Blog entry for:

the endless parade of newcomers, yes i am one of those who stands back a bit and lets my peers swoop in and do the deed of welcoming them. i could say i wish i was not quite so detached, but in reality i do not wish that at all. it is not that i am totally detached from that parade, it is that i maintain a bit of distance, but i can also say this, in my service efforts i am very involved with the newest of the new and have learned that a bit od distance is not necessarily a bad thing. as i have often said to the men i sponsor, if i feel the need to rationalize or justify anything, then i must doing something wrong. yes, standing in the second or third row, watching the parade of newcomers, may not be the most spiritual way to act, but it is my reality today.

Alan S
congrats on 17 years clean.
I remember the day…
I am glad you kept coming, anyway.
Be Well my friend.

part of my reality today, is also trying to figure out who may be lying to me and who is telling the truth. amazingly, the story sounds the same, but it is always about someone else, and i wonder exactly what the pay-off may be. i know for me, i lie to hide parts of myself i feel i cannot display to the world in general and to those closest to me specifically. those parts have become less and less important, so i spend less effort covering them up, but they are still there, as i am far from cured. as i stay clean, i begin to see that i my motivation for what i do has changed, and continues to change. when i was a member of the stream of newcomers, which feels like it was a century ago, i, too, still used tales about my peers as a weapon to bolster my self-esteem, of which i had none. i could and did, make quite convincing arguments, and more often than not, i was not a unifying force in the fellowship that was my first home. i was part of the swirl of chaos and drama that is a newcomers life in early recovery and part of me really enjoyed it. that was one of the activities i used to enjoy engaging in, before i did it so much that no one trusted me with anything and i ended up in my rented room, alone, using, and wondering how i got to that point, at least until, that next fix kicked in.
so am i cold and calculating waiting for that first 30 days to pass, or am i content to let others do the work that could be doing? that is an interesting question and just as determining which newcomer is going to stick and which is not, it really is not worth spending a whole lot of time trying to suss out the answer. where i end up on either of those questions, is always based on how i see myself at this moment in time. today, i am okay investing my time and resources in helping someone get clean, even if they are not the most likely candidate to succeed in adopting a program of recovery. today i am okay with being part of the second wave and looking for those who are at the edges and for whatever reason were missed by peers who live by the newcomer is the most important person in any room. today i accept that a newcomer is not a “project” and to tie my recovery to some arbitrary number of newcomers i have in my life, is not only dangerous but disingenuous. the fact is, that i am here for the long run, and if someone chooses to lie to me, it ids not up to me to call them out, it is up to me to accept that is exactly where they are today. the fact is, i am not going to use, because someone disrespects me with a lie, or a newcomer decides that just one more will do the trick. i am not going to run out of the rooms tearing my hair out, because someone else acts out and then pukes it all over the rooms.
today, i have far too much respect for myself and my fellowship tho “stir the pot,” and that is a good thing.

∞ DT ∞