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on a slim hope of actually being able to do this recovery gig. once upon a time that was so freaking true, my FEAR of failing at this recovery program was greater than my FEAR of succeeding at it. basically, i was afraid that IF i succeeded at doing this gig for any length of time, i would become someone who was boring and without any intellect, merit or free-will. one of the greatest fears throughout my life, has always been becoming someone i am not and as i have always valued being able to apply critical thinking to any situation at hand, losing the ability to be more than another “sheeple” dominated my nightmares of what a program of recovery would do to me. as i sat and listened in anger and disbelief the other night, a notion wormed its way into my conscious mind and as i sat this morning, i finally became aware of what that notion was.the share the other night was “for the newcomer” as it was meant to demonstrate that even going down as far as one did, that they too, could get clean and stay clean.
one of the many things i found distasteful about the fellowship where i first did my recovery, was their insistence to dwell in the past. it was always about how bad their drinking was, how much damage they did and what the pit of misery they had dug for themselves looked like, BEFORE they got sober. as i stuck around there, i quickly got bored with hearing the same stuff time and again and realized that in reality i was not like those people. yeah, i continued to front that i was a member of that fellowship, but drinking was only a poor and socially acceptable substitute for what i really wanted to use. their insistence on sharing that part of the their stories was part of that tradition, and meant to foster HOPE that if they could come from that pit and end up here, so could i. it also was what was driving me away from any sort of recovery program, after all, what happened once one gets sober and starts to actually live a sober life? as grew more irritable and discontented with what i was not getting from those groups, i started to find, in the fellowship i now recover in, a sense of more and the HOPE that i can get more, be more and live life more fully. it was not the fault of the members of that fellowship that i could not accept what they were choosing to offer, it works for many thousands of members, it just was not working for me.
today, i still fear being turned into something i am not, BUT the evidence that i have accumulated over the course of time, seems to point to that possibility not being highly probable. if somehow i was going to become a non-thinking automaton, one would expect it to happen long before now. in fact that are bit and pieces of the “party line,” that i do not ascribe to, and am quite vocal in expressing my disagreement with it. that does not, in my mind separate me from my peers, nor make me any different, although at times, it does make my life in the fellowship a bit uncomfortable and unmanageable. for instance, just like the other night, as i squirmed internally, hoping that soon enough the speaker would move into how they lived their recovery.
this morning, i know that i often dwell in what seems a house of pain, stuck in the world between DESIRE and BALANCE. the fact of the matter is, i have a tendency to look at the darker shades of gray that are my life, rather than the lighter ones. the FEAR that i will become something i do not want to be has faded into the background noise, and now my biggest FEAR is that i will become irrelevant, in my fellowship, because i am too stuck in a paradigm that no one else seems to understand. with that in mind, i think i will hit the cold and snowy trail and join a few of my peers for breakfast and a meeting. it is a great day to be clean and even a better one, to look for something different, in myself and in the world i perceive around me.

∞ DT ∞