Blog entry for:

someone away, by being truthful about what life on its own terms, looks like, FOR REAL.
i can get on a soapbox on this topic. many of my peers seem to have this great FEAR of saying or doing something that may drive those on the margins, and the newest of the new away, from their chance to get clean and find recovery. no matter what, is certainly a great tag line and that is how i live my life. it so true, those on the margins may be looking for any excuse to run away from the rooms. they may see human frailties as hypocrisy and ongoing life problems of evidence that this way of life just does not work. i have heard it all, and when i was one of those on the margins, i fell into the same trap, including the one that “everyone there is judging the shite out of me!”
as i got closer to becoming a member and started to pull my head out of my a$$, i began to realize, the members who shared about what life looked like, in the here and now, had something i wanted. those that “shared for the newcomers” and always painted a rosy picture of how things ARE, because they were clean, were the members i avoided. i thought that as great as they sounded, no one could possibly have that sort of perfect life. the cynic, as always, was in high gear in those days and i wondered what would happen top those “bright and shiny” members when their oh so perfect lives. were attacked by a strong dose of reality. what i came to find out, is that many of them, just like me, always painted a better picture than what they were really feeling and what was happening in their lives. they downplayed their trials and tribulations and up-sold their victories and comforts. it was then, that i decided that IF i was going to stay clean, i would have to work on my need to “look” better than reality and when i shared, to bit of irony and hardship into what i shared.
i have gone through my phases, some days darker than others, but the last thing i want to do is to “scare someone away,” when they think that i am sharing a boatload of crap. i would rather be a bit darker than my peers, as that is who i am. i may no longer be strange and unusual, but i am still a cynical optimist, as oxymoron as that may sound. living life in recovery, at least for me, means that i am no spiritual guru, i have not cornered thew market on the TRUTH and i do not have a magic words or deeds that pulls those who are living in active addiction, out of that life. all i have is my experience, strength and hope, such as it is. i GET to be a better person that i was yesterday, just for today, IF i adapt my life to an active program of recovery.
today on my second to last paid day off, i feel better about those things i could not manipulate into the outcome i desired. i am okay being powerless over most everything that goes on in the world, as long as i remember that i need not give away my personal power in the one place that it really matters ⇛ my daily program of active recovery.

∞ DT ∞