Blog entry for:

to have a positive impact on the lives of others, i certainly feel better about myself. i get that notion, as i had ample evidence of how i felt when i had a negative impact on the lives of others, when i first got clean and started to actually get a bit cleared out. so something as self-evident as the notion, do good feel good, is hardly fodder for an entire blog, but does lead to an interesting take on today, through the lens of the past forty-eight hours.
there are not a whole lot of people in my life, who have witnessed the darker side of who i am. even when i was posing as being clean and in my abstinence only phases, i was always concerned about what others thought of me, so i kept the less than savory stuff on the down low, i mean on the way down low. those who see and interact with me today, see a spiritual work being crafted, but hardly can imagine what that rough piece of marble looked like way back when. okay enough of the metaphors. when i got here, i trusted not a soul, least of all myself. i hung with one or two of my using buddies and generally used after going to a meeting, when i thought i could get away with it and comply with the heinous conditions of my probation. 😜 after ii got caught, it was not as if i had some miraculous transformation into a spiritual being, although i did my best to give that impression to everyone i met, inside and outside the rooms of the two fellowships i was habituating. lying, cheating and thieving was still what i was all about, although the thieving part had died down, once i started to have do0llars in my pocket. as long as i was getting away with it, i was content, and best of all, i had learned how to hide all of that under a mountain of bullsh!t, that my sponse likes to call spiritual camouflage.
when i finally got tired of living that double or treble life, about eighteen months after the last time i used, i saw what i had done and never believed i could make any amends for all that damage, especially to the reputation of the fellowship that i ended up landing in. the solution, at least in my own head, was to become in reality, the person i had simulated for the whole time i was hanging around. i lived in that mode for six years, forsaking all but committee service, for the good of my soul and the fellowship in general. sure my efforts at being as good as i wanted to look, paid off. despite my egocentric self-centeredness, the local fellowship ended up becoming a thriving recovery community. that fellowship that does not rely of cross-fellowshippers and literature form other fellowships to carry our message of recovery and as the revolving door keeps churning them in and out, enough addicts stay to build upon what i once believed was “MY” fellowship.
the esteem i feel today, does not come from the numb er of sponsees i have. it does not come from the number of calls i get. it does not come from the number of addicts who stop and talk to me. it was not long ago, that my esteem depended on each and every one of those things. today, i serve in lots of ways, and even when reaching out fails to prevent friends, sponsees and peers from taking a dip in the pool of: “just one more,” and “i can always get clean tomorrow,” it is not a reflection on how well i am working my program and how spiritual i may have become. in fact, it is absolutely no reflection of who i am, it is purely and simply all on them. it may sound cruel, but just for today, i am not going to use, because one of my friends had a bad night that led to a plethora of bad decisions and ended in consequences that are far from palatable. if after such a turn of events those same friends and peers, choose to respond to my efforts to reach out, i will gladly do what i can, otherwise, i must accept and most of the time i do accept, that i am powerless over addiction, mine and especially the addiction of others.
anyhow, i have errands to run places to go and things to do before i head on over to a celebration of recovery for three of my friends and peers. kit is a good day to be clean and to be grateful that i do not have to be the person i once was, that person is not dead, but just for today, he is not an active part of who i am.

∞ DT ∞