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do not let me ever say i do NOT have a very strong opinion or two on most any subject, i am an opinionated cynic, who see the world through a pair of glasses tinged by addiction. the upshot of that particular character trait, whether i judge it to be an asset or a defect, is that i form expectations, about myself, about my peer , about my family members and about my acquaintances. i know the literature does explicitly state that: “expectations are premeditated resentments,” and i do NOT disagree with that assessment, as my experience has proven, time and again.
there is a story i used to tell myself and it goes something like this. because i am smart and fairly insightful, i KNOW what the correct path for everyone else to take, just happens to be in any situation. it seems that even though i stay clean and live a 100% program, i still hear that story in my head. when i choose to actually look at that work of fiction with the same intelligent, rational and critical eye, i see that i NEVER have known what is best for anyone, especially myself. so if someone fails to follow a suggestion i make, which in my mind means they have not lived up to my expectations, then they are hardly worth my time, my energy or any other resources i may have to offer. in other words, it has now become time to 'ex' them from my life. they have now become, in my distorted world view, something less than myself. <BOOM,> just like that i have more space to form even more unrealistic expectations, of myself and others, and put just that much more distance between me and the alleged perpetrator. very nice work when i can get it!

ah, but there is a unicorn under the rainbow, eating a daisy or three in all of this.

this whole set of steps has been all about learning how to live in society, the fellowship and overcoming my state of social retardation. thanks to a man who i got to sponsor for a minute, i am better able to detect the stories that i tell myself and see them for what they are: rationalizations, justification and excuses for not living up to my expectations of myself. i really do not know if i gave him anything, but he certainly gave me enough to be ever grateful that he was in my life. his struggle against the deist nature of the members of the fellowship and his introspective manner at looking at the world around him, gave me the tools to catapult myself beyond the silly expectations i had formed, during all my previous days of being clean and living a program. my interactions with him, allowed me to move to a FAITH based program, which is based on the notion that if i live this program 100% of the time, i WILL continue to find FREEDOM from active addiction and progress through this new way of life. i guess the time has come to explain that notion in a bit more detail.
i came to recovery to get out of the justice system. even after i got “off paper,” i lived a life and worked a program because i was afraid of relapse. for a very long time, i lived a FEAR-based program, and as a result, stayed clean, got a few gifts, fulfilled some dreams, but lacked something more. i was still napping, as i walked through my life and was missing out on a whole lot of stuff. my story at that time was GOD would give me what i needed, if i asked for it, and staying clean and being alone was not a bad thing, at least it gave me time to discover or uncover who i am. i am fortunate that i am a creature of habit, as going through my daily routine kept me clean, and allowed me to see that i needed something more. the events of the tumultuous time in my recovery came to a head and i ended up, through no choice of my own, having to seek a new sponsor. under his guidance i finished that set of steps and have moved through two more sets. sometime during that next set of steps, i finally learned to be present in my life and realized that FEAR was not going to keep me clean for much longer. without my consent, my program went from FEAR-based to HOPE-based. somewhere down the line the story changed, and i realized that if i kept doing what i was doing i could have the HOPE that i would continue to get what i was getting, FREEDOM from active addiction and progression into my new manner of living. recovery had changed for me, and i became grateful that i could wake up and live a dream, but all those doubts about deism started to come back and haunt me. i lived a program, but has a nagging feeling that something was not quite right. nevertheless, HOPE sustained me and i went on. as i walked through this set of steps, and finally discarded the ideas that had bothered me forever, my story changed once again. now i knew that if i lived this program, i could have FAITH, that the program would sustain me. after all, i came to a HIGHER POWER through the program. i saw my dreams come true, through the program and all of a sudden i was worth doing this gig without reservations. i learned that there may or may not be a divine plan, but for me it did not matter. what mattered is that i did what i could, let go of outcomes and learned to be a better human, as a result. as part of my 12 month journey through STEP 11, i saw that i could stay in this fellowship, and that i could use the same terms to describe the POWER that fuels my recovery, that my peers do, even though i have a total;ly different look at what those words may mean. i found common ground, without being a deist and the journey was definitely worth it. once i let go of my expectations and walked with just the smallest bit of FAITH, the path before me opened up, there were trumpets and angelic choirs and my path was well lit through the cloudiness i put in the way. it was through FAITH that i found FAITH.
today, i have seen a few of my worst expectations of others come to fruition once again. as sad as it makes me, i have the FAITH i need to stay clean and find the path through. life is good today, regardless of how terrible it may look from the outside, i am more than i have ever been and certainly more resistant to the fictions i make up about who i am, where i am going and how the world around me looks. it is time to get into that world now, after all, sitting here writing about it, is not the same as living it.

😉

∞ DT ∞