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what upsets me more today, about my little incident on Saturday night, now that i have had the time to think about it, was how closed minded i was being. just as any zealot is wont to do, i clamped down tight, instead of even politely listening. my beliefs were challenged so the challenger must be a heretic and their ideas not worth listening to. i am a recovery bigot, although i have found a path to FREEDOM for me, i missed my chance to listen and discern what if any message i could give the addict in attendance. once upon a time, this was standard operating procedure, i was smarter than every on else, so my ideas, notions and beliefs HAD to be correct and every one else's in error. in fact, when i heard a peer share about how they felt “dumber” in the fellowship twelve miles away, i began to wonder if i put all my efforts into building a local fellowship, so i could be the star.
this is not the first time where i begin to suspect that motives back in the day were suspect. i am grateful, however, that when it came time for this nascent fellowship to grow up, i let go enough and stepped away, bitterly and resentful though, and allowed it to go in the direction it was meant to go. what i got was a dose of humility and a new path in service, that took me to my encounter on Saturday night. it is tough for me to admit i am wrong, EVER. to admit that i am a bigot and self-promoter is even tougher. the part of me that i call addiction, could certainly take this little ditty of a revelation and run with it, and trust me i have worked that angle since Saturday night. here is the evidence that part of me seeks, to disprove the rest of my life. after eighteen and a half years, i am still not well in this regard, so what evidence to i have that i am any healthier in any other? what i get from my less than stellar behavior on Saturday night is once again a dose of humility and one that is more than a little painful. as i have worked this set of set steps, there was a tectonic shift in my belief structure, the aftermath of which was a belief system, where i no longer paid lip service to a spiritual path i had been approaching for quite some time. i knew that i am very defensive about the fellowship and the program that has given me the gift of freed om today, in fact it is the one area that my sponse and i, have had disagreements about in the past. finding a vestige of a belief structure was a bit disconcerting, and when i consider it, it should have come as no surprise. to do the service i do, there needs to be a little bit of the zealot within. that zealotry is the basis of my passion for that work, and in and of itself is probably not a bad thing. for me to move forward, i will have to apply a bit of open-mindedness to the notion that i am biased and prejudiced. the evidence is that i am, and IF i want to change into something more i need to allow the POWER that fuels my recovery, to fuel that transformation. i can serve being a zealous bigot. knowledge of that part of me, can keep me from going down a path that i will regret once again. it is true, i may always be an addict, and for me that feels like a fact. it is not up to me to tell others that they too will always be an addict, even if they apply the program of recovery, that has brought me to this place. i now understand what it is about one of the on-line recovery groups that i subscribe to, that has been bugging me lately. they too, are bigoted zealots and use intimidation, intellectual bullying and dog-piling techniques to suppress any idea that is out of their world view. i get that for that is me as well, i however, want to be rid of this aspect of me, and am entirely ready to have the POWER thst fuels my recovery, remove it.

∞ DT ∞