Blog entry for:

of belonging, that i found when i finally came to DESIRE recovery. an interesting read and certainly a much more interesting commentary from a person who purports not to be one of those who fawns all over the newcomers and takes them on as projects. i was one of those recalcitrant newcomers, after coming to my first meeting using art every opportunity i could generate and not get busted by the legal system. after getting busted, just desiring to remain compliant with their wishes, and “hang out” in the rooms to “kill” my number. what i NEVER heard was “GO AWAY AND COME BACK WHEN YOU ARE READY!” i could go on about my bad attitude and my displace anger and rage, from back in the days, but i have already shared about that at length. where i will start is where i was with this issue, not all that long ago in retaliative terms, when i started this set of steps..
since i believed, quite fallaciously, that i was too broken to love anyone else, my love cup was full, maintaining my distance from the newest of the new was something i saw as a defense mechanism. just as Kelly Bundy had to forget something in order to learn something new, i was quite certain that my capacity to love and care would operate in the same manner. i would have to love and care about someone less, if i added a new person in my life. as comfortable as that may have made me feel. as my FIRST STEP took hold and begin the process of denial demolition, i saw that for the lie it was, i was not and really never had been “broken,” i was just a scared little man, who was afraid of getting his itsy-bitsy feelings hurt once again. the ironic part of it all, is that in my experience it is the protecting myself from future hurts that seems to drive how i interact with others. if i keep the newest of the new away from me, when they walk away or burn and crash, i do not feel the pain i would, if i had allowed them into my life.
so that was then, as i have grown through this set of steps, i have become more open and far less aloof. sure i can scare a newcomer away with a single look, or ten words or less, but i do not resort to those tactics anymore. in fact i have become close friends with more than a few newcomers, to the point that some of my peers believe it is okay to give my number out to their family members. as the day progresses, i will get over the burn i feel at that destruction of my anonymity and i will move on, i am certain that they had good motives and as i am discovering as the events of the past 24 are getting revealed, perhaps it was not a bad thing at all.
moving forward, i still have yet to be one those who is all about the FNG, but i no longer ignore them and i share about what kept me apart from recovery and the fellowship, back in the day. when one of them uses, i offer them my experience, strength and hope, and provide them the means to find their way back into the rooms. most importantly, i allow them the freedom to approach me,m instead of scaring them off. it is true, every newcomers is not going to stick in the program. it is true, every newcomer is not going to even come back fro a second look. it is also true, that it is my behavior that may tip the scales for those who do decide to come back again, so it is up to me, to be as open and welcoming as is possible for this cynical, know-it-all, old-timer, after all those who were in this role when i got clean did not kick me to the curb. time to get rolling down the road and on to my home group, after all, just for today i am grateful for the addicts i have in my life, even if they are on their very first day.

∞ DT ∞