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back to becoming a productive member of society, actually did start with serving the fellowship that has become my home. the questions that come up for me time and again seem to center on why do i stay and am i really serving the fellowship by doing so. this morning, those same concerns popped off the stack and were front and center, once again. my little bouts of false humility, are symptomatic of those questions, after all, my local fellowship is not jammed packed with members that have decades clean. i want to fit in and belong, even though fitting in and belonging are not two desires that come naturally to me. most of my recovery journey, has been about being different, maintaining my individual style and walking a path less taken. with all of that in the background, however, i get to a place where i do not want to bring attention to the fact that i have decades clean. what this little bit of cognitive dissonance has brought to my life, is an aversion to sharing about where my recovery path is today, because i “think” that most of my peers, will just not get it.
it is true, that what makes my life unmanageable today, is not the use of substances or unaddressed addiction. from all appearances my life is as “normal” as that of most “white bread” society. i have a mortgage, credit cards, a car, a job and political and social views, that have been accumulated across the course of my recovery,. i know who i am, for the most part and through tolerating myself in the early days, have grown to accept and yes esteem myself. i am worth more than i ever believed i could be and have learned to allow myself to love and be loved. when i share “my stuff,” it is far more centered on what it means to live a program of recovery after decades clean, rather than what i meant to get and stay clean, back in the day. what i face on a daily basis, may pale in comparison to what the newest members are facing, hence i choose not to share, most of the time. when i do share, i throw in more a tidbit or two of false humility. my motives for doing so, is my attempt to minimize that distance, even though for the most part, it rings and false and hollow. in that case, exactly who am i serving?
what i am walking away with this morning, is that to be of service, i NEED to be true to myself and share without the trappings of false humility, what exactly is going on in my life. the newest of the new? well, my HOPE is that they will see that this journey does not need to end, just because one achieves a certain number of days clean, and that once my concerns, matched theirs. time to go make the donuts!

∞ DT ∞