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of my past, no longer haunts me, as there is a step for that (the NINTH), i have been taken it. it is the wreckage of my recent past that i NEED to address these days. as on many days, the reading elicits a **me too** reaction. it has been my experience, through the process of working all twelve steps, with a sponsor, in the order they are written, that i have been able to remove the toxic waste that i generated as i walked through active addiction and my life in general. being a cheerleader here, while appropriate, does not provide a whole lot of “new” takes on my recovery today. so yes, a NINTH STEP is the perfect tool to remove my ties to the wreckage of my past, and to put it into perspective.
what i did “hear” this morning, as i was pondering this reading, was am i living a program that will facilitate a life without future NINTH steps? so after a brisk walk around the neighborhood, me the dawg came to the conclusion that what i DESIRE the most, is not FREEDOM from the wreckage of my past, but rather FREEDOM from creating any wreckage at all. what i DESIRE most is a transformation into the sort of person, who knows the precisely correct action, reaction and behavior to any event that touches my life. one certainly know the sort, the kind of person that is unflappable and makes Mother Theresa look like a slacker. i can state without any reservations that, that transformation is in process. as i look at my life these days, compared to those not so great “end of days,” in that August back in '97. oddly enough, i was getting ready to give this recovery gig a try, at least a more honest try, when i got to use twice within a thirty day period, and the second time led to my eventual life in recovery. i just had refused to accept that as a fact and if i had not so arrogantly ASSUMED 3 days was sufficient, even though i was dehydrated and had been camping, i am not sure what path my life would have taken. there is a chance that further down the road, i would have got honest with myself and volunteered to be in the rooms, but that choice was never given to me, due to the wreckage of what was then, my immediate past. those days, when i look back from the vantage point of a few days clean, certainly look as if they were the “best of times” at least through the lens of who i once was.
what i find these days, is that i am not any kind of “recovery saint” nor am i ever likely to be one. i could throw in the towel and say FVCK IT and stop working steps, believing this is as good as it is going to get. yes, i certainly could do that. i choose, however, to take a different path. just for today, i can be assertive, honest, kind and empathetic towards myself and certainly towards all of those people who happen to cross my path on my journey through this twenty-four hour slice of living. today, as i prepare to walk out into the real world, i can keep the image of the “recovery saint” in my mind and take active and conscious choice to emulate that image. i can also, be okay with myself for falling short of doing so, after all, and here it comes the biggest, juiciest rationalization of them all, i am only human! yeah, i know how trite and cliché that sounds, even though it is a fact of walking on two legs. today i GET to be a bit better than i was yesterday, if i choose to do so and be content that incremental progress, no matter how small is better than no progress at all.

∞ DT ∞