Blog entry for:

how do i find that courage?
two little truisms before i get rolling:
*1) change in recovery is inevitable.
*2) it is my resistance to that change that causes most of my pain.
so the party line here is that i NEED to change, i NEED the wisdom to see what i can and cannot change. and i NEED the courage to affect that change. i accept that and could just stop typing here and walk away. i would, except that there are sorts of tangents and side tracks that this line of thinking gets rolling down the tracks. in the news this morning, i saw the name of someone i have known for quite some time. he came to the rooms for a bit, and decided that this path was not for him. well his idiotic, hot-headed behavior has landed him an invitation to the county sheriff's bed and breakfast for at least a couple of days. would a recovery program prevented him from taking the actions he took? maybe, one cannot say. what i can say, is i understand. his actions were reactions to feelings and the lies he told himself, been there, done that and got the T-shirt.
when i came to recovery, i lacked any willingness to change. what i saw here, was a bunch of loser,m cry-babies, who were lying about what and how much they used, or how much they enjoyed using. i spent the next 20 months after my first visit to the rooms, doing my best to prove that i was not an addict and that if was not powerless over mood and mind-altering substances. it was not really the members that i was fighting against it was the change that needed to happen in me, to get me to accept what i was, that i was so vainly struggling against. i did not want to be an addict, when it would not help my cause, such as in front of the judge, or with my probation officer. that struggle went through jail, treatment, half-way houses, outpatient treatment and finally gave me just enough willingness, to work the steps in a very superficial manner, in the first twelve months of my clean-time. honestly very little recovery happened in those months of struggle, but a sh!t ton of change, and when i was finally p[resented with an argument i could not counter, or at least counter successfully, i finally gave in and became just a plain, ordinary, garden variety addict, that no longer need to qualify what i was. the redundancy i used to protect myself from that notion, was finally revealed for what it was -- smoke and mirrors -- that i used to keep me from making that FIRST STEP admission.
all of that resistance? well futile in the end. i was certainly assimilated and have very few regrets about what has happened since. that does not mean my resistance to change has been eliminated, but it certainly has been reduced. i see the effects of what happens to people like me, who are too chicken sh!t to do whatever it takes to stay clean today and honestly i do NOT want to end up like them. i do NOT want my mug shot plastered all over the front page of the local paper, and although that may not be my destiny if i stop doing what works, it certainly is a very strongly possible outcome.
anyhow, got miles to go, and things to do before i sleep today, so i will end on this note: when i choose to face the change in my life and cease fighting, i become a stronger man and a better person.

∞ DT ∞