Blog entry for:

of MY past.
**those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.**
my past? twenty-four hours ago i was whining about feeling bored, in fact the word i used was ennui. then life happened. i worked, i had a cigar after work and i did a bit of service at an institution that is a part of my past. as i sat in that room, and looked around, i saw something i never saw before, different levels of desperation. all of them said they wanted the gift of recovery.many of them talked about doing this gig for “the rest of their lives.” a few of them actually accepted what they were and were less open to the group about the path they wanted to take, but amazingly most of them were desperate to change their lives in that moment. what saddens me the most, is that desperation flies right out the window for moist of them, in moment they get their first taste of life on the outs, and for the most part, the only place i will see them, is when the spin down again, into where i saw them yesterday.
as a result of what i felt yesterday, in that stuffy and hot room, i drove home with a sense of gratitude, that even though my motives for staying clean were not “pure” and my abstinence was ONLY to comply with the court orders i was under, i still stayed clean, found recovery and became a member, when i shared that little tidbit from my past last night, i saw at least three of the participants get an idea of how they could do this gig when given the opportunity, some day.
i can tell you this, recovery has been the hardest road i have ever walked, and when i see my friends and acquaintances posting on social media, what they look like now, in active addiction, i wonder if i would ever get that chance. i know how hard getting clean was for me. i also know how hard staying clean was way back when. i would be lying if i thought that it was an easy state to maintain, and yet it saddens me to see those friends and acquaintances spin down intro dereliction, incarceration and and homelessness, because they lack something to bring them back to recovery and keep them here. of course i can hear their arguments now, and while i could certainly defuse them one by one, they are just that rationalizations and justifications to be lazy, do nothing and take the easier softer path, after all, in jail…
today, at least right now, i am grateful for that meeting last night and those posts on social media. not because i think i am above all that, because it reminds me that i am just like them, i understand what it is they are going through and i can feel the pain of being apart. i am grateful that i have A PAST, that i can share with those in my life today. i have ago stopped feeling the shame for what i did, and not because i can blame addiction for it. no what took the shame out of my post, was facing what i did, owning that it was me, not addiction, not society, not the judge, not culture, not the substances, but it was me who did all of that, and i HAVE continued to make my reparations for those behaviors and deeds. today i can own who i am as well as who i was and when all is said and done, i am grateful that i have a pathway to becoming a better version of the man i am today.

∞ DT ∞