Blog entry for:

i always felt apart from the crowd. isolation, well isolation was my middle name as the silly little bromide happens to go. i isolated, built walls, whined about having no one close and di everything i could to protect myself from the possibility that someone could hurt me. in the end? well, in the end i ended up in my room, using one substance after another, making frantic phone calls to arrange the details of my next bout and did what i could to keep the rest of the world out. is it any wonder that my social awkwardness morphed into a nearly flow-blown case of social anxiety and agoraphobia?
when i walked into the rooms, my apparent self-confidence was all bluster, part of the front i had built over the decades of using. self-acceptance was my pride in constructing that front and the walls of isolation that were needed to maintain it. and my self-esteem was based on how many people i kept from hurting me today.more than a bit sad,, when one looks at it through that lens, and yet it took a very long time for all of that to change. as i progress in my recovery, that whole way of living becomes less and less, and i get to be the real me, warts and all. there are those who i run across, that hate when their covers are pulled and the person behind the curtain is revealed to be just another addict, and not the great and powerful…!
i know what it is like to be a slave to appearances and not sharing about my pain, is not the same thing as not carrying out my affairs in front of the fellowship. pretending to be in control and making all the choices is not the same thing as facing life on life's terms. sharing the information that another member trusted me enough to share, with anyone else, is not being helpful. for me, all of those are certainly signs and symptoms of my need to get back to my step work, or at a minimum, sitting down with my sponse, just to check-in. none of those are signs of the self-acceptance that the reading is talking about, and all of those will cause me to babble on about nothing, just to hear the sound of my own voice. today, that is not what i want to be and yet, there is where i find myself from time to time.
time to 'fess up, i did not get in touch with my sponse until i heard the reading for the second time yesterday, and i started the process to get a bit of his time. i am starting to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and my prayers, such as they are today, may just be exactly the way they need to be, both in form and duration. in the end, as i progress towards the end of STEP ELEVEN, i am confident that all will be settled and i will be where i need to be. there may be no GOD in my life, but there will certainly be a POWER that fuels my recovery, and with that thought, i feel it is time to pack it up and head on down to the office for another day clean and as an active and productive member of society.

∞ DT ∞