Blog entry for:

of isolation.
i know i have written about my slow withdrawal from society, as a function of my active addiction. i also have written about how recovery has brought me back to my humanity and the human race, so i can leave those two lines of inquiry, rest where they are, for now. what i may or may not have written about is what this set of steps has done to further that process and continue to allow me to join the world on a level that was not available to me ever before. even before i got high that very first time, i had already felt different and had learned that my survival would require me to suppress my feelings, my thoughts and my differences and learn to look, speak, and act like everyone else in my peer group. i find solace in the comfort of a set of conforming non-conformists and as soon as i got high that very first time, i started circling around the drain. that timeline goes something like this:
i got high ⇛ i liked it ⇛ i needed it ⇛ i hid my need ⇛ i FEARED discovery ⇛ i withdrew ⇛ i got busted ⇛ i tried faking it until i made it ⇛ got caught AGAIN ⇛ finally came to recovery ⇛ 3 sets of steps down ⇛ still not truly a “part” of society, the fellowship or the human race.
yes when i started this set of steps, i was certain i was too broken to ever integrate back into society. addiction had warped my social skills and my desire to be a p[art of something, so badly, that i was at a place, in this respect, where i could not get any better. when Carlos suggested that maybe the focus of this set of steps was going to be on my place in the fellowship, the world, the society, i was skeptical at best, after all, had he not just heard what i had told him? i was too broken to ever be a real part of, the best i could do was to act “as if” i was. sitting here, smack dab in the middle of a 12TH step, i realize it was me that was not listening. i heard myself shouting about how broken i was, and i could not or would not hear the voice of the POWER that fuels my recovery, that this too shall pass. when Carlos suggested the direction of the steps, i knew in an instant that was where i NEEDED to go. i, however, had doubts and expressed them loudly and with extreme prejudice all through this step process. time and again, i resisted the changes, obfuscated my feelings and generally pretended to like the notion. as i came to care about those who were in my life, more would be added, and i had the capacity to allow all of them into my life. in this journey through the steps, what once scared me to death, namely the pain of allowing myself to care for others, has become a mere concern. yes i am going to be hurt. humans do that. they are duplicitous, inconstant and certainly capable of dishing out pain and suffering. trying to avoid those consequences is part of what the problem was, all those days ago, and now that i know that i can handle the pain and emotions that are part and parcel of human relationships, i can embrace my fellows and allow them to see me as oi am, not the simulacrum i once constructed and presented to the world.
yes, the path of my recovery has brought me to a new place and in reality a place in my relationship with the world, that i probably have never been at before. the POWER that fuels my recovery, has given me the direction and today i embrace it. i have time in my life for others, and when i start to slip away from them, i can be certain that is a symptom of addiction once again blocking me from the path that has become part of who i want to be, just for today.

∞ DT ∞