Blog entry for:

is an inside job.
this morning i am thinking of two of my peers and without calling them out directly, i see their actions and what they are fronting and it makes me question whether, i am fronting **real** recovery? i get looking good, social respectability and being far“ too freaking busy to work on my recovery.& i also get, “getting away with something.” i like having a life outside of the rooms. i also like getting away with shite i know is wrong. i also know that both of those behaviors drive me closer to my next use, not further away. before i get to far down in my little rant this morning:

Wayne,
my friend and sponsee,
Congrats on 12 years clean.
I am grateful, you stuck around!

yes looking good, for me anyhow, has always been more important than feeling good. at time i subjected my recovery to a supporting role, after my career, my love life and my social life. i dove into the waters of organized spirituality and did whatever i could to look like the “model” addict in recovery. i never got to the point where i thought i needed to recite the readings at any meeting, but i certainly thought theta my sh!t smelt better than that of my peers. if not for my overwhelming vanity, i may have even tried drinking a beer or smoking a joint, on the side, every now and again, just to see if i could get away with it. vanity? yeah, vanity! i have enough clean time that ending up with a needle in my arm is a less scary proposition than being outed as a fraud, and doing a little sumthin', sumthin' on the side, is a risk i will not take, just for today.
so looking good and getting away with using, are both themes that have played their part in getting me to the place i am at today. they were the driving force between my first meeting and when i finally got clean, and even today, when i think that nobody is looking, i can be a real sh!t. what is driving this little tirade this morning? the fact that i heard others talking last night. not all that long ago, i would have been in the middle of that fray. even though i know they were discussing a topic out of concern, rather than out of spite, or jealousy, it still rang all sorts of alarm bells in me, and i felt weird and had to run, and i mean that seriously run with great dispatch, so i did not do or say something i would regret later. as i sat last night, i revisited what i felt in those final moments, no not the last time used, but the moments before i left the meeting after the meeting, and i realized that amazingly, i have grown. i resisted my desire to be right and appear to be part of that crowd and join in. i resisted my urge to all them out as well. as i sat and heard what it was that i was feeling, in the aftermath, i see that for me, that is no longer a behavior i can condone, nor be a part of, no matter who is part of the crowd. i realized that looking good was finally falling in the hierarchy of what i am about, and it is about fVcking time!
anyhow, i have to get rolling down the road to work, where looking good is never enough, i have to BE GOOD!

∞ DT ∞