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has never been enough for me. as i sit in meeting after meeting, sometimes actually hearing what is being shared by my peers, i get a sense that maybe, just maybe, i have more determination and lived far more than desperately, than i once believed. it is true that i have an issue or two with calling addiction an illness or disease, but that is simply semantics. i have come to see that as an addict, i am different from those who certainly are not addicts. i have come to a place where i use the words illness and disease, when i share in meetings, just so i can bring a clear, concise and unified message of recovery. i also know that for me anyhow, living clean means more than just not using.
lately i have been observing that many modern day conservatives seem to have a very thin skin and that they melt like snowflakes under the heat of any sort of criticism. they seem to think that futile lawsuits against the “left-wing technocrat conspiracy,” somehow brings them a shiny sheen of legitimacy, when all it does is make them look ever more ludicrous and idiotic. i use that as an example of my own reactions to when my peers use the terms “sober” and “sobriety.” i forget that when i was noodling around with the notion of where my temporary shelter from the ravages of active addiction might be, i used both those terms quite liberally, regardless of where i was sitting at the time.i hate to admit that i am certainly a snowflake in this regard and i want to take each and every one of them aside and pound into realizing that “it is time to learn the language of recovery and forget the language your rehab taught you.” as a result, i often sit in petulant silence, biding my time and being quite certain that when the opportunity arises i will be able to issue forth with my “correction.”
that brings me back to the choice of words i use to describe addiction and why when i share i use the terms: illness and disease, even though i have more than a few issues with them. the fact is, when i go off on my personal opinions about what language to use, i create confusion. i know that when i was newly clean i was confused enough to believe that i needed at least two 12 step paths to recovery. i had to learn that one fellowship was all i needed, regardless of what substance or behavior was making my life unmanageable. my job these days, is to give my newest peers, the same opportunity, no matter what words they use to describe their recovery and when i get the opportunity, allow myself to share my experience, strength and hope about how i felt way back when i was in their situation: head full of treatment, body empty of drugs for the better part of most months and complying with external forces to get the storm that was my life to subside. i di not become a card-carrying member all at once, why should i expect anyone else to do so? it is however, time to make the doughnuts and i am quite certain a great day to live a life of recovery, just for today.

∞ DT ∞