Blog entry for:

into right thinking, by doing something different.
welcome to my sixth decade on this particular rock. when my sponse and i speak of things beyond the normal pale, he often reminds me that it is not the POWER that fuels my recovery that provides for my material well-being, it is the accident of my birth, in both time and space. that part resonates with me, and it is a notion i am carrying forward into this round of steps. i am grateful and more than a little perplexed that i have survived and yes thrived from time to time, for so long. people who did what i did, usually never make it into their fourth decade on this side of the grass, and that was when i started my journey in recovery. was there a POWER protecting me all those years? that is a question that i choose to leave in the mystery category, as the answer to “why and how” i survived active addiction, is one that i really do not care about, at least just for today. the fact is, i was not in jail 20 years ago today, and i was not quite ready to enter recovery, there was another five months to go, before i would get clean and another two years before i would become a member, and yet here i am at sixty, clean, and actually quite content with where i am in my life. there certainly is more work to do and part of that work is moving beyond what i do, just because i have always done it that way.
living my life by default was something i did for quite some time. even in recovery, i allowed everything and everyone to make choices for me, pleading about how fVcking powerless i was and whining about outcomes, over which i had relinquished my control over. dammit all, of course the IRS is going to come looking for me, if i do not file my taxes. of course bill collectors will chase me down, if i do not meet my payments. of course, my work will dry up and bl;ow away, unless i pound the streets seeking new opportunities, when i am the owner and sole employee of a business. moving beyond living in a default mode, has been tough, truthfully, i seriously hate taking responsibility for anything, even for my recovery, so doing what i have always done, is certainly the easier softer way.
okay back to this, now that part of what i need to do today is complete.
how does any of this reflect the nature of the reading? when i got clean i was told to pray twice each an every day to GOD, work steps with a sponsor, read the literature and go to a meeting every day, for at least the first ninety days, go to meetings daily that is, the rest needed to become my “recovery ritual.” i make the same suggestions to my peers, and the FNGs, as well. those suggestions, no matter how foreign they were to me, did the trick and kept me clean for long enough that the desire to use was LIFTED FROM ME. i am obsessive-compulsive enough, that those very things that got me clean, hare part and parcel of what i do every single day, with the exception of a few more things that come further down in the the steps. today, as i start my journey through another round of steps the time to look at what i have always done and consciously CHOOSE to continue to do them, is where i am today. what that does not mean for me, is that i just stop doing all that i have done, and see where that gets me. back in the day, i always threw “baby out with the bathwater!” today, i am more deliberate and certainly more considering of whether or not i really want to play that game ➲ let me see what doing nothing will get me! there is a more balanced solution and looking at each aspect as i journey through the steps. is going to be an interesting exercise. prayer and the will of the POWER that fuels my recovery, are certainly going to need a bit of refining, but as always, planning my journey, instead of letting it unfold, leads me down spiritually dead-end cul-de-sac.
60Th birthday, Easter Sunday and all, still need to remember those dark nights when i was missing Comet Hale-Bopp at its brightest, as i sat as a guest of the Boulder County Sheriff's Department, in the well-appointed bed and breakfast. all i had to do was not get caught using and the one thing i could NOT do was to stop using. today i have a life, a spiritual path and the ways and means to allow myself to be transformed into something i never believed was possible. today, i can stop doing what i always did, and act in a different manner, even if it feels unnatural or just plain crazy. after all, someone like me, is really something, when i can not use, day in and day out and not be miserable about it.
so thank you for all your birthday wishes and rest assured, not allowing one to post on their wall on FaceBook, is not meant as a slight or insult, it just is.

∞ DT ∞