Blog entry for:

well that all depends on how one chooses to look at it. yeah i was living hand to mouth, eking out a bare existence, but i still had a place to live, a job to go to and a handful of people that allowed me to be part of their lives. not exactly the abundance i have found in recovery, but certainly not as little as many of my peers, who literally fulfilled my mistaken notion of what an addict looked like, or at least the notion i came to recovery with, firmly plastered in my head. i understand that the reading specifically mentions the pursuit of material possessions as a symptom of filling myself up, and a s result finding joy and happiness, but i have commented on this many times before, and today i went a slightly different direction.
first off, i like material possessions, no more will i pretend to be above the DESIRE to have the latest, greatest, brightest and shiniest toys i can own. i9f i have learned anything through the process of this set of steps, it is that i am a materialist. i make no apologies for that, and my more spiritual friends, acquaintances and peers, can sneer if they want to. secondly, i have also tried to distract myself from feeling the longing and emptiness that is part of addiction through service to the fellowship and a flurry of social activities. while my service efforts did not cause any damage to my fellowship,. their overabundance did nothing to fill that void. of course, if one were to examine my motives for serving, one would discover motives that were less than pure. needless to say, as i stepped away from committee service and into the service of carrying the message to addicts, in very personal and intimate settings, i started to feel that void being filled, rather than being plastered over with activity.
the other diversion i attempted to patch up that canyon of despair, was a flurry of activity. filling my hours with work, social commitments, physical fitness, romance and recreation, and the “fuller” i made my life the more that feeling persisted. all of those outside things did absolutely nothing for my insides, but at least i looked like i was doing well, and i could express my gratitude for everything i had. after all, isn't recovery all about getting a new way of life? what good was being clean, if i was going to still feel empty, even though my life was full? what was the magic recipe i NEEDED to get rid of the desperation that was at the root of my addiction? when i started this set of steps, those were the burning questions, and those were the questions i did my best to swallow into oblivion to dispose of. all the answers, it seemed to me, lay in the fact that i was broken and probably irreparable; and this was as good as it was going to get.
yes i certainly willing to settle and i am grateful today, that i chose not to. as i walked away from visible service, my desire to “fill” my life with people, things and activities, diminished. was i thought less about how i looked to my peers, my need to look and sound “humbly grateful” became more like the itch of an insect bite. as i looked within, i saw that my drive to accumulate material things, would never be satiated until i found what it was that i was really looking for, self-respect and self-acceptance. in fact, as i went through this set of steps and uncovered many of the lingering ties to my past, i began to glimpse what i could become, if i allowed the POWER that fuels my recovery to care for my will and my life. being fired as a sponsor does not diminish my worth one bit. i did not use. i continued to live a 100% program of recovery and most importantly i know that what i have to offer, may not be for every addict who walks into the rooms. i live a life of commitment to my recovery and when all the outside shite is stripped away, and i am left standing naked before all, i am can be proud of the journey i have traveled and that pride can be expressed humbly by letting those around me know, that what they have today, need not be what they will have forever. i know this now, because i understand a little bit more about DESIRE and starting to see it as the tool of the part of me i call addiction.
humans all have DESIRES, probably even the saints. as an addict, i have taken and warped DESIRE into something unhealthy. the STEPS are the foil to counter that process and return DESIRE to semblance of that of the rest of the human race. motivation not the driving force. enough of the philosophy and time to put some practicality into my day, by heading over to Boulder for my normal Saturday morning activities, after all, that too is part oif what keeps me clean!

∞ DT ∞