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i certainly had lost all hope for a life without the use of drugs. well a more accurate statement would be, that i did not even realize that i could have a life without using drugs, my level of denial had reached the point that hopeless and helpless were not feelings i even acknowledged existed. yet here i am days and days later, feeling a bit grateful and certainly much happier than those dark days before i finally got the notion that i was an addict into my head.
beacon of hope? i do not know exactly what that means. in the days before i finally got clean and accepted my stay out of prison free card, putting on over on the members in the rooms and the justice system was all i was about. how could i see hope, when i denied i was either hopeless or desperate. for me, it was all about looking like i was complying, using whenever the opportunity popped into reality and not worrying about being caught, because i was too fVcking smart to be caught by these rubes!
even after i came to recovery, i was hardly a model member of any fellowship, but participate in two. like many of the newcomers i see today, i thought the steps were the steps, so where i chose to get my recovery really did not matter. in fact, i had counselors in treatment actually say that, until i stumbled into a nest of recovering addicts, but that is certainly a story for another day. resistance and disqualification was what oi was all about and the members who had time, i was certain were sliding through loopholes in their 12 STEP fellowships, specifically those that focused on a particular substance. in fact, had i stayed in the fellowship i was in originally, i would have 3 months more clean time than i actually claim. that too, is not germane to this discussion.
those thirteen months of going through the motions, did produce some results. i stayed clean, the desire to use was lifted and i started to get parts of my life back, and certainly dreams of a better life were stirring within. i was, however, ready to pitch it all, and get the hell out, as more and more i found less and less to be enchanted about, especially when i saw the hypocrisy of some of those members who purported to be working a spiritual program. my how the times have fVcking changed. today, from time to time, i am one of those hypocrites that i railed about back in the day. i gossip, keep my distance from some members, judge in my head and out loud, talk and carry on in meetings, and walk away from some of the still suffering because i am tired of hearing the same old sh!t. i am after all, only human, and pedestal or rose-colored glasses aside, i have yet to become the recovery guru i once sought to be. all i am is one of the crowd of clean addicts who are doing their best to stay clean. i am not one of those who says clean time does not matter, to me IT DOES and speaks for itself. i may have been “around the program,” for seven months, BUT my clean time and time in recovery commences that day in September when i actually used for the very last time. i really do pity those who have been “around” the program for years and years and years, but admire their courage to at least keep coming back, and i certainly want to laugh out loud when they start to tell me all that they have learned through their series of relapses and returns. what i have learned to do, is to change the subject and get them focused on what they can be learning here and now, so they do not have to go out again, after all IF they had decided that using was a good idea in the past, apparently they like the pain and the consequences and really have learned nothing but how to look compliant and talk a good talk.
me? well i want to be more than i was yesterday: smarter, happier, more successful, a better person and clean. for me, the only way i have found to do so, is to extend my streak of days without using, by one more day, just for today.
so on this gloomy June morning it is time to pack up and head over to work, after all, that too, is a gift of recovery.

∞ DT ∞