Blog entry for:

stuck in my problems and the solutions nowhere in sight. what i heard this morning when i finally got my act together and started to allow myself to drift into the what is and get out of the what was, was all about the tight little, unhealthy loops i find myself in, from time to time. the example in the reading may be quite extreme, and oi am of the type that really hates to linger in that section of the steps. i want to write about, talk about it, integrate those shared insights into my life and move on. life is far too short to be stuck in a sadistic ritual of self-abasement. besides that is a behavior i was quite familiar with,m back in the so-called “good old days.” ah, the fond memories of how it once was, when things got so bad, which happened on a daily basis, the ways and means i could use to lie myself in sad state of being entitled to use and wash away the sins and inequities of the day. no one, could convince me of anything different, and in early recovery, i found, what i considered a blessing, the means to continue this behavior, albeit without the chemical magic eraser. ah nostalgia, enough of walking down memory lane fraught with peril and into the here and now:

Chuck C,
29 years of doing it right!
Congrats, my friend and thank you for lighting the way.

the next question might be, what was my payoff, after all, like most humans, the only reason i might get stuck in destructive cycle, is that there had to be a reward. for me, as i sit here at the end of another step cycle, i can see that living in that pain, allowed me to live in self-pity and see myself as a victim. yes, as sad as it may seem today, being a victim was and can be a strong motivation. once the drugs were removed, i became a victim of addiction. being a victim, at least for me, removes any responsibility for becoming anything more. i can nurse and cherish the pain and not do anything to lift myself out of that condition, great work when one can attain it. blaming addiction for my self-abuse is a very convenient foil, and one i can drop into, at any time. the best part of a 12 step recovery program is that i do NOT need to stay there.
so where does GOD come into this discussion? in my view of the spiritual side of this program, i have the FAITH, that i will be given the opportunity to get everything i NEED, on a daily basis. recovery allows me to desire something more and seek a path that does not include being a victim anymore. the key to this is me, being awake and alert enough to see those opportunities, when they arise. when i seek a path out of the self-abuse cycles, i find it and amazingly it is almost always the same, namely looking at the why i want to live in the pain and what my life would be like, if i decided to let go and allow myself to feel it and move along. no Jedi mind trick here, just an application of STEPS 3 and 11. this may be all well and good, and yet over the past week i have found myself stuck in a similar loop, as work seemed to go on forever, and the why me and pity me litany of evil started. my reaction? hey it may be time to start seeking something else. that may be the case, except this morning i feel grateful to have a job that does not require standing by the side of a busy intersection, flying a sign and relying on the kindness of strangers. today i can and will be a productive member of the society that i was born and cultured into, just for today. i want more today than the pain i can inflict upon myself while stuck in a groundhog day sort of loop and the way out, is through the program of recovery.
speaking of which, the time has come to start making my way out to the real world and leave this “what if” world of theory and conjecture behind, it is a good day to be clean.

∞ DT ∞