Blog entry for:

my commitment is to do those things that have kept me clean up until now. i know that i will have feelings, in fact i am having one right now. i also know that whatever the feeling it will pass. i would love to have peaceful and pleasant feelings last forever, and the destructive and painful feelings last microseconds but i am not in charge of my feelings anymore.
when i am in the active phase of my addiction, i do whatever i can to either prolong what i am feeling or change it. when i was using, that came down to looking in my pharmacopoeia for that specific substance that would have the desired effect. today i look into my bag of behaviors and see which one will do the trick. either way i am caving into my disease and doing exactly what it tells me to do.
the reading this morning spoke to me on a different level. what i heard was that my recovery needs to be cherished and nourished, no matter what i happen to be feeling in this moment, this day, this week, this month or even this year. i am powerless over what i feel, i do however have power over how i respond to my feelings. i have been given choices today and am not some automaton that is hard-wired to react to certain stimuli.
the big caveat is that i have not always had choices, my disease tells me in its insidious ways that i can fix myself and change the way i feel. my program of recovery counters those whispers by gently reminding me that all feelings pass of their own accord, as long as i keep practicing the spiritual principles i have been taught. and do those things that keep connected to others in the program, you know, go to meetings, work the steps, talk to another recovering addict, maintain my connection to the divine and DO NOT USE -- NO MATTER WHAT! simply put, the only way i will maintain my freedom to choose!
∞ DT ∞