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is such a mess!? one of my favorite refrains and one that i hear quite often from my peers. for me being a victim to my addiction is a convenient means to divert myself from doing anything in my life. IF i can blame addiction for everything i GET a free pass and i GET to go about spouting off how useless this or that is, and an entire litany of “what-ifs.”
self-pity may be one of the most destructive behaviors in my repertoire, but it has all sorts of great pay-offs, avoidance of any responsibility for the current state of affairs in my life is just the beginning. if i can pin blame for my current condition on anything but me and my actions, i get an immediate relief. if that something, just happens to be something i am powerless over, like for example, addiction, even better. there certainly is a part of me, that wishes to abdicate any responsibility for anything in my life that is not to my satisfaction. IF i am not in any responsible for my current condition, then i am not responsible to even seek a solution and my pain and suffering continues. as handy as that may be, when i fall into that trap, and i do from time to time, i cannot continue the journey into becoming what i have never been. life in recovery, however, need not be a series of pratfalls, mea culpas or woes, as i have discovered across the days of my recovery, and today i can claim what is rightfully mine and do something about .
what i heard this morning was not about hating my life but taking some credit for doing something about fixing my life or even better avoiding falling into the same traps. just so i am clear, i know life on life's terms can be tough. there are many events that i have no part in creating and those can make me feel unwanted, unloved or even unworthy of getting anything that i may judge desirable in my life. i am certainly not talking about putting a “positive” spin on every single aspect of my life, but on claiming that which i actually own. that is something quite different for this addict, and certainly a goal to reach for on a daily basis. everyone may lie, that does not mean i need to. addiction is all about obsession and compulsion, but that does not mean that i need to cave into obsessive behavior. i may not get treated as i “want” be, but that does erase my debts. when i am living a program all of that is irrelevant and i need not even go down the path of my Mom's favorite line about everyone jumping off a cliff, today i have the ability to make choices, and not all of them are what one might judge to be good ones.
what i heard today, was that i NEED to take action, forget the badge of victimhood i so proudly wear and live a program of recovery, which right here and right now, means signing off and roll down the road to my next task, WORK! ir certainly is a good day to take responsibility even if i cannot take control of my life.

∞ DT ∞