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i often say that i was **sentenced** to recovery and that my membership only came after eighteen months of suffering the slings and arrows of self-sponsorship and fellowship-hopping. that is, without a doubt a true fact, no alternate reality here. what i often neglect to add to the story, is even though i was not wholly sold on this recovery gig, i still stuck around enough to grow a connection or two, to members who were in for the long run. it may have been the outward signs of material success that attracted me in the first place, but it was their balance that kept me coming back. it seems that even when i was using and thrived in the chaos of the using life, i was still seeking balance, and substances gave me the illusion of just that.
reworking that sad story into something glorious and full of gratitude is not something i choose to do this morning, the fact of the matter is that i wanted to be in recovery, just about as much as i wanted to return to using, and the balance i achieved between staying and leaving, allowed me the freedom to reach that jumping off point.
i can be nostalgic and i can be care-free and lackadaisical, but today i savor my recovery and am quite certain that the path i took to get here was the path i needed to take. i had to grow enough desire to seek a new way to achieve the balance in my life, that had always eluded me. ironically it took another sixteen years before i started to get what most attracted me to the fellowship, all those days ago and kept me coming back. i could have stayed in a fellowship that emphasized being abstinent from a single substance, i would not have been clean, especially since one leg of my “holy trinity” became legal. life in recovery, balanced or not, does not mean that i live without a bump or two in the road. sure if i wanted to, i could fill this with all sorts of “stories” about how awful my life once was, and how wonderful it is today. that would be just that, a story to look a whole lot better than i am.
materially i am certainly better off than when i arrived. physically i am better off that when i arrived. emotionally and spiritually as well. have i “arrived” at some state of advanced recovery where the stuff that worked back in the day, can be safely discarded? what i get as an answer when i ponder those questions, is a “well…” based on what i have seen, the answer is a resounding NO!if i want to keep what i have, i not only have to keep giving it away, i have to work on building it. yeah i know, a bit cliché and sometimes that just works. i am grateful that i was not one of those that got “struck clean” and needed to suffer through the FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT that filled my early recovery and colored my recovery for quite some time. that experience makes what i have today, all that more precious. i need, however to get a walk in before my first meeting and although i may have more to say, for right now i can say that FREEDOM is more than enough, that of course may change, but for right now, i think i will go with that notion.

∞ DT ∞