Blog entry for:

message of recovery. Got be honest here, this is a just for yesterday kind of writing, I lost track of my days, so it goes. Of course I have nothing at all to share about what I share at meetings, because I follow the “party line.” I never stray into war stories, paint unrealistic pictures of how recovery has affected my life or crosstalk to decimate an opponent. I am way beyond all of that!? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I am human and still have a shortcoming or three, but I am much better now and the. behaviors I just described are far less present in my sharing than they once were. One thing you will not hear me say, is a whole bunch of “bumper stickers” strung together in a semi-coherent manner. I believe and practice a program of recovery that requires honest and thoughtful sharing. Yes a cliché or two may sneak in, sometimes the tired and true express an idea eloquently enough to be used. most of the time, I think that I have an obligation to be true to myself, and part of my identity is that of an intellectual. I have “dumbed” enough of my life for public consumption for far too long. most of the time I speak and write of ideas and not events or people, although events and people may be the springboard min to the ideas I am trying to express. The idea that is paramount in my mind, when I am sharing is how can I let the newest of the new know, that there may just be a path out of the hell they are living?
For me, treating them as equals is the key to what and how I share. It is quite true, that unless one decides, too themselves, that they are an addict, there is nothing I can say or do to bring them into the “fold.” painting a world of recovery as seen through rose-tinted glasses is not the way to go either, and honestly most of FNGs know that is a line of bullshit two miles deep. oh I can tell myself that the way to attract is to minimize and glorify, but being disingenuous, which is a fancy way of saying it is a pile of lies. Not every single who comes to recovery ends up pounding out a blog, in St Georges Granada, totally off the grid and totally relaxed with the biggest decision being what time am I going to take my deep tissue massage or did I remember to use my sunscreen! The fact is that recovery has opened up far more doors for me than I ever imagined, and one of those doors is having the resources to visit places I only read about.
Yes that is a nice side-effect of living a program, but what I really have gotten is so much more than just another tropical trip. Today I am becoming a whole, genuine and self-assured person, that actually cares about those he shares the world with today. The measure of my serenity is that I can sit here and not be all bitter and resentful that I am not already out doing something, anything. I have the peace and serenity to be okay sitting still in the here and now, even though I want to be up on the top of the hill, walking through the fort and taking photos of the island and town. Today I can be okay with being in my skin and admitting that this entry and next one were writen on the wrong days, instead of covering my tracks and being certain no one could detect that I wrote out of order. Today it is a great day to be clean, and even though the spiced rums of the islands, sounds like an interesting idea, it is certainly not an option I choose to exercise today.

∞ DT ∞