Blog entry for:

i may forget.
I did not stumble across a meeting schedule yesterday, I did not speak to another addict, save the one I am am traveling with and I did not carry the message of recovery to the still suffering, yesterday. Drinking a cup of coffee and watching my fellow patrons of the poolside run out and stake their claim, I am struck by the fact, that was my intention up until just a few minutes ago. Run out with two towels from the room, figure out where the sun will be and leave a token to claim two chairs, so that when we come back from breakfast in a few hours we have those primo spots. Do not get me wrong, that may still happen, I am after all a self-centered, over-entitled brat. In this moment however, I am present with running down all the things I did not do yesterday and more than likely will not do today to further my recovery.
What I did do, albeit a few minutes after my feet hit the floor, was to concede to my innermost self that I am an addict, and I asked the POWER that fuels my recovery to give me the power to stay clean, just for today. I now have to report that I caved into my base desire for a pool hair for myself and my partner in crime and staked out our territory. I may not be proud of my actions but I am certainly no longer consumed by that desire. Ah, but I was flipping the coin over, as it were, speaking about how I keep from forgetting that the life I have today, including worrying about a poolside chaise, is BECAUSE I got clean once upon a time, and a long time ago I decided to join my peers and learn to live a program of recovery. This life has been incredible and even though I spoke of all the work I have put into building and maintaining this new manner of living, it is still one of the most precious gifts I have ever been given. After.a few days clean, and I do have a few, as my friend Linda once chastised me when I would say that “ i am just a pup, in recovery,” I have to own the fact that it the number of days I have been clean, is turning into a significant number. It is quite easy to forget those days of my eminence front of being some sort of 90 day wonder with the program down pat. It is easy to forget those days, when every cell in my body screamed just for right now, get high, after all you are just an addict. It is easy to forget, just coming to “these classes,” to comply with a system set-up to punish my transgressions against civil society. All of that is heavy on my mind lately as if I was in danger of forgetting. Today, although more than certain which side of my bread is buttered, I still want to deny, rationalize and pretend, I am what I am not.
Ironically when I started writing these little ditties, it was an exercise in web development. It was my first full-blown application I wrote from start to finish, there was no notion in my mind that this would be something I would continue and when I go back occasionally and read those first entries, I wonder how i ever stayed clean. I did and I am still writing these, today, after more than a few days, and I write faithfully every day. This daily exercise helps me to bring what I read, into the here and now and walk this path today. I get to remember those times when I only played a recovering addict for my peers in the rooms. Today, I IS one and am walking away with the motto NEVER FORGET as I get on with another day of too much sun, too many stimuli and way too much good food.

∞ DT ∞