Blog entry for:

of recovery while nurturing their true source. it is true in my brief recovery experience that social acceptability does not equal recovery. i have also found it to be true, that clean time does not equal recovery. while clean-time id necessary for recovery, it is, on its own, hardly sufficient, to foster recovery, i have found there has to be something more and for me, that more has been in learning to live the program in my daily life. as i have said in the past, i truly loathe the term “practice” when it applies to living a program. i would advocate for a change of the TWELFTH STEP to say and LIVE these principles in all of our affairs, but i will accept what is written and move along, in fact:

Wayne,
THIRTEEN (13) years of Just for Today.
Way to go my friend. Keep Coming back.

a nice break, in many ways, as it got me off pounding out a piece about the biggest loophole i see in my program today, using the word practice to justify my less than stellar application of spiritual principles in my life. i will leave it at that and move into another one of my favorite topics, looking good versus doing well.
i am more than certain, that my life more closely resembles the lives of the other 85%, than it ever has. in fact, the longer i stay clean, the more my life looks “normal.” i go to work, i pay my bills, i take on debt, i keep up with the Joneses, i shower, i shave and i wear clean clothes. in my life, all of that started manifesting not too long after i got clean. even while i was trying to disqualify myself from recovery, the mere fact of going through the motions to look good, wrought some changes in my life that were more than unexpected and quite welcome. in those days, i was just practicing, practicing at how to do the bare minimum and achieve maximum results. when it came down to a half-life of dual fellowships with an expiration date OR finding a way out of the internal misery, i seemed doomed to carry with me, forever, i made a choice. that choice was to pick a fellowship, work steps and accept that if i want to keep building the sort of life i saw my peers having, than i would have to do what they did, namely the TWELVE STEPS. i can tell you that there have been many times, in a painful moments, when i regret that decision, BUT overall, i am grateful i finally made a commitment to myself that i still honor today.
in my daily life, i do my utmost best to LIVE the program i have been given, not merely apply or practice it. the distinction is in my head only,. i often judge the level of effort others put into their recovery and evaluate their results. to say anything less, would be a lie. as i weigh what i see and i make the changes in my program to achieve what i think i DESIRE. what starts to happen, is my program takes on aspects of the programs of my peers and my life begins to resemble theirs, for better or worse. most of the time, if i want to change something for the better, than i need to put in the footwork. today, i do my best to live an active program of recovery and live up to what social acceptability seems to mean. that being said, the time has come to shuffle off to work and see if i can give my employers their money's worth, it is a good day to live as if i was a member of that other 85%, clean, and a productive member of society.

∞ DT ∞