Blog entry for:

had feelings of shame and remorse about my past. i have learned what to do with them, because my peers with more time, gave me the direction, based on their experience, of how to put them into their proper perspective. their kindness in helping me, is what i hope to give to others, as i allow them the freedom to express their shame and remorse.
for me, not every trip down memory lane evokes strong feelings of joy, happiness and that warm nostalgic feeling i get when i think about the “good old days.” lately as i have noticed the old man staring back at me from my mirror and i often wonder where the hell that twenty or thirty something guy disappeared to. it is not as if i do not know the answer to that question, but the story i like to tell myself is that somehow, if things were only different i could have or would have… honestly, i tell myself that story, because i do not want to admit that i willingly gave away my youth to a crack pipe and a bong. as powerless as i am and was over addiction, i CHOSE to keep using, by feeding the story that i believed would protect me from all harm. i had the right to use and i exercised that right on a daily basis, with little or no regard for the consequences. as true as it may be that i enjoyed getting high, i still needed a story to justify using the way i did.
when i sit with one of my peers and they begin to express remorse and shame over how they misspent a chunk of their life in active addiction, i have the experience to guide them to the place, where they too, can see that what once was, was and what is, is. they can, like me choose to wallow in the ocean of tears created by self-pity, as i did for quite some time, or they too can choose to look at it as an opportunity to give something to someone else, their own experience, strength and hope.
for me, moving out of the self-pitiful blame game, is a task i have to do on a regular basis i am far from being secure and over my past, but i do have the path to finding that acceptance. that path starts with blowing up the stories i have crafted into a belief structure that still exists to this day. it is true that most of that structure has been destroyed, blown up and otherwise dismantled. there are still, however, more than enough ruins of that structure still visible in my life. not unlike an ancient Greek temple that the Turks never finished razing to the ground. those foundations got me through twenty-five years of using and my expectations that after twenty-one years of recovery, somehow they would be gone, seem less and less realistic on a daily basis. what i am learning is what to do, when i trip over one of those stones and fall into a bout of remorse and shame. what i am learning is that old man who stares back at me in the mirror, is the best man he can be today, as long as just for today, he does not pick-up. life on this side of the grass may be challenging, but it is something i can work with, just for today.

∞ DT ∞