Blog entry for:

EXCEPT, when to do so...
ah the readily apparent loophole in STEP NINE, as i am such a lawyer addict, i could almost argue that amends i make, is possibly going to cause damage. after all, most of what i did was was on the down-low and rehashing it will only open old wounds and cause pain.
truth, however, is often stranger than fiction and the amends i make, either direct or indirect are the ONLY path for me to finish letting go of my past. yes, it took me a bit of time to realize that even though others benefit form my amends, i am making them for me, directly, succinctly and without any reservations. back to the self-centered and selfish world of me.
so usually it is here, where i will tell a story, tragic, humorous or ironic about what the amends process, more specifically the indirect amends process has done for me. today, truthfully, however, my indirect amends stories are not the fun-filled thrill rides of my direct amends and do not pack the bang of those examples. it is unfortunate , because most of my indirect amends to my fellowship, my community and to the human race, have resulted in the most profound changes in my behavior and thinking, across the course of my recovery.
when i entered area service, my original intent was to help bring our very small and young fellowship into the greater whole. if that was my only motive, that would have been saintly and guru-like. i could go into my whole mixed bag of motives, but when i came time for me to make amends to my local fellowship, for my behaviors at the very end of ,my active addiction, continuing my service to my local area and carrying their conscience to region, was what my sponse and i decided was a good plan of action. i especially liked it, because i was confused about leadership and what it meant to serve on service committee beyond my local area. i saw region as a springboard into world service and becoming an ever more powerful member of the fellowship. that notion was not unlike the George Orwell classic line; “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
even through all my bad motives and less that stellar behaviors, however, i do believe my indirect amends to my local fellowship was beneficial to myself and did not overtly harm the fellowship. it is true that i am making that amends, still today. even after all these days clean, i still serve and am grateful for the opportunity to continue to do so.
i guess i did have a bit of experience, strength and hope to share from my sordid recovery journey. most days i need not work all that hard to drum up an example, this morning, well there was conflicting feelings going on. most of the time, i want to come off as some sort of spiritual giant, but do not want to display the overly inflated part of my ego. working in the very narrow window of those competing ideas, is not all that much different for what happened when i started service to my fellowship, beyond service to my group. i want to share HOPE, but i also do not mind patting myself on the back, after all, the work that brought me here, is my work. i may have been inspired by the POWER that fuels my recovery, supported by my peers, friends and acquaintances in recovery, but i stayed clean and did the work. how to balance all of those equally important elements is where i stumble from time to time, i believe my effort is “MORE EQUAL,” than the rest of the formula and when i get there, i need to remember how i stay clean and what it means to facilitate my journey into becoming something i never thought i could be. just for today? well just for today, the amends i will make to myself and indirectly to the world around me, is to keep myself right-sized, as when i run riot, there is often hell to pay.

∞ DT ∞