Blog entry for:

how long i stay clean, i NEED to remember this simple fact of life, I AM AN ADDICT. not some sort of addict. not an addictive personality. not addicted to this or that. just an addict, without any modifiers or words to soften that harsh reality. today, i am an addict who is in recovery and doing his best to practice a program of active recovery. pay attention to the fact that there is still no modification before the word addict, because unlike some of my peers, if i try and soften that word, i could start to soften what my program is all about, which is fostering my FREEDOM FROM ACTIVE ADDICTION. however, before i go any further:

Brenda E,
a quarter of a century clean.
That is an amazing accomplishment.
Thank you, for keeping the fires of recovery burning.

so as i was texting my words of congratulations to Brenda, i started to think about the numbers of my peers, who have come and gone, across the flash of light, that is my recovery. i still have trouble wrapping my head around the notion, that i am NOT a recovery pup, anymore. some days it feels like it was 1997 just yesterday and others, well it seems like i have been plodding along this path forever and ever. the simple fact is this, the only one who has to admit that i am an addict, is me. my family, employer, and friends do not have to admit that i am an addict, heck they do not even need to know, since i am in recovery, doing this gig, actively. my peers in the rooms? well they do not have to believe that as a fact either, but most do, because like me, they are coming to terms of what being an addict is all about.interestingly, some of those peers who have left the rooms, never came to terms with what being an addict means to them, and they are out and about, looking in and wondering WTF, how can i get some of what those others have. some of those peers, were never addicts in the first place, they simply had a drug problem and the rooms gave them just enough information to turn their lives around, walk away and be happy and productive. i know when i start to telling myself lies, the lies to my peers, family members, friends, co-workers, partners and my employer, are not far behind. all of a sudden, i am trapped in a web of lies, in world that hangs by a thread and threatens to crumble with the slightest breath of wind.
i am one of the fortunate ones, who have not had to go out, once i found recovery. a qualifier there, for those who may not remember, there is nearly seven months between when i first came to a meeting and when i got clean. there is still another eighteen months of enforced abstinence before i finally came to the place where i could identify as an addict, without the need to qualify that term. it took me that long to accept that i was an addict and not just someone with a drug problem. today, i have no problem with that notion, i am simply an addict, equal and a peer to all the addicts that are recovering in my fellowship, locally or around the world. today i am grateful i can go there, and if one of those on the margins ask me how i do it, i can simply say, just for today.

∞ DT ∞