âȘ share the burden âȘŹ
Posted: Thu, Aug 4, 2016 07:36:33 AM
of my past and be rid of all the secrets that keep me tied to my past and the life of a using addict. well perhaps i overuse the word **honestly** to preface many of the statements i make in this little missive to the netizens of the world. i am sure that if one searched for that word, across the corpus of this work, it would appear far too many times. this morning, as i sat and listened, it came to me that i use that word, because that is what i was not, when i came here. the echoes of my double and triple lives, still resound today and when i am about to be truthful, especially about something i have hidden, either in plain sight or swept under the carpet, i feel the NEED to tack on a word like **honestly,** to drive home a point. certainly a case of “methinks, the lady doth protest too much!”
when i hear my friends, peers and acquaintances throwing around how much of this or that spiritual value they have or are practicing, i tend to go in the same direction and wonder whether like me, they covering something up with spiritual camouflage, or are they for real. the ones that boast the loudest are the ones i doubt the most. i know it is unfair of me to judge someone else, through the lens of my experience, after all they are not me, and perhaps speaking in tongues, rolling on the floor and testifying to the unwashed masses, is a genuine expression of their recovery. for me, i know that the louder i crow about how well things are going in my spiritual walk, the greater my NEED to be diverting attention away from some glaring spiritual zit in the middle of my forehead, you know: “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
no juicy or salacious secrets here today, as if this would be the place i would reveal something. i am all about looking good and the last thing i would want to do, is put it out there, that there is a part of me, a behavior or a mode of thinking that is not for public consumption. i led a secret life when i came to recovery, i lead a semi-private one now. i am of the type who craves attention, wants to be at the center of things and yet hates to leave anything sitting around, for others to comment upon or make suggestions of how i “SHOULD” fix my life. the irony in all of this, is that my stuff is out there anyhow. what i have shared of myself, as i listened to the FIFTH STEP of others, is without a doubt, pretty bad. the only saving grace, at least in my mind, is all of that is ancient past, in the relative scheme of things. what i get caught doing, is behaving in those well-established patterns, instead of risking something new. the fact that i pretend that someone does not know my shite, even though i offered it up to them, is part of hiding under the guise of acting spiritual, lying to myself about how well i may be doing, or trying me bets to be the brightest and the shiniest object in the local fellowship firmament. all of this is quite familiar to me, and when i see it playing out in the lives of my friends and peers, well i have to pause and wonder, is it for me to observe how they are being duplicitous, or just let them free-fall until they splat upon the ground. my solution, at least these days, is that most of the time i do not offer unsolicited observations to most of my peers and acquaintances. i may, however, drop a hint or two, to the men who trust me to sponsor them and guide them through the recovery process.
all of this reminds me of a very old Mick Fleetwood song: Oh, Well. only i am the one that is not asking. it is a great day to be clean and to be as free from the hidden life of addiction.
when i hear my friends, peers and acquaintances throwing around how much of this or that spiritual value they have or are practicing, i tend to go in the same direction and wonder whether like me, they covering something up with spiritual camouflage, or are they for real. the ones that boast the loudest are the ones i doubt the most. i know it is unfair of me to judge someone else, through the lens of my experience, after all they are not me, and perhaps speaking in tongues, rolling on the floor and testifying to the unwashed masses, is a genuine expression of their recovery. for me, i know that the louder i crow about how well things are going in my spiritual walk, the greater my NEED to be diverting attention away from some glaring spiritual zit in the middle of my forehead, you know: “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
no juicy or salacious secrets here today, as if this would be the place i would reveal something. i am all about looking good and the last thing i would want to do, is put it out there, that there is a part of me, a behavior or a mode of thinking that is not for public consumption. i led a secret life when i came to recovery, i lead a semi-private one now. i am of the type who craves attention, wants to be at the center of things and yet hates to leave anything sitting around, for others to comment upon or make suggestions of how i “SHOULD” fix my life. the irony in all of this, is that my stuff is out there anyhow. what i have shared of myself, as i listened to the FIFTH STEP of others, is without a doubt, pretty bad. the only saving grace, at least in my mind, is all of that is ancient past, in the relative scheme of things. what i get caught doing, is behaving in those well-established patterns, instead of risking something new. the fact that i pretend that someone does not know my shite, even though i offered it up to them, is part of hiding under the guise of acting spiritual, lying to myself about how well i may be doing, or trying me bets to be the brightest and the shiniest object in the local fellowship firmament. all of this is quite familiar to me, and when i see it playing out in the lives of my friends and peers, well i have to pause and wonder, is it for me to observe how they are being duplicitous, or just let them free-fall until they splat upon the ground. my solution, at least these days, is that most of the time i do not offer unsolicited observations to most of my peers and acquaintances. i may, however, drop a hint or two, to the men who trust me to sponsor them and guide them through the recovery process.
all of this reminds me of a very old Mick Fleetwood song: Oh, Well. only i am the one that is not asking. it is a great day to be clean and to be as free from the hidden life of addiction.
∞ DT ∞