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a nightmare from which i have now awakened.
as i sit here this morning, i was thinking about the secret of the FOURTH STEP, that is no secret at all, namely that not only do i feel the pain of my defects as they are revealed to me, everyone around me gets to feel that pain as well, as i live each and every one of them out. the irony in all of this, is this: in active addiction, those defects were no less pronounced, but it did not take drugs for me to justify, rationalize and deny them away, drugs just numbed my awareness of them and sharpened my skills at the smoke and mirrors game of denial.
here is where i usually go into a story about someone i know, have known, or perhaps even myself about how the changes manifest in living a program of recovery are evident. or perhaps, the contrary version, how a friend or peer, slid back into the cesspool of active addiction. instead, i do believe i will focus on the nature of the seed, namely the night mare of active addiction as contrasted by my current state of wakefulness, engendered by recovery.
yes i was a zombie of sorts or rather a anti-zombie, alive on the outside dead within. the longer i used, the less satisfying it was, but it never ceased to work. at one time, i thought it was about feelings, and numbing them away. that was certainly a side-effect that i had come to appreciate. i also thought, at one time or another using was so i did not have to deal with reality, in such sharp focus. being removed, just that slight bit, made living in the realish world, somewhat tolerable. that too, was a very pleasant side-effect. as the days roll by, in active recovery, i am seeing more and more it was the act of getting high and its accompaniment of ritual, song sand dance and inevitable spin into a consuming force that kept me coming back. i got high, because i loved to get high. when it took more and more to get me high, i made the adjustments necessary. when i started coming close to the truth about who and what i was, i changed something up. i needed no reasons to get high. i needed no justifications, but made them anyhow and i did not NEED to rationalize my use to anyone else. the world was complete in that tautology, i am therefore i get high. so coming to recovery, robbed me of part of who i was, even though i staunchly defended against the term addict and addiction when i referred to myself. i was more than a bit surprised that when i went to treatment i was diagnosed as being in end stage addiction and battled my counselor on that point for nearly two days. i might have had a bit of a drug problem, but addiction, especially end stage? well that certainly was not me.
today, i see those final days, as a sort of a grasping at the last straw, for the part of me i call addiction. the power that part of me, once held, has been diminished and the rest of me, has grown to balance the addict within. that is, in a nutshell, what i think recovery is all about. it is not about solving the problem of being an addict or removing that part of me i call addiction. it is all about balancing that power, through the help of the POWER that fuels my recovery. it is all about growing into the full person, i have always wanted to be. it is about enjoying life in the real world, without the fuzz of a little sumthin', sumthin$#39;. it is about finally waking up and becoming a full participant in my life and yes, getting a bit better each day. each FOURTH STEP i have written has put more and more of the puzzle of my past life, into perspective and provide me the opportunity to become that person, at least just for today.
well the time has come to pack this up, ship it off and head on over to work. it is a great day to be alive, awake and part of the real world, warts and all.

∞ DT ∞