Blog entry for:

accept my assets, and rely on the POWER that fuels my recovery as a source of strength. as i sat quietly this morning and listened a couple of things i heard at the meeting last night came echoing through the quiet. the first was a statement by one of my peers, pining nostalgically for a state of being they never saw. they were certain that at some point in history, the program of recovery we share, was “different.” they were correct in one aspect, the fellowship was certainly different, in those pioneering days, being part of that pioneering class, here in my local fellowship, i know what it is like to fight the bias and prejudice of a well-established fellowship, as we start to form our identity. i know what it is like to be hard-core about what our message is all about. i know what it is like, to have out of town to get a fresh perspective on recovery, just because there are no alternatives in a very small fellowship, and just because there are not daily meetings of my fellowship. so yes, the fellowship was quite different. how one carries the message was quite different. BUT the point my peer was making is somehow that added up to the program of recovery being different, and that is what bothered me the most. the steps, are the steps and have not changed in over sixty years. the text is the text and has not materially changed in over twenty years. those who were clean when i got here, say the exact same thing today, as they did way back when, their message is more tempered today, rather than WORK THE STEPS OUR DIE, M-F, but what they offer to me, is unchanged from what they themselves were offered back in those oh so dark ages of the seventies and eighties. the program and the message are not any different today, than yesterday, although the fellowship has grown up and started to mature. what was once necessary, zealously guarding our budding fellowship from well-intentioned outsiders, is no longer necessary, and as a result i get less diligent doing the stuff i need to do, way back when, on a macro scale. i do however, work the steps, the exact same steps i worked when i first came to this fellowship way back at the turn of the millennium. the same steps as they were swiped and reworked from another fellowship back in the fifties. the same steps that have been translated in all sorts of different languages around the world. the same steps that are at the core of the constant and unchanging program, that is the basis of my recovery. the same steps that comprise the message that attracted me to the fellowship and underlie the constancy of this program.
quite honestly, being a pioneer sucks. there really is no other way to phrase it. it really is interesting to me, that someone who was in middle school when i got clean, would want to return to those days, and it certainly goes to show, that nostalgic recall applies to more than just using, even when one has never had the experience. i am grateful that i helped to get my local fellowship rolling and that we have our own unique flavor of how we run our fellowship here in town, but the program is the program and how we work the steps and apply them in our lives is no different than the other millions of addicts, world-wide, regardless of the maturity of their local fellowships.
so time to come down off of this soapbox and get ready to roll on down the road to Broomfield. it is a good day to be clean and yes wporking the EXACT SAME program as my peers world-wide.

∞ DT ∞