โ learning to โ
Posted: Tue, Jan 31, 2017 07:39:12 AM
trust my recovery. across the twisty and turn-filled course of my recovery, something i was told way back when, and reinforced several times by stand-up comics and my peers in recovery is that my first thought will always be wrong. the message i internalized is that i can NEVER trust myself and that i ALWAYS need to seek outside guidance on anything i do. not the least bit extreme and i certainly wish i was writing fiction filled with mind-bending exaggeration, but the sad fact of my life, that stuff still echoes through my head to this day. readings, such as the one this morning remind me that i have more than nineteen days or even nineteen months clean, and that BECAUSE i am diligent in living a program, there is certainly more than a good chance that i can start trusting my intuition and myself in the plethora of situations that caused me angst and anguish in the past. in fact i DO recover, and what was appropriate, back in the day, may no longer be part of how i live today.
do not misread that last statement. man y of the DAILY practices i started with nineteen days clean, are still part of my life today. in fact, i can more than likely attribute my ability to trust myself and in my recovery, because i have been so diligent, one might say anal, in what i do on a daily basis. recovery is my life these days, and while i may seem a “Gloomy Gus,” finding the dark side of every rainbow, it does not mean that my recovery is any better or worse than my peers.
i like to think i am immune to the various idiocies that are coming out of Washington DC, but our national nightmare was front and center as i sat last night. my quiet time was filled with obsessive thoughts about how to end the suffering and return some sanity to the political arena, and all of them involved extreme violence. since i trust myself and my recovery these days, does that mean i start forming a cabal of like-minded individuals to carry out what i could not let go of last night? no, it means i look to why i am feeling unbalanced and finding the means to seek an alternative method to apply the power i feel lacking in my life. i may not care for the current POTUS and the hare-brained means he is using to fulfill his campaign promises, i do however have another route to opposing the insanity of his alt-right agenda, dissent and assembly, and i am becoming more adamant and fare less forgiving in less than fourteen days, to sit by and do nothing. i have the desire to affect change, as evidenced in what is usually one of the quietest times of my day. i may not get the instantaneous fix i desire and i will still lack much power in affecting the outcomes coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC, but at least i will be doing something to express my displeasure with that agenda and resist the changes his supporters believe are underway.
which brings me back to where i started. here i said that i can start to trust myself and my recovery, then i write about how i go off into nut-ball violent fantasies, i mean seriously, WTF? the fact is that i am human, subject to the frailties and passions of my physical self. i am also a recovering addict, that slaps upon that foundation, a spiritual path that leads me to being a better person than ever before. the space between those two layers i where i dwell, sometime more spiritual, sometimes more human, which leads me into interesting conundrums. the longer i diligently live a program of recovery, the more i rise above the human part within, but that does not make me immune to what is happening all around me. i am not one to believe that this country is “blessed by GOD,” or that there is some sort of divine plan, moving forward. i believe that this country was shaped by people of conviction and through their lack of diligence we have been degraded into a corporate mess of bread and circuses. i believe that the political situation was caused by indifference and a pandering to a FEAR of what does not exist, and BOOM here we are, in troubled times, battling each other rather than the masters who really own the keys to our shackles.
ah, but i digress. knowing that i have a passion and living that passion, are part of who i am today. i am this person, because recovery has provided me a framework to step out of active addiction and learn how to be a part of this world, instead of above it. just for today, i will see myself as i am, a jumble of passions, principles, actions and desires and use my recovery to guide me to a place where i can create a bit of balance and stavbility, rather than chaos, just for today.
do not misread that last statement. man y of the DAILY practices i started with nineteen days clean, are still part of my life today. in fact, i can more than likely attribute my ability to trust myself and in my recovery, because i have been so diligent, one might say anal, in what i do on a daily basis. recovery is my life these days, and while i may seem a “Gloomy Gus,” finding the dark side of every rainbow, it does not mean that my recovery is any better or worse than my peers.
i like to think i am immune to the various idiocies that are coming out of Washington DC, but our national nightmare was front and center as i sat last night. my quiet time was filled with obsessive thoughts about how to end the suffering and return some sanity to the political arena, and all of them involved extreme violence. since i trust myself and my recovery these days, does that mean i start forming a cabal of like-minded individuals to carry out what i could not let go of last night? no, it means i look to why i am feeling unbalanced and finding the means to seek an alternative method to apply the power i feel lacking in my life. i may not care for the current POTUS and the hare-brained means he is using to fulfill his campaign promises, i do however have another route to opposing the insanity of his alt-right agenda, dissent and assembly, and i am becoming more adamant and fare less forgiving in less than fourteen days, to sit by and do nothing. i have the desire to affect change, as evidenced in what is usually one of the quietest times of my day. i may not get the instantaneous fix i desire and i will still lack much power in affecting the outcomes coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC, but at least i will be doing something to express my displeasure with that agenda and resist the changes his supporters believe are underway.
which brings me back to where i started. here i said that i can start to trust myself and my recovery, then i write about how i go off into nut-ball violent fantasies, i mean seriously, WTF? the fact is that i am human, subject to the frailties and passions of my physical self. i am also a recovering addict, that slaps upon that foundation, a spiritual path that leads me to being a better person than ever before. the space between those two layers i where i dwell, sometime more spiritual, sometimes more human, which leads me into interesting conundrums. the longer i diligently live a program of recovery, the more i rise above the human part within, but that does not make me immune to what is happening all around me. i am not one to believe that this country is “blessed by GOD,” or that there is some sort of divine plan, moving forward. i believe that this country was shaped by people of conviction and through their lack of diligence we have been degraded into a corporate mess of bread and circuses. i believe that the political situation was caused by indifference and a pandering to a FEAR of what does not exist, and BOOM here we are, in troubled times, battling each other rather than the masters who really own the keys to our shackles.
ah, but i digress. knowing that i have a passion and living that passion, are part of who i am today. i am this person, because recovery has provided me a framework to step out of active addiction and learn how to be a part of this world, instead of above it. just for today, i will see myself as i am, a jumble of passions, principles, actions and desires and use my recovery to guide me to a place where i can create a bit of balance and stavbility, rather than chaos, just for today.
∞ DT ∞