Blog entry for:

of that new pattern of living: reading the literature, step work under the guidance of a sponsor, some sort of conscious contact with a POWER greater than addiction, speaking to another person in recovery and going to a meeting, is a framework that i have FAITH will keep me clean another day. yes, i said FAITH, i practice a FAITH based program today, that has nothing to do with religion. time and again, when i get out there, i always return to the simple tasks that are part of what we in our local fellowship fondly call the Jay Five.
back to my assertion about FAITH, it is interesting that those who have moved beyond the program, rarely speak of abstinence as a daily goal. for them, perhaps, that is okay, for me, well i am not so sure about that. in my experience and in the using dream i had last night, one beer led to many and me getting falling down drunk, which is unusual, as in my using dreams, alcohol is not what i am generally using. yes i had a using dream last night and no i am not running around setting my life on fire, worried about what it is that i am not doing. i am running around trying to catch-up for an 11TH STEP session where i sat for 30 minutes this morning. even that is not driving m,e to distraction as it seems that just for right now, i can be good with where i am and just let the day flow. i may not be done with work at 3:00 PM this afternoon, but what the heck, i am still clean and when i reflect on what i felt, i have absolutely no idea.
as i have grown in recovery, my time has become more valuable, even when it is just downtime. of all the tasks in the list of five, going to meetings is the most time-consuming in my daily life. i mean seriously 90 minutes, every single day, who has time for that? the nice part is that daily meeting attendance is not something i have to strive for today, BUT regular meeting attendance, where i go to the same meetings every week in a consistent pattern, is something i need to strive for. i am not bad, being slightly OCD, three meetings on a regular basis is what i am usually good for each each week, Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday, are where one would generally find me. are those a requirement for me? not hardly. will i fall off the earth and vanish into the pack of those who have moved beyond, if i miss a week or two? probably not. what will happen is that i will get generally irritable and more than a little discontented with my life, after all where is my payoff. hell i have been doing meetings for a few days now, and i still have to keep going to them, dang it all!
no today i am okay with that routine, seeing that three a week keep me fairly sane and on track and ascribe to the theory that “meeting makers make it.” just for today, i will go to a meeting and hang with a few of my brothers in recovery. it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞