Blog entry for:

to get on with my life, famous last words and ones that i have an entirely different take on, this morning. so it would be quite easy for me to go down the road of what my peers have done and said across the course of my recovery. the reading speaks of the nuclear fallout option, that many have seen, but fails to address those who walk away and do not end up in active addiction. unfortunately, i do not have much experience with those who thrive after deciding the program and all its trappings is not for them anymore. i, at least just for today, can give those former members the benefit of the doubt, that they found what they needed outside of the fellowship and its recovery program and are doing their lives in a manner that does not require the constant vigilance of 12 STEP recovery based programs.however, ironically, one of my peers, who has decided to stick it out needs a shout-out today

Brenda E,
Congrats on twenty-seven (27) years clean.
Thank you for deciding to stick around.
Yes it is quite true, we do recover and your recovery proves it!

i remember, when i was in treatment, my counselor told me the best i could ever hope for was longer and longer periods of clean-time, punctuated with shorter and shorter periods of using. that prophecy marked the four months after “graduating” from treatment up until the day i finally stopped using. she seemed to sense that no matter how well i complied, no matter how well i adopted the language of recovery and no matter how good i looked, i was still not done. ironically, these days as i look back on that exchange, i am more than certain there was a caveat and some context to that statement that i chose to ignore way back then and do not remember today, as i am certain that an addiction counselor would not tell a client that he was doomed to failure. that was then and this however is now.
today, i know the life i have been given and choose to live, is BECAUSE i choose to stay clean today. i could not hold down a job, finish any project, get an education, own anything, build a credit score, or even maintain any sort of personal relationships that were not based on blood ties. that life, is a distant memory to me these days, but it was my reality and not so surprisingly a reality i accepted based on what i would have to give up to fix any or all of those conditions. that life, as empty and dull as it seems today, was all i knew and i had come to the place where i thought it would be all that i would ever know. the forces that be, had something different in mind for me, and while many of my peers talk about “miraculous interventions” in their lives, i see my intervention as inevitable as sooner or later my luck would run out and it did on that night in April 1996. yes it was another eighteen months until i got clean. yes i was ratted out by the primary participant in the whole affair,. and yes, today i am grateful for all it took to get to that point. my life, such as it is, is an incredible gift and i often how i can make up for all the time i wasted in active addiction.the first solution always comes back to well, maybe a little less vigilance and diligence and i would have more time for&8230;
getting on with my life, right here and right now, means wrapping this up and heading out the door to get lunch materials for the upcoming week. it means working on my web app to have one more development project to put on my resume. it means being okay spending 30 minutes a day in quiet contemplation, because the results are evident as i walk through my day. it means embracing what i have and letting go what i do not. most of all., it means being awake and present for what comes down the pike and grabbing those opportunities i they become available, just for today.

∞ DT ∞