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control over addiction as manifested by my NEED to use drugs? way back when, this was always the question, THE BURNING question for me, and it was one of the toughest one to come to terms with, in any sense. i did not want to admit to myself or anyone else, that i was owned by anything, PERIOD! so i drifted around between fellowships and bouts of denial, trying find any alternate path. that effort was a waste of time as evidenced by my being here and writing this right now, and yet, was it really? i have often heard it said, that it takes what it takes to arrive at a place in the recovery process where i am finally ready to surrender, release my reservations and my journey to the bottom of the emotional and spiritual well is what it took for me. i forget how hard it was to arrive at a place of surrender and tend to glamorize and minimize my journey by saying stuff like: “i did everything wrong in my early recovery,“ when the truth is that for me, i did everything correctly. i really had to battle my way to surrender, so that i could finally take the actions necessary and inherent in the FIRST STEP.
as i sat this morning, there was a certain sense of peace that came over me, as i contemplated the actions i NEED to take today, to live the FIRST STEP. as i have yet to return to using, there is a certain mythos surrounding what a relapse would look like for me, and all of that is a romantic fantasy i have built up in my head, over the days i have been clean. there are elements of degradation and certainly elements of a sick and twisted sort of freedom. freedom from the responsibilities of living in the real world and taking care of myself in real-time. after all, i understand using addicts and their behaviors, while sometimes puzzling to those in the other 85%, make perfect and logical sense to me. even the phone call i dealt with on Wednesday night, makes sense, after all, when i was in active addiction, i went down the list of who i could get to bail me out of my own stupidity, until i found someone who was willing to play. when i found that “in” i exercised it to the max, playing on their sympathy, pity and history, to achieve my goal, no matter what that goal was, and never thought twice about what i was really doing. it was all about me and what i needed.
as i stay clean, i have come to see, that the action of STEP ONE, is not about using drugs anymore. staying clean is necessary and sufficient for my spiritual growth, but addiction is so much more than just the drugs. so i stick around stay clean and allow myself the freedom to grow into something more.
to be honest saying no and hanging up and not responding the other night, was one of the hardest things i have ever had to do in my recovery. i cannot say what the addict on the other said of that conversation felt, and i do not need to put myself in their place. they were fighting history and a plethora of bad outcomes from our interactions across the course of our relationship, and the weight of all of that, came crashing down on them the other night. was i the most spiritual person i could be? probably not. the fact is that finally it came down to my spiritual well-being versus their physical comfort and finally i chose to take care of myself. in the long run, i realize that trying to rescue someone is not the same as providing hope and a hand up, it just means that i play the knight in shining armor and they get to play the person in distress, ad infinitum. the only way i am going to grow is to let go of what i think i am, and become what i feel i am, and as i sit here on the cusp of STEP ONE, i am starting to get a sense of where that process may need to go to next. not there yet, but more is being revealed on a daily basis.

∞ DT ∞