Blog entry for:

will destroy me.
yes more than once i have felt myself to be different than my peers. certainly an addict, but not an addict who could recover the way they were as none of what they were doing made any sense to me. in fact, i did all that i could do to resist being a conformist when it came to the path of recovery. i explored more than one fellowship, focused on specific behaviors and substances. heck i even went to the rational side of recovery a couple of times, especially when i was struggling with the whole “GOD” issue. all these forays into different places always left me more dissatisfied than i was when i was here, and always led back to the fellowship in which i find my recovery, just for today.
although the title of this reading says it is all about STEP FOUR, what i heard this morning as i listened, was what i use to separate myself from the pack. one of the biggest wedges i use is the words of my peers. when someone who has significant clean time shares that they still think about using every single day, i wonder why i am different. i go days, even weeks without considering using of any sort. i can tell you quite honestly that if thinking about using was still part of my day, i would give this whole gig up, after all, for me, there is the evidence that i am different and need to find a different path. “No matter what, ” has not been enough for me, for quite some time. although it is still the foundation of my daily program, i moved out of that mode about the same time my program went from being a FEAR based program and moved into a HOPE based program. this last set of steps has changed that once again to a FAITH based program, i have the FAITH, that for me, this program works and even though i do not consider using, i am not going anywhere, because it just works, even for an addict like me.
here i sit, with a few days clean and i am talking about FEAR changing to HOPE changing to FAITH, as if i was some sort of new guy on the block. unfortunately, my FAITH is based on experience and not on some higher and esoteric reason. i have FAITH that the program will work for me, and anyone else, because it has worked for me and my peers, even those who have yet to lose the desire to stay clean.
i really do not want to be different, but part of me, the rebellious and wild child part, as it were, has a totally different agenda. it was so ironic that in high school i hung out with a bunch of “non-conformists” and yet we acted the same, dressed the same, shared the same politics and were basically indistinguishable, all the while shouting about how different we were. as my identity grew, i lost who i was, because i had to be able to shift my face, my costume, my mode of speech, to fit into whatever group i happened to be hanging with at the time. it is hardly any wonder that when i finally got clean that those two paradigms caused conflicts in me, and the one that won the most was my need to be different and unique. when i tell another addict, that i think, that they think, that they are somehow different, it is not because i am blowing smoke, it is because i recognize in them, that part of myself and my story. i know what it is like to “front” recovery, instead of actually living recovery. i know what it is like to FEEL DESIRE to want to be something different, to have something more, and to drown in a sea of material goods. i know this, because that is part of my story, and that part of my story did NOT get written in active addiction, it may have been foreshadowed but that too, is a doubtful statement
that whole nest of feelings, insecurities and FEAR? well that nest has been uncovered and explored more than once, without unleashing any sort of monster. in fact, once i looked, i realized there was nothing there, but who i am today. i have seen the light, as it were, and that light comes from an active program of recovery. i have not thought about using today or yesterday,. the desire to use is not a p[art of my life today. more importantly, i am quite certain i am just like my peers, some days less sick, but most of the time, just as sick or healthy as they are, depending upon which coin you want to flip. today i can walk with my head up, certain that, even though i am an addict, i am a better man than i was yesterday,m because of the path of recovery that i chose. yes my past led me to this place, but i do not believe i was destined to be here. i may have a greater purpose in life, but what it may or may not be, is quite irrelevant to me today, after all, i am all about another day clean, just fopr today.

∞ DT ∞