Blog entry for:

new values and standards. i can no longer abide the personal and internal consequences of acting out. learning to live by my values, has become the easier, softer way of living for me.
first off, i am neither a wise sage, nor some sort of recovery guru, even though i love to project that image. the fact is, i am just another recovering addict doing this recovery gig, one minute at a time. what that means that on top of all my human flaws and assets, i also need to deal with the self-centered, self-obsessed nature of addiction. there are times when i wish it was different, but that is a fact of my lkife. no amount of repression, denial, or semantic JEDI mind tricks will change that reality. living in that reality is not as bad as i have made it sound and accepting what is a fact instead of trying to bury it, helps me to become a better person, one that can walk out into the world and is not driven to show everyone how well i am doing and demonstrating my tenuous hold on those things through through passive-aggressive public demonstrations. why do i bring that up? because it was who i certainly can be, on those less than spiritual days, when i am riddled with self-doubt and self-abasement. one of the biggest lessons of this time through the steps, is how much i am cut from the same cloth as my peers, no matter how arrogant, aloof or self-absorbed i want to be.
after a bit of a dive into something i saw at the meeting last night, i can see that there is certainly an element of jealousy or envy there, because i want to act in the same manner and the problem is, i am too fVcking well to allow myself to get away with it any more, dammit all❢ the fact that i can see in others, what i have come to see in myself is a symptom of ongoing spiritual growth. to understand what and why i feel something when looking at the behavior of others, is a gift and a curse at the same time, and comes down to me learning and implementing a new system of values, because of the steps. one thing that my smart phone diet challenge has done for me, is make me much more aware of what is going on during the meetings and what i feel about the content my peers choose to share. more and more, i am starting to hear unpleasant and uncomfortable truths about myself, through what they share and see how much i NEED to grow. oops, there i go again, off into the world of “negative” instead of embracing the positive side of life and attracting more positive things into my life, you know the “law of attraction:” as nice as it would be to believe this new age psychobabble bullsh!t, i just cannot. ignoring the things i find unpleasant in my life and myself, does not make them going away, many more than dwelling on them does. the fact that i classify my life into “positive” and “negative” binary buckets , means that i have stripped away the spectrum of my human experience. i become less human in my quest to attract more “positive” things into my life. ironic as that sounds, it gets even worse. by ignoring the “negative” aspects of my life, i actually become less well, because i get to believe that they will just magically vanish if i do not think about them.
so i take the steps, especially when i do not think they apply. i share my experience, strength and hope, even when i may suspect that it is not THE answer and i move through life on an ever upward journey, without feeling the needs to join in group worship or have someone else intercede for me, in my relationship with the POWER that fuels my recovery. i am good living in the deconstructed spiritual world, following a very structured spiritual path of growth, on my journey to becoming more of what i never could be, a whole and self-aware member of the human race. i do have a goal, beyond staying clean today, and it does not involve denial, rationalization or justification, because working towards that goal will not injure myself or anyone else, and that in and of itself is more than enough reason for this addict to persevere another day.

∞ DT ∞