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i was very good at lying to myself, as long as i did not tick check all of those boxes that defined what i thought an addict was, i was good to go. i was free and certain that all my decisions, including the decision to use, every single day, came form my free will and not because i was enslaved by my active addiction. in fact, it was not until i came to my very first meeting that i even thought i had a drug problem. using the word **addict** in court proceedings was one of the biggest lies i told myself: “i am not really a drug addict, but if i tell the court that i am, maybe, just maybe…” of course my ploy worked and i truly believed that in less than two years i would be back to my old life, or even better, that i could use at will, as long as i kept track of the days. i chose the never stopping alternative to begin with and before i was clever enough to count, i ended up in jail. never did i suspect that i lacked the ability to stop using through sheer willpower alone. i had to learn to be smarter than my oppressors and choose better substances and timings to continue life in the manner i was accustomed to living. that worked for nearly ninety days and then like all my best laid plans to “protect” using, that too was stripped from me and the threat of greater consequences made me change into a life of abstinence, grudgingly and with more than a few HUGE reservations, the first one being, i was not really an addict, of any sort and drugs did not own me.
as i write form this vantage point, i can still hear the echoes of those first days in forced abstinence, ringing in my head all about how i was a victim and someday, someone was going to pay the price for forcing me into a lifestyle i did not desire. with that sort of chip on my shoulder, the fact that i believed i had to look better that i was doing and distaste for all things religious, i quickly learned to “all spiritual,” when in fact, on the inside i vomited every time i used the word GOD.
ah, but i was such a good actor, i began to believe my own spiel, and what once was an alien influence upon me, namely my first sponsor's concept of a HIGHER POWER, became part and parcel of who i was, even though there was a deep and nagging feeling that i was surrendering a part of me. just to conform to the wishes of my peers. that feeling ebbed and flowed and when i finally came to the place where i could admit i was an addict, i was soon entrenched in that notion, that when my second sponsor suggested that i had the ultimate right to find a HIGHER POWER that fit, i made mine look more like his. that help relieve my anxiety and trepidation over what GOD should look like, be like and act like. what i discovered, as i stayed clean and started to work with my third sponsor was that nagging feeling was the truth and i needed to start a journey to find a HIGHER POWER that fit me. that process took over a decade and today, when asked about GOD, i simply state GOD is GOD and can leave it at that. all of the angst and disgust i once felt has been removed and i acknowledge that only a POWER greater than myself can relieve me of my NEED to use. that growing dependence, or at least my acknowledgement of that dependence allows me the freedom today to be better that i ever was.

∞ DT ∞