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i probably would have never have embarked on any sort of spiritual journey. learning to be grateful for being an addict, is not something that i ever looked forward to. as a matter of fact, most of the time i am not all that thrilled about being an addict and what addiction does to me and my life. ever since i finally let go of being a victim of addiction, i find myself, smack dab in the middle of being all sorts of grateful for addiction and heinously hateful towards addiction. this morning, while i am not jumping for joy at being an addict and filled to the brim with gratitude, there is a certain comfort knowing that for this addict, it is the recovery FROM active addiction that i am grateful for, not the circumstances that dragged my unwilling and stubborn self into the rooms of recovery. i hear many of m,y peers share on this topic and use the term “gratefully recovering addict,” to qualify themselves, and i wonder just what do they mean? this morning, i am not willing to cast motives on why they say that stuff, i do know why i do not.
it is not that i am ungrateful for what recovery has brought into my life: physically, emotionally, materially and spiritually. in fact, it is more than likely true, that had i not found recovery, by any means necessary, i would probably not have any sort of future to live for today. i often play a “It's A Wonderful Life,” in my head when i think of where i may have been, if i had gone out when my number was satisfied, instead of sticking around to see what would come next. there are plenty of examples of what may have been true for me, that come in and out of the rooms, as part of their journeys. using their experience as a template of what might have been, my little exercise of projecting an alternate life path for myself never seems very bright and cheery, in fact, for the most part it turns out dark, dank and downright gloomy. when that little exercise ends, i often am filled with more gratitude than before, but there is a nagging feeling in the back of my skull, what if i am making the story fit the worst possible outcome, and ignoring that something else may have turned my life around, other than recovery. nothing comes for free for this addict. 🤕
the odd fact is, i was not spiritual and quite anti-religious when i came to recovery. over the course of the days i have been clean, i have found THE path to my enlightenment, one that i noodled around with for over a decade, but never could accept on any real level. recovery gave me the courage to finally say enough and accept what i always seemed to know in my heart, that i had a spiritual path and that i did not need to conform to the path that anyone else, chose to follow. that little fact, in and of itself, makes me see that maybe, being an addict, as awful as it may be, may not be such a bad thing after all. at least for right here and right now.

∞ DT ∞