Blog entry for:

that will make everything alright and sometimes that happens to be love and affection.
when i came to recovery, i had no idea what love was, how to love myself or anyone else or how to receive love. to say i was closed off is quite the understatement and quite honestly, back in those days, i saw nothing wrong with being that way. the story i told myself was that if i did not allow myself to be loved, i would never have to return that love and i would never be hurt again, as every attempt i made at a loving relationship ended in pain and suffering, MINE. getting clean, allowed me to actually hear that story consciously of the first time. as i my awareness level rose i was like: “MEH, so what,” being unloved was a consequence i believed i was willing to accept and i went blithely on my way, into my second set of steps. ironically, as i came to see self as worth something and began respecting who i was, i started to get the notion that maybe i was worth loving and maybe the risk of loving someone and allowing myself to be loved was an acceptable one.
the reading was not about how i came to love myself and although all of that backstory is interesting, what i heard this morning was all about how loving others and being loved, at least for me, was never the same as using others to fill some need of mine. i was never confused about my relationships after my last heartbreak, they were all about getting a physical need met, looking good with an attractive partner on my arm and sucking them spiritually and emotionally dry, before i moved on to taking my next hostage. that realization dawned on me at about thirteen months clean and the only thing that kept me from returning to those empty, one-sided relationships was the living amends i made in that first very shallow set of steps. that set of steps really did little to foster my recovery in general, but some very specific consequences of that step work was the stage was finally set for real spiritual growth as i had addressed many of the biog issues that prevented me from moving from mere abstinence to actual recovery. once i finally came to the program that is my home today, i could see that the series of relationships i had up until got clean were just part of feeding the beast of active addiction and that IF i wanted what i saw my peers achieving, i had to do some serious work on myself.
today, i may not do this relationship gig perfectly. i stumble into selfish and self-entitled behaviors at the drop of a hat. i close off my significant other of entire chunks of who i am and i tap dance around the questions she asks that make me uncomfortable. BUT, and it is a big one, i am much better at being open, loving and caring. i am much better at receiving and acknowledging love and i can empathize with those i wound in the course of being “just another addict.&$#8221; there is certainly a bit of HOPE for someone like me and just for today, i think i will cling to that HOPE and see if i can build it into a bit of FAITH, after all i do work a FAITH-based program today.

∞ DT ∞