Blog entry for:

almost anything to alienate myself.case in point, my current trip through STEP ELEVEN. as i discard the final vestiges of the deistic outlook that is part of my social and cultural conditioning, and rampant in the rooms of the fellowship that has given me the FREEDOM, to examine such issues. i find myself further and further away from those who can help me the most: my peers in the rooms. i will not recount that struggle here, as i have shared on and on about it, in all the forums available to me. today i will think i will take a different tack…
once upon a time, about seventeen years ago, i was comfortably ensconced in the two fellowships that had allowed me to be abstinent. i had made a few friends, was doing stuff with other abstinent individuals, and had generally reached a place where jones was not upon me me twenty-four seven. my misery had been reduced to a tolerable level and i was in my last weeks of the consequences for the last time i got caught using. sometime around this time, a friend to be walked into the wrong fellowship and he certainly was a puzzlement to me. i could still relate, because i was still of the notion that somehow i was different and as a “anda,” it would take BOTH fellowships to get me out of the justice system. so anyhow in walks hairy biker dude, read-headed, hair and beard down to forever, looking as mean and angry as i felt most of the time, whining about not have had a drink in years, but his life was falling apart. because of who we were, we both ended up in the only meeting in town that was part of the fellowship that saved my life. just like me, he worked steps in the other fellowship and his sponsor ended up relapsing but not drinking, and left him on the NINTH STEP, for which he still owes someone a million dollars today! anyhow, long story short, that addict became my friend, my partner in crime, my sponsee, the ONLY permanent one, and one of the driving forces behind getting beyond that one “anda” that was in town, back in those days.

JAY T
CONGRATS on 17 years Clean.
Thank YOU FOR STICKING AROUND!

yes, Jay showed me that one did not have to be at the very bottom socially and materially to have the desire to get clean. he still had a job, a house, a family and a wife, had not touched a drop of liquor in years and was still so fVcking miserable that he HAD to come to the rooms to find relief. i used to give him sh!t, saying he came in the easier, softer way, because he not forced into anything, he CHOSE to get clean and find recovery. these days, i see that we were both equally as miserable and desperate. we had much more in common than i realized and we were both sitting in the wrong chairs, in the wrong rooms and working the wrong steps. once we made the move over, well that move was total and absolute, and i for one have never regretted finding a place where i was NOT different.
which i guess brings me back to the top. as i battle to find my place in the whole scheme of things, i KNOW that i am not unique, and that my experience will be valuable to someone else down the road. for me, today, all i have to do is breathe, take a second and become cognizant of the feeling of what is the next right thing to do, just for right now. so it is off to get a bit of work done, meet with a sponsee and enjoy the SUPER BOWL.

∞ DT ∞