Blog entry for:

balance in my life.
the reading this morning speaks of the lack of balance in my life is due to my inexperience with life without getting high and i do paraphrase, in case you are holding me to a higher standard. there comes a point in recovery, where this fact can no longer be true, especially as i approach the time in my life where i have been clean for as long as i used. that fact, as fortunate as it may be, removes an excuse for my life being unbalanced, especially considering i have been clean and in and around a 12 STEP program of over nineteen years. i no longer get to play the newcomer and pretend that i am a nut job, because i lack experience in living clean. in fact my life almost splits into thirds, before my first use, active addiction and recovery.
what i am not saying is that i am “cured.” i am not saying that my life is perfectly balanced and most importantly i am not saying that i am anything less, for still having a off-kilter sort of life. the fact is, it just is.i have peers who live their lives in a swirl of “ground hog day” sort of swirl, going through the cycle of pink cloud, rage and anger to depression. i tend to stay away from that sort of crazy and jokingly say the reason for that is that it may be contagious. i do not any sort of balance in their lives and the only notions i get in my head is: “man, i am so glad i do not have to be like that.” recovery has provided me the means to live life on a more even keel, and that was part of the joy of using, an evening out of my emotional state.
when i look back at that, i realize what i traded away for that state was hardly worth it and yes there is some regret. when i see what honest emotional balance looks like, in my peers and in myself, i wonder why it was not a desirable state in all those days of using and i know that is because i liked getting high and denied that the were any sort of consequences of doing the deed, day after day, for years on end. emotions were for the weak and feeble, as they lacked the capacity to enjoy the ride. what it really was, as i explode my mythos of using, is that i lacked the desire to weather the emotional storm of life on life's terms. it was me that was lacking the grit to face reality, not them lacking the desire to medicate themselves into a state of bliss.
the same is true in recovery. some of my peers, scatter their seed all over the place, running from this group to that, instead of creating an identity in a home group. i get that, as i have been there and done that, my efforts were all about service and my social life suffered as a result. i needed the validation i got from others to feel good about myself and service to my fellowship provided me the means to build up my self-esteem. no matter how many times i gratefully said thank you when someone expressed their gratitude for my service, i still felt that rush of being that much “better.” the rushing around and filling that “GOD” shaped hole with service, kept me sick and did not allow me ever to shift form extremes and into a bit more balanced way of living. in fact, i was so in denial about who and what i was, it was not until my FOURTH round of 12 STEPS, that i finally came to see that my identity as a person was tied up into what i think i needed to do for my fellowship. this balance was achieved by letting go of who i thought i was and what i thought i NEEDED to survive. so i get when the ground hog day crazies share at every single meeting, i was there and even though what i said was expressed in quite different terms, i was no different, i sought attention and some sort of reaction.
today i am reliable, as in when i say i am going to so something i do it. i keep my opinions to myself and i have learned to keep my phone in my pocket during the meetings. i no longer need to distract myself by doing all the right things for all of the wrong reasons and i do not say what i think a piece of literature says, instead of reading it out loud. i believe that there are a few absolutes and one of those is what is written down. i may argue about what the words mean, but i can never dispute what is on the printed page. anyhow it is time to get rolling on down for my last few days as an employee of my former masters and see what i can get done that does not cause pain, suffering or any sort of harm. yes i have some very strong feelings about how this all came down, but Monday is a brand new chapter and i need not carry this garbage into that world.

∞ DT ∞