Blog entry for:

as well as a student, in recovery? some of the time this is certainly true, other times, not so much. that in and of itself is hardly a startling revelation and something that i am not closed off about. i could go on and on about what a closed-minded know-it-all a$$hole i was when i came into recovery. how i evolved into the fellowship police and service junkie and finally became who i am today, but in those last fifty or so words one gets the succinct summary of who i was and how i came to be where i am today. good times would be had by all, if i went down the blow-by-blow route, instead i will leave it be and work on how i am teachable and capable of teaching today.
over the course of the past few weeks, i have been contacted by a friend and a member who has been “around” the program for over a decade, about his plans once he was out and about. i was far from supportive or hopeful during my conversation, and i could offer a hundred rationalization and excuses, becoming the man with a thousand excuses of “why not.” my expectation for my friend, actually doing what he said he would were very low, perhaps i did not give him enough credit, but as far as i can see, nothing has changed. of course, more will be revealed and perhaps the lesson i need to learn, has yet to be written here.
my recovery trip has had more than a few “educational” foci and as i stay clean another day, i see more and more how much i may have yet to learn. i speak of my journey of “uncovery” as i learn about myself, those things i skipped the classes on, as i was growing up. each time i roll through another set of steps, i find more and more ideas, feelings, concepts and live lessons, that may have always been a part of me, but i buried under the garbage pile of using and finding the ways and means. notions such as my capacity to give and receive love, compassion, empathy and how much i esteem and respect myself. when i start to think that there is nothing else, left to learn about who i am, i might as well just walk away from this recovery gig, because that will be the point where it will be as “as good as it gets.” the “alternative fact,” that rolls through my head, is that maybe they could be right, after a couple of decades clean there is nothing left to learn about myself and how i live in the real world. i have heard a few addicts, who chose to leave recovery, say that very thing, and i have come to have a bit more FAITH, than that. in fact, i have FAITH, that is i stay clean, live an active program of recovery, more about myself will certainly be revealed, and not all of it will evoke and pleasurable emotional response.
the other problem that pops up its ugly head was certainly all over my blogs this week, the notion that those who are treatment denizens have nothing to teach me, so they might as well sit shut-up and listen. more often than not, i hear something i need to gear from those who have less clean-time than i do, especially before they get into the groove of sharing “appropriately,” the fact is, i am sometimes envious that they are sharing their knowledge of concepts and ideas that it took me years to grasp. it is difficult for me to get past the treatment jargon that those who are treatment are indoctrinated with these days. well any days, as i remember i came out of treatment with the exact same notions: the Steps are the steps, no matter where you attend meetings and i may need more than one set of steps to address each of the substances or behaviors that are making my life unmanageable. what i am seeing today, the lesson i have been neglecting to pay attention to, is that no matter why someone is walking into this particular room at this particular time, they have something valid to offer, even if it is puking up the treatment line their counselors have drilled into their heads every day for the past number of days. i had to learn that what they taught me to believe in treatment was only the entry point to a life in recovery and the only way i learned was to parrot my treatment counselors and get corrected by the members who were already present and i learned some pretty outrageous notions in my treatment facility, the first being that i was “some kind of addict” or even worse an “addict AND A alcoholic,” and needed to be “clean AND sober.” that nonsense went on for over eighteen months for me, and as a result i missed out on connecting in any fellowship. of course i had an ulterior motive, which was to not belong anywhere so i could find a reason to use. i gratefully survived my self delusional fantasies and sit here today with a little more recovery than way back when.
this has been a long way back to where i started. what i NEED to do on Tuesday night is to speak up, share about recovery and have a bit of understanding, compassion and empathy for those who have yet to realize that there certainly is more to recovery that what they are getting in treatment. it is after all my responsibility to teach as well as be taught.

∞ DT ∞