Blog entry for:

addicts are different.
yes we are, this is my second pass at this topic this morning, and although i could take it as some sort of divine sign that i was not going down the track i wanted or needed to, ti look to it as a chance to refocus and redirect my intellectual thought process.
one of the laments i often hear, especially from those on the margins or who float in and and out of the rooms, is how they cannot find those saintly paragons of virtue, that practice spiritual principles in all their affairs, every second of every day, weekends and holidays included. what they see,l is a bunch of hypocrites who say one thing then go do another. their reasoning continues, that if “those fVckers are still doing that same old shite, what the fVck is the use, i might as well…”
even though i understand that attitude and train of thought, even though i have gone down that path before, i still keep coming back. even though i am far from saintlike, am not a paragon of virtue, i keep coming back, because it is the only place where i know i am just like every one else in the that particular room. i am not “an addict of my description,” a“known addict,” a “gratefully recovery addict,” nor any of those other ways my peers choose to describe themselves. i have enough trouble keeping the notion in my head that i am an addict, that sugar coating it with some sort of cutesy or folksy modifiers may be just the start of my journey down the drain. i had enough trouble coming to accept that i was an addict of any kind, way back when, and i need not water down my FIRST STEP belief with anything else. it is addiction that binds me to recovery and gives me the desire to go to yet another meeting, even though my last use was more than a minute ago. it is that belief that keeps recovery my top priority, because without recovery, i would not have me job, my car, my freedom, my intellect, or my HOPE. all i would have is the smoke and mirrors that there were people who cared for me, even though i used them up and threw them out, many days ago. the way others may describe themselves, is up to them. for me, when i start to separate myself from my peers, i am getting sick. ironically, way back when, i tried to do just that. i was too smart, too well educated, too middle class to be here. in reality i was a working class High School graduate, who could never finish anything, not even a two year college degree. the more i tried to prove myself as different than my peers, the more painful the experience when i discovered i was just like them. life in the stratosphere was difficult at best, and i am glad that this program of recovery, finally took hold and moved from my head to my heart.
so there is my Kum-By-Yah moment, all is rainbows and unicorns, La-De-Dah-De_dah!
i certainly wish it were so simple. although i see a lot, judge others for what i see them doing and take from the program those parts that i see working in the lives of my peers, i often do not see the gallery of saints that i am seeking, when i show up for a meeting. what i see is a collection of humans, stiffed full or foibles and frailties, who are also addicts like myself. and just like me, they behave in various degrees of spiritual wholeness. part of what makes me a true believer in the recovery process i have found in the rooms of the 12 STEP fellowship that is my recovery home, is that no matter how different i feel, if i do what i have been taught to do, i get better and get to come back tomorrow. it is true that i now possess an engineering degree and an income that makes me solidly middle-class. it is also true that the addict who walked into the rooms, seeking a way out, any way out, save the one that was offered to me, can still look for the the EXIT sign and whine when i see what the consequences of choosing that door may be. quite honestly, no matter how educated, mobilly-upward or well i may become, i need to always remember who i am and where i came from.
i am an addict and i came for the justice system. it is DESPITE my best efforts to find a different path, that i am still here today and i go to meetings, because here is where i want to stay.

∞ DT ∞