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i do not have to depend on others for my sustenance.
in those first few days after my first meeting, i got the notion that the fellowship and all of its members were here to give me what i thought i needed. i mistook mutual support and a “hand up” for a “hand out.” i had come to expect that if i needed anything, food, money, shelter, employment, friendship or companionship, that the members in the rooms, were somehow obligated to provide that for me. i had forgotten that sad fact of my life, until this morning that is, as i considered the behavior of more than a few hangers-on and edge dwellers, i have run across in my recovery. what in my head started to be all about them, has quickly turned out to be all about me and the leech-like creature that started coming around, way back when. i can also say this, when reflecting on my set of behaviors, i suffered form more than a few unmet expectations across the period that started at my very first meeting and lasted until i finally accepted the FIRST STEP and became a member. those fourteen months were full of self-seeking, self entitled bullsh!t on my part and if not for a legal consequence i was unwilling to face, i would have used and used hard, many times even after i got clean.
that was, however, then and now i am quite a bit better than that,. what that also means is i ma pretty good at spotting the exact same behavior in others and often come off as cold or uncaring. i know a leech: psychic. spiritual, emotional or physical, when i see one, because i was one, and could quickly become one again. i believe i am entitled to certain things such as the respect of my peers. just by walking into the room, everyone should be awed by my presence and rush to curry my favor. i get all sorts of butt-hurt when that does not happen in extreme cases. i got to witness that sort of behavior the other evening, when a “tourist” decided it was time to grace us with their presence. truthfully, i get that. i have time, i have worked steps and if i decided to curtail my attendance at meetings, i would expect my occasional appearances to be an event to be remembered. i would become dependent on the adoration or the masses to fill the empty spot within me. do not get me wrong, i have no idea what the motives or the feelings of someone else may or may not be. perhaps they just needed a meeting. i can HOWEVER say what my feelings and motives are, and when i am the least spiritually fit, i seem to require all sorts of huge doses of love, admiration and attention. i naturally pretend that i do NOT want to need that and find all sorts of spiritual principles to justify and rationalize my behavior, what my sponse likes to call spiritual camouflage. i have once again ୀattached” myself to a host to get sustenance. the good news, and there is a silver lining to this cloud of gloom and doom, is that i GET to see that in real-time, and explore it in the comfort of my daily inventory. the question that most often pops-up is why i feel i NEED to seek the approval and esteem of others? what is it that i am not getting from the POWER that fuels my recovery, or better put what i am i getting from that POWER that i am choosing to ignore? what i generally discover is that i am once again not paying attention to my life, stumbling through life half-asleep and forgetting where my source of everything truly is. for those who feel slighted by my behavior, work a step with a sponsor, it is not up to me, to provide you any nourishment or sustenance. FREEDOM for me, as the reading so plainly states, only comes from taking the initiative to be something more than a hanger on, dilettante, tourist or edge-dweller. it si a good day to give rather than receive and earn the esteem and respect i have come to believe i am deserving of, and that has to start from within me.

∞ DT ∞