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the only thing that changes after i came to the fellowship, is ME!
one line, so much meaning, and of course a little bit different than the than the worn out and tired bromide that one often hears: “the only thing one has to change, is EVERYTHING, one day at a time.”
yes, i do get on a high horse when i hear my peers borrow something they think is staid and true from another fellowship, when in this fellowship there is such a wealth of rich and modern literature, that one really need not go anywhere else when searching for that perfect line one needs top illustrate a point. case in point this reading, it succinctly says it all, without resorting to hyperbole about everything and nothing.
honest that whole part about changing everything was something i rebelled against from the first time i heard it. i accepted that i may have a drug problem, and even might have a disease of addiction, but once the drugs were goner, i could return to living, unchanged and perhaps a bit stronger for the experience of enforced abstinence. i never bought into the notion that i was “broken,” and required “fixing.”
time passes, a cursory trip through the steps, slapped me around just enough to see, that ONE thing needed to change: the fellowship in which i was getting my recovery!
that was at thirteen months clean and after i experienced what this fellowship was all about, at a convention. it took some more time to convince myself that those old farts really had very little to offer me, and that the experience, strength and hope that i needed had to come from an upstart fellowship, that had decided to stand on their own, and become wholly self-dependent for their written materials. which finally brings me back to the line that i heard as i sat and listened to my heart. why did anything need to change?
as i have uncovered through this recovery journey, i was not necessarily broken, true my life is unmanageable and i am powerless over addiction, but neither of those facts are likely to change. i may not have required “fixing,” but i certainly needed a path away from the self-obsession and the litany of the other “self-” traits wrought by active addiction.what i really wanted from my peers, was not the girl friends, cars, education, jobs and prestige. what i wanted was at least one day where it did NOT suck to be me. in order to get that, i discovered that i did NEED to change, and that change was only going to happen through the process of active recovery. i had to look at my beliefs and decide that doing something to please someone else, was never going to make me, whole, genuine or self-aware. i had to look at my biases and my prejudices and see that holding on to them, was certainly not going to relieve the suckiness of being me. i had to look at my past, see that i was a product of that past, accept that it was done and over and move along. most of all i had to learn to accept that i was NOT the victim i believed i was, and nearly all that happened to me, was a direct result of my behaviors, attitudes and actions. i had to let go of the notion, that as an addict i would be doomed to use and be used. i had to change the notion, that i was incapable of accepting the responsibility of being in recovery and live a life where i made choices that furthered my growth, rather than hindered it.
yes i did need change, and that change that happened was from inside of me, and as a result, the world looked less dark, dank and dismal. the time has come, to post this l;ittle ditty and get rolling on the process of getting to work. it is a great day to be clean, and although i may not fart daisies on a daily basis, i can will from time to time, puke a rainbow or two, thanks to the change manifest in me by the fellowship that has given me a new way of living.

∞ DT ∞