Blog entry for:

matter why i am here and i am grateful for that, as i did not come to get clean, or find a new way of life. i can that without a doubt, when i first came to a meeting i could feign desperation, but did not believe i felt any. in fact the first few meetings i went to, set me on a course that led to jail, the halfway house, inpatient treatment and monitored abstinence, and oh yeah., pretending i had clean time and the desire to stay clean. someone who has been doing the deal however, needs to be called out:

Jon P
Congrats on 365 'Just For Todays' in a row!
You my friend are a bad ass.
Keep coming back.

i added those sad facts of life to the top of this post, because i am now one of those who is quite happy to cast the first stone. i forget that the members who were here, whether they detected me as a fraud or not, were nothing but kind and welcoming to me.all i wanted out of recovery is a path out of the legal entanglements i created and what i got was so much more. as i start to feel my way into this 1ST STEP, i am awakening to the fact that maybe there is a bit more to this recovery gig, than another day clean. what this is all coming down to this morning, is the echoes of a conversation i had with one of my peers last night. the evidence seems that someone in their life, is being lying, even when the facts are presented. they were visibly upset by the fact that the behavior of others is affecting the manner in which they can serve our fellowship, and those others continue to make it out as if they are the innocent bystander in all of this. i get that, after all, i was a victim in so many ways when i got clean and i let everyone who happened to be within earshot know how terrible this life was treating me. even with my unwillingness to stay clean, be honest, open-minded or willing, no one told me to stop coming around, so i kept coming, after all, i knew that if i hung with my using buddies i would be talking a trip “down south,” for the remainder of my sentence, as i would have surely used like i always did. ironically, here i am with a few days under my belt, the one addict that everyone seemed to doubt would stay clean, still doing this gig day after day, i kept coming back.
all of that is well and good. a few days clean does give me a bit of grace, but i cannot, as i have heard it said many times before, stay clean on yesterday's recovery. this addict needs the social interaction that i can only get from the peeps who get me, when the other 85% thinks i am insane. i am no longer a victim, but i still like to play one from time to time. familiar patterns are difficult for this addict to step out of, which is part of the reason i have a huge number of sponsees and i am looking at where i am powerless in the spiritual realm. part of my conversation last night, touched on this notion, not the powerless part, the consequences of not making conscious choices on my spiritual path, as i do in the material world.there are those in my life, with whom i have finally established very strong and definitive boundaries, i too, will not tolerate a liar any more. lying by omission, is something i do very well, you know familiar patterns ⇛ breaking free, so i am often quite capable of detecting it in others. some of the time, i let it slide, especially when i am doing my best to allow them to find a place in the fellowship. other times i make inject an aside, to let them know that perhaps they have been busted. those i care about the most, i nail to the wall, i guess it is true, you only hurt the ones you love. is this a spiritual practice that i lack any power over? one would think not, as there are varying degrees of how i behave and escalate a situation. there is also my rush to judgement, as in, if they are choosing to lie about this, how deep does their dishonesty really go, and are they worthy of my time? you see, even after a day or three clean, i am still a status monger and do my bets to rate everyone on the basis of worth, although m,y coin these days is more intangible than when i walked into the rooms. perhaps that “tourist” with decades clean, really does need someone to talk to and i am such a sh!t that i ignore their cries for help. or maybe i am right all along, they are just there to get their praise and be the big person on campus. it does not matter, my judgements, even as to the relative value of those humans in my life, seems to be something i do have power over and perhaps this is the opening i need into the assignment my sponse suggested six or eight weeks ago. i just may have found the solution to what i need to keep coming back and coming back clean, just for today!

∞ DT ∞