Blog entry for:

an action step?!
yes the punctuation is correct, a question and an exclamation. that choice, reflects my journey through the FIRST STEP and how i arrived at actively applying that step in my life today. life in recovery was not a choice for me, back in the beginning, in fact, as i have often said, it was an extreme outside consequence that kept me clean for those first months of my recovery. the 1ST Step was an abstract notion, back in those days, as i did not see that my desire to use and my lack of control once i started using was ever a problem, it was just a fact of life. no action required as i was not powerless and if i did not use, my life became quickly quite manageable. moving on the next steps with the first only partially complete was what i was all about, and i was working the steps with a sponsor who was of the notion that the first three steps were not that hard to grasp and for the most part could be quickly worked through. he is not the blame for me not internalizing the steps on that first trip through, as i was stubborn, different and dishonest. he did the best with what he had, and had my bout of self-sponsorship not taken me so close to the brink, i have no idea what i would have become and where i would be today.
skip forward a few days, and at the start of this journey through steps, things has certainly changed. when i took the FIRST STEP, this time, there was no doubt in my mind that i was an addict and that my life was unmanageable. the evidence was the culmination of my experience since the very first day i became abstinent. so my first three steps should have been more like those very first set of three, wham, bam, thank you mam! as you can guess, they certainly were not. for me, what i learned when i started STEP ONE this time, is that i had a notion that addiction had irreversibly broken me. i could not be repaired and how the fVck were the steps supposed to help, anyhow? yes not only was i an addict, but i also was socially retarded, as a result of my addiction. i self-centered, entitled and self-righteous, and had hidden all of that under a veneer of social acceptability in my real life as well as within my recovery life. i was a simulacrum of an addict in recovery, because i was still lying about who i really was and was scared to death of being found out. it was the part of me i call addiction that was in control and looking as if i was someone or something else was just what i did. besides, i told myself, i only have a very limited capacity to form deep and meaningful relationships, so if i keep most everyone at arm's length, things will work out just fine. without a doubt, there was yet more evidence of how powerless i was over addiction. the one place where i could get what i needed and certainly wanted, was where i was the most duplicitous.
this set of steps has been quite an undertaking, as the attitudes i uncovered in that FIRST STEP had many decades to weave themselves into my image of myself and what i thought i was. when i finally sat down and admitted that not only was i an addict, BUT my life was still unmanageable, it was quite a shock to my system. how can someone with many days clean, still have an unmanageable life? many of my peers, got better enough to leave the rooms and i have no doubt some of them survive,heck, even thrive, in their lives beyond recovery. i can be jealous of them from time to time and certainly envious. then i come back to the lesson of this FIRST STEP that if i want to be a part of the world, i need to allow the world to be a part of mine, just for today.

∞ DT ∞