Blog entry for:

troubling times by relying on FAITH.
a reading about relapse, and i have never relapsed. it might seem ironic, but i can say that once the FEAR of ending up as a ward of the State of Colorado was lifted, it had to be replaced by something. okay i better back-track here. it is true that i attended meetings from February to September, and during that time i used.i was on the once a month plan and everything i did, including jail time, in-patient and out patient treatment was done to comply with the higher power in my life at that time: the 20TH Judicial District. oh yeah, i lied about my clean-time, took tokens and pretended that i had this recovery gig, going on. i am not stupid and just like learning to count to four and relying on those three day windows of opportunity, every month, i learned the jargon of recovery and could sling slogans with the best of them. in my head i was getting over on everyone and felt like the king of the fVcking world, for doing so. in fact on e of my favorite lies, for a long time when i was in the wrong fellowship, was that a bottle of vodka had replaced the bong by my bedside in the end. i told that lie, because i wanted to fit in, sound like my peers in that fellowship and have an alcoholic-like experience to share. not a shining moment in my life, but getting caught cheating by that manifestation of a higher power, finally got me clean, even though it would be another eighteen months before i finally accepted the FIRST STEP. this morning, i felt i needed to share my “little white lie,” here, because i have heard it said that:“everyone lies,” and today i no longer want to be a part of that “everyone.”
the other lie, i lived was incorporated in my first SECOND and THIRD STEPS. i had no FAITH or even a belief that i needed a HIGHER POWER, much less one that i would name GOD. i shared on and on, in that first eighteen months about what i thought my peers wanted to hear, all the time quite certain that they could not detect that my higher power had become the pursuit of material comfort and becoming a member of the upper middle class. status was what i chased and my FEAR of relapse was grounded in losing the things i desired most. even my desire to get a college degree was grounded in the notion that it would lead top even greater material comfort, and i went through the whole prayer gig, because i thought it made me look good. my journey into the light of FAITH started that fateful day, when i took my second sponsor and committed myself to the fellowship i am now firmly ensconced in. even though i lacked FAITH in anything but myself, i finally was desperate to do something, as i was tired of living in FEAR. staying clean was great, but shucking and jiving my way through the rooms was no longer working for me and i needed to find some path to a life that was more.
fast forward to right here and right now. today i rely on the power that is given to me by the POWER that fuels my recovery. my FAITH is based on the notion, that at least for me, this program works and is the path to the things i truly desire, becoming whole, genuine and self-aware. i am not sure what sanity is, but i am certainly confident that living the way i was living was fVcking insane. when times get tough, and they do, i can rely on the connections i have made ion the program. i can pay attention to what is going on around me and seize the opportunities i am presented and most of all rest assured that if i follow the suggestions of my peers, i can come through those troubled times, clean and better off for the experience as hateful and painful as they may be. i am not one of those GOD kind of people, but that does not mean i do not have a spiritual path, that provides for everything i need to stay clean today.

∞ DT ∞