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well that certainly is a slap in the fact this morning, as that is exactly what i have been feeling and have been unwilling to admit, even to myself. i am feeling **so special** that maybe, just maybe i need to move along to something else, whatever that may be. i often wondered back in the day, why i saw so few members with twenty or more years clean. i believed, wrongly at the time, that the local fellowship was too “new” to have members with that much clean-time. i discovered, over the course of time, that some of them were hanging out in other fellowships, for one reason or another. doing the math, however, even that did not add up and my question became where are the rest of them? not that i have become one of them, i am beginning to feel that, maybe i have been around “too long” and that the fellowship is no longer providing this addict what he needs to stay clean. i am becoming “special” and my growing DESIRE to be somewhere else, is part of my “growth process.” nice work when one can get it and quite the juicy rationalization.
the readings over the past few days, have been revealing to me and certainly are forcing me to look at why i stay, especially this morning. when i live in a state of denial, i can certainly find what is wrong with everyone else, but i do not look at what may be wrong with me. denial has been the enemy of my recovery since that very first meeting, way back when, and even though my life is firmly entrenched in the fellowship, i still look for the ways and means to prove that i am a “special” case and disqualify myself from being a part of that fellowship. the desire to stay clean has been a part of me for so long, that i simply forget what it it was once like, to be ruled by the desire to use. i now get why some of my peers identify so strongly with the newest members. that does not mean a major paradigm shift for me, but it does mean that i need to find a way to battle my DESIRE for something newer, brighter and shinier in my life. surrendering to that fact and admitting i am powerless is certainly a good step to take. life in recovery, or at least my life in recovery, lacks the drama, trauma and chaos of my early recovery and it is so freaking easy for me to forget those battles i fought, those windmills i tilted at and the crushing affect of my desire to use. just for today? well. just for today, i will find a bit of gratitude for what i have been given and get my a$$ out of the self-pity mode. life is good, and my life is a whole lot better than i could ever imagine. remembering that fact, will get me through another day clean and it is BECAUSE of the fellowship and not despite it, that i am clean today and can muse about the “what-ifs.”

∞ DT ∞