Blog entry for:

transforming my life, even IF i did not think my life required transformation. unlike many of my peers, i was not of the school that my life sucked so badly that it needed to be fixed. ion fact, when i walked into the rooms, and for many days after i finally got clean, nearly all of my effort was in disproving the notion that i needed recovery in any sense of the word. i was not, after all, an addict, my life may have been a bit messy but it was a bit of a stretch to call it unmanageable, and i certainly was not “owned by dope,” in fact the drugs still did exactly what i wanted and needed them to do, right up to that last time i used. i was biding my time, until my next use and 12 steps were not going to change those “facts of my life.”
so as i start my 5TH round of steps, three of them in the fellowship that has become my home, i look back and see how ludicrous i was, back in the day. it would be nice to say i was blissfully ignorant, but i was willfully obstinate and comfortably settled behind my walls of denial. today, i can look back with 20./20 clarity and be certain that what i once thought of critical thinking was avid protection of my right to use. in fact, i was the only one, who seemed to not to grasp that addiction and not substances ruled my life and when i finally made that connection, everything else began to fall into place. it was not the substances nor the quitting that was the issue, it was that i needed a new manner of thinking and acting, and for me, that new manner came from the 12 STEP program that is my home today. i once said as a joke, a bad one, that many of my peers came into recovery the “easier, softer way,” as they were emotionally, spiritually, physically or materially bankrupt and had the gift of desperation. me, i was just in legal trouble and all i really needed was a better lawyer and to learn to shut the fVck up 😆 ❗
a bit of time and a few steps later,. i see what a messed up and misguided addict, i once was. it is true that my peers and the program “made” me an addict, in the sense that they finally opened my eyes to the reality of my life, how i was living that life, and what i believed i had the rights to do. their loving and far from gentle guidance yanked me out of time-boxed abstinence and into the world of living recovery, as i am of the firm belief that without recovery, one does not relapse and those first eighteen months, there was no recovery in my life, save from what i witnessed in the lives of others.
although it is fun to reminisce and recall those days of whine and roses, the fact is today, i do want to recover and after being clean for a bit of time, the question than becomes, how the fVck do i do that? listening to sponsor share yesterday, i got a clue, i work on becoming a whole and genuine me. it was weird to hear words that i have said about myself, come out of his mouth, as he was talking about himself. he has often said, that one of the the things that he likes about working with, is how parallel our recovery journeys seem to be. so as i am looking at how i live a program and moving it into my conscious thinking, i can see that it may be signalling that i really am, marching towards becoming a person who is whole and genuine. it may mean where once i paid lip service to spiritual principles, now i am implementing them in my daily life. where once, my behaviors provided “negative” examples for my peer, they may be starting to emulate the way i live my life. i may not have done everything wrong, across the course of my recovery, but i certainly did not do everything correctly. the result, however, is beyond arguing, as i am quite content to where i have gotten in my journey and looking at who i was and who i am, i can certainly see that i have been transformed, against my will at times, but certainly for the better. i am fairly certain of who and what i am today and grateful for the opportunity to walk this path another day clean.

∞ DT ∞