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before i got clean, i simply CHOSE NOT to believe this. well a bit better put, i did not believe they could happen to me, after all, i was different. it has certainly been an interesting week since i have returned from five days of acting like the other 85%. it was an act, by the way, that i am confident i was quite successful at, up until the point came to join them in imbibing alcohol. celebration or not, i am not a member of the other 85%, and i certainly know what alcohol would do for me. in fact, it would probably have an enhanced effect on me these days, since it has been a few days since i used that particular substance.
one consequence down! for me, there is a choice today, and because i savor that choice, i do what i can to maintain it. socially, i am far enough away from those “good old days” that i can “pass” for a member of the other 85%. passing for, and being are however, not the same thing by any means. i know that without a doubt, but the part of me i call addiction wants me to think that time away has changed the basic facts of life for someone like me. i would like to think, that somehow i have been transformed into something i am not. i have however, been transformed into something that i was not, at least was not when i walked into the rooms. today i am an addict in recovery, who is doing his best to become the sort of person, i have always wanted to be. part of that package is to take away the need for me to look for and foster instant gratification. i work at a job where i get that instant gratification all the time. my stuff works or it does not, it is as simple as that. sometimes i decide it is good enough, but like any other decision there are consequences for that as well. speaking of which, i do not believe that consequences are necessarily negative or inherently evil. i know many people look at life and decisions as having consequences and rewards, for me, consequences are merely what happens as a result of a decision or action. some of them i like, and i could say were a reward, some i do not and could categorize as a punishment, but a consequence has not inherent positive or negative value, in my world view.
most of the problem i had, back in the day and for many days beyond, was once i recognized that there may be a consequence to an action that i would not like, i did my best to manipulate and influence the outcome to defer or remove that price. sometimes i was quite successful at that, most of the time however, not so much. for me, in those days, it was all about doing my best, to do whatever i wanted to do and avoid paying any sort of price, which led to an increasingly lonely and bleak lifestyle.
as dark as all of that seemed, i had an escape route and i exercised it on a daily basis. getting clean, began the process of recognizing the actual consequences for my behavior and making a rational choice of whether or not i was willing to face them. it is true, that even today, i act,regardless of the consequences i foresee, and try to ameliorate the damage as it comes down the pike. i can no longer call it acting rashly or impulsively, as i have a plan in place on how to change an undesirable outcome. one of the curses of recovery, and it only feels that way sometimes, is that i can accurately see what the consequences of my actions will be. sometimes, making rational and informed decisions sucks! there is a certain comforting bliss in ignorance and best of all there is a way to shift blame onto someone, anyone else.
it is time, however, to put this aside, shower off, and head on over to Boulder, to make the donuts as it were. yes i am clean today. yes i will consider the price and the pain of my decisions and actions today, and maybe, just maybe choose to act differently before feeling that pain. after all, that is what this new way of living is all about.

∞ DT ∞