Blog entry for:

move away from blaming and move towards living a solution. i often use literary allusions and devices to frame these exercises in semi-random brain dumps. one of my favorites is; once upon a time, as many of the fairy tales i heard start with those words.
once upon a time, i lived comfortably in the illusion that i could live my life without taking responsibility for anything in my life, unless of course it was something good. even though i used on a daily basis, and was a strong proponent of the “wake and bake,” lifestyle, i saw nothing wrong. i told myself, anyone who has the life i had, would be doing the exact same thing. i was a victim of not being good enough and bought into that as the MAJOR reason that my life was not to my liking. i was not good enough because of my genetics, my parents, my culture and the world around me. none of those people or institutions or inherent attributes gave me the opportunity to be anything more that i was. so using on a daily basis did not make me an addict of any sort, it was my solution for the problem my life was and would remain. i had no HOPE for any sort of brighter future and when i was not high, i dished out my misery and cynicism on anyone who happened to cross my path. and the BOOM the unthinkable life event occurred and all of a sudden i was jarred out of my fantasy, my dark and twisted “fairy tale,” and into a docudrama that became my life for the next few years.
back in those days, life without using seemed to be something that i would never be able to maintain, and had i kept doing what i did in the beginning, it certainly would have been. being a recovery tourist and taking what i liked form the fellowships i frequented and leaving the rest behind, did nothing to advance my cause, in fact, those behaviors ALLOWED me to continue the blame game. it was the substances and my allergic reaction to them that was the problem, not something inherent within me. even with thirteen months clean, i was unwilling to accept that it was me that was the problem and blaming the mind and mood altering substances was where i was headed. honestly had i not gone to that convention in October 1998, i would have been gone a long, long time ago. it is true, it took another six months for me to give up my fellowship hopping and become a member of the fellowship that is my life., but the seed was planted in Greeley that October and has continued to grow ever since.
“all of that is very nice,” i can hear you all starting to think, “but what about the here and now?”
today i have no doubts that i am an addict. i accept that as fact and live my life accordingly. when i see the so-called “graduating class” i can be envious or i can just let it go. of course they make their lives look great and very manageable, enough so that i consider form time to time whether tor not i can do so. then it dawns on me, when it comes to getting high, there is no moderating for me. i rarely could have just one beer or even a single toke. that is a fact of my life, why would abstinence of any length of time, change that fact. today i choose to remain a member of the No Matter What Club AND accept responsibility for my life as an addict in recovery. today i accept that i am STILL powerless over addiction and i REQUIRE and outside POWER to stay clean. today, i accept that IF i keep doing what i do, i will keep getting what i have gotten and i am grateful for that fact as well. i can NO LONGER blame, people, places or things for my behaviors and reactions and i am certainly no longer a victim of my addiction.
i may not be living a fairy tale and i am certainly not living a reality show, both of those are in my past. today i am just living the life i have been given and whether or not that looks like someone who is not an addict, really does not matter to me. i GET to choose to stay clean and more importantly accept the responsibility to do something to further my life in recovery, just for today.

∞ DT ∞