i am some sort of fountain of original thought and everything i type out here, has never been spoken before, but nevertheless, it is weird to hear it spoken out loud, at a meeting i am attending. i could rail ion about all sorts of nonsense, i could moan about my ideas being stolen and passed off by someone else, or i could just move saying, yes it is weird and i felt more than a bit put out by it. the truth is, my opinion of what i write here is much higher than what i probably needs to be. even here, i “borrow” ideas form other addicts, the literature and various sources, and try to pass it off as original thought, when in reality all it is, is a mash-up of my experience, strength and hope. weird or not. that was yesterday. today, i am doing a mash-up of “any lengths.”
when i got clean and was still a card-carrying member of another fellowship, i often heard it said, by my predecessors that to them any lengths meant blind adherence to whatever they were told to do by their sponsor and members they respected. including, but not limited to, a controlled drinking experiment. while that is so wrong and ignorant on so many levels, both the blind adherence and going out to test myself by controlled using, that was the nature of the fellowship i believed was my only hope. so i went along for the ride, by suspending my critical thinking and diving headfirst into a world fraught with superstition and hero worship. when i was rudely awakened at thirteen months clean, by a notion i had been hearing for nearly twenty months, it was as if, for the first time, i started to have some hope that there was life for me, beyond simple abstinence. the catch was, that now i had to transition from a world where i was discouraged from thinking for myself, to one where critical thinking was not only desired but nearly required. i had to become self-supporting in my program, instead of letting others digest it for me. nay lengths, at this point in my recovery journey, meant looking at what was and what was not working in my recovery program and ask for suggestions on how to pitch what was not working and adopt replacements for that detritus.
it took a bout of self-sponsorship, so grossly obvious self-will and more than a few days of active insanity to reach that point, and only through the grace of the POWER that fuels my recovery and FEAR of the consequences, did i make it to where i am today. maybe that is why, i find myself so upset at the clich' buckets, because they remind me of me, when i was a sheeple, and feeling like i am returning to the sheeple mode, once again. the gift i have been given, is the ability and the encouragement to think for myself. any lengths means that i listen to what is being said, i consider the source and i try it out, if i find the source to be credible. of course that is the rub, judging whether or not the source is credible, who knows the next right thing, may come out of one of those clich' buckets, i can so easily dismiss.
all in all, for me, today, any lengths means, do whatever it takes to stay clean today. that is not all that hard nor is it all that heinous, it has become, nearly as easy as breathing, because i have done it repeatedly for long enough, that i am habituated to the basics. so right now, time shower off, scrape the whiskers from my face and head on over to Boulder for another day of doing what i like to do, seeing how far i can push myself into new ideas and ways of doing stuff.
it is weird to hear what i write here, come back to be shared at a meeting later in the day. not that i am some sort of fountain of original thought and everything i type out here, has never been spoken before, but nevertheless, it is weird to hear it spoken out loud, at a meeting i am attending. i could rail ion about all sorts of nonsense, i could moan about my ideas being stolen and passed off by someone else, or i could just move saying, yes it is weird and i felt more than a bit put out by it. the truth is, my opinion of what i write here is much higher than what i probably needs to be. even here, i “borrow” ideas form other addicts, the literature and various sources, and try to pass it off as original thought, when in reality all it is, is a mash-up of my experience, strength and hope. weird or not. that was yesterday. today, i am doing a mash-up of “any lengths.”
when i got clean and was still a card-carrying member of another fellowship, i often heard it said, by my predecessors that to them any lengths meant blind adherence to whatever they were told to do by their sponsor and members they respected. including, but not limited to, a controlled drinking experiment. while that is so wrong and ignorant on so many levels, both the blind adherence and going out to test myself by controlled using, that was the nature of the fellowship i believed was my only hope. so i went along for the ride, by suspending my critical thinking and diving headfirst into a world fraught with superstition and hero worship. when i was rudely awakened at thirteen months clean, by a notion i had been hearing for nearly twenty months, it was as if, for the first time, i started to have some hope that there was life for me, beyond simple abstinence. the catch was, that now i had to transition from a world where i was discouraged from thinking for myself, to one where critical thinking was not only desired but nearly required. i had to become self-supporting in my program, instead of letting others digest it for me. nay lengths, at this point in my recovery journey, meant looking at what was and what was not working in my recovery program and ask for suggestions on how to pitch what was not working and adopt replacements for that detritus.
it took a bout of self-sponsorship, so grossly obvious self-will and more than a few days of active insanity to reach that point, and only through the grace of the POWER that fuels my recovery and FEAR of the consequences, did i make it to where i am today. maybe that is why, i find myself so upset at the clich' buckets, because they remind me of me, when i was a sheeple, and feeling like i am returning to the sheeple mode, once again. the gift i have been given, is the ability and the encouragement to think for myself. any lengths means that i listen to what is being said, i consider the source and i try it out, if i find the source to be credible. of course that is the rub, judging whether or not the source is credible, who knows the next right thing, may come out of one of those clich' buckets, i can so easily dismiss.
all in all, for me, today, any lengths means, do whatever it takes to stay clean today. that is not all that hard nor is it all that heinous, it has become, nearly as easy as breathing, because i have done it repeatedly for long enough, that i am habituated to the basics. so right now, time shower off, scrape the whiskers from my face and head on over to Boulder for another day of doing what i like to do, seeing how far i can push myself into new ideas and ways of doing stuff.
∞ DT ∞