Blog entry for:

it simple, in making amends and in living a life of active recovery. there was certainly a time in my recovery career, when i believed i walked through life and caused no one any harm. in fact, it was my contention at the time, that the lives of others were richer for my presence. of course, that was before i became a member and after i walked through my very limited first NINTH STEP. once i became a member and started to wake up and see what living in the present tense was all about, i was certain that i owed amends to every single soul, who i happened to brush by, after all i was a tornadic storm of self-will run riot, fed by an oversized ego. i fed both attitudes by creating an echo chamber of denial , rationalizations and justifications and when that started to collapse, i would ask my friends and peers, very carefully crafted questions, to get the answers i desired. i could then say well i asked…
these days, while far from perfect, i am grateful to have a TENTH STEP as part of my daily recovery routine. the part of me, that is obsessive and compulsive, latched on to daily recovery practices earl;y on, and i have maintained several of them for quite a few days in a row. that does not exempt me from tromping on the toes of others, but it certainly reduces the chances of me consciously doing so. i can no longer pretend that i “know” better than my peers, or that my notion of how to do things, is superior to theirs. i GET that i am not perfect these days, i also GET that i am not some sort of force for evil that corrupts all that it touches. as i learn to find balance between those competing visions of myself, i GET to find the means to become part of, instead of a “splitter,” who lacks the decency to allow others to find their place, without pulling the oxygen from their efforts, just because i was not part of something they created.
moving along to another topic that rand clearly in my head this morning. i heard one of my peers share about how they felt about the stuff one of the men i sponsor shared with me during his FIFTH STEP. i do not often get that sort of clarity, as the opportunity to hear both sides has never happened in the past. i am uncertain about where i am today, as i try and sort through my confusion about when where and why together. what i do know is that sitting on my hands last night, when i could have shared what i was feeling, was certainly the most spiritual path for this addict to follow. as a result, i owe no new amends to either party and i have the space to sort out my feelings as well. life has certainly become more than interesting these days and as i continue to stumble across ideas and situations that trigger a purely emotional and irrational response, i have to be careful that i do not behave as i was wont to do in the past. that i take a minute, listen for the guidance to act, and if i received none, then do absolutely nothing.

∞ DT ∞