Blog entry for:

yes, learning to trust, especially for this addict, was a task i was dead set against. i knew how untrustworthy i was, in fact, i lied about my clean time for the first seven months i was in the fellowship and loudly protested that my last **hot** UA, was a false positive. during those months of deception, i came to believe that those in the rooms were just like me, and if i could lie and be comfortable about lying about my clean time, i was certain, that my peers could do so as well. when i finally got clean and came clean, my rat bastard of a sponsor insisted that i had to stand-up and take each token of clean time as it arrived for real. yes, i had to take a white key-tag, a 30 day, a 60 day, a 90 day and a 6 month tag, and had to do so at every group i attended that handed them out. the embarrassment i felt was the closest i ever got to being humiliated in recovery. my ginormous took a big blow in those next six months and i hid out in another fellowship and in groups where no one knew me, until i reached that six month mark for real. my ego-driven behavior, nearly killed me and if i had not been busted by yet another **hot** UA, i am quite certain that my little charade of recovery would have gone on and on, who knows, i might have even ended-up sponsoring others.
being a fraud and a sham, back in those days, one of the lies i tell myself is that person is still alive and kicking and he certainly is. the lie goes something like this, if i could deceive others about how much clean time i have, and do so fairly convincingly back in that day, what makes me think i cannot do so today. if i still have that ability, than of course i could partake of a little sumthin', sumthin' and keep my social standing in the local fellowship and no one would be the wiser, after all there are enough legal substances available that i would not even have to break the law. if i can go down that rabbit hole, and i am no different than my peers, how many of them are really clean and is there ant “real” recovery at all? how can i trust others who could, just as i do, justify and rationalize away their abstinence in twenty-five words or less? from out of the darkness, there must be some light, or i would not be clean for the days i actually do have today.
that ego-busting exercise taught me a whole lot about who i was and who i wanted to become. i did not realize that for another five years and in that time span, i learned to trust my peers and they taught me how to trust myself. i stay clean, day after day, by choice. i do not hide in another fellowship, because quite honestly i would end up dying over there, as i will never be able to be one of them and will dive through every loophole that is presented to me, i can hear it now, “DR, i have this chronic pain in my neck and am looking for an alternative pain management therapy.”
today, when i share my story, i always let others know abut my life in sham recovery and how i had to “get” honest with myself about who i was and what i wanted. my final conversion to becoming a member took another eighteen months and it was what this addict needed to foster the desire to have long-term recovery. when my spiritual path diverged from the norm over the past few years, i had to go back to that lesson and decide whether or not i could learn to tolerate the way some of my peers “bang their gongs,” of spiritual righteousness. in fact it often felt as if thousands of bees were stinging my soul at its worst and thousands of lady bugs were crawling over me at its best. what i had to learn was to trust that, no matter what path they were on spiritually, they were just like me and more than likely were oblivious to all their religious offerings were off-putting rather than unifying.
these days, well i get that i may not follow a path that is conducive to prayer, but i do not lord it over my peers, i quietly join with them in the one voice of the group without any reservations. i do not need to prove to my peers anything save that today, i can be trusted and that i trust them. if i choose to allow their religious rantings drive me from the fellowship, i will die and the hard won battle to get where i am today, will be lost.
with that in mind, i think it is time to shower, shave and hit the dusty trail, after all, someone has to keep the lights on.

∞ DT ∞