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is certainly not my default behavior. it is not all that often that i **feel** okay using the exact title of a reading for my seed. this morning, it is quite appropriate and germane. i am not feeling all that “vulnerable”and i am pretty open about who and what i am, most of the time anyhow. i am, however, still more than a little prone to hiding my crap under a huge pile of spiritual camouflage. as a result, i am pretty good at spotting the same behavior in my peers. yeah but risking their vulnerability is what they need to do, today, even though i may have led wit a tasty bit about them, is certainly all about me.
whether it is a symptom of addiction, i was born with it or i was cultured into it, the fact remains that when i came to recovery, i was quite good at hiding everything i felt i needed to hide from the world. as my relationships had become zero-sum transactions and keeping everything i thought and felt on the serious down-low, the whole notion of letting anyone in, scared the living shit out me. “big boys keep their cards close to their chest, do not air their dirty laundry in public and never, ever let the bastards see you down.” the very first time i actually shared anything “real” in a meeting, i nearly pissed my pants. oh i shared lots before that. the slogans, the clichés and the bumper stickers. the one thing treatment taught me was how to sling together a whole lot of “recovery-like” language and look a whole lot better than i felt. treatment, reinforced the notions of hiding in plain sight, rather than teaching me how to open up. i do not blame the counselors as i was nowhere ready to be anywhere close to vulnerable, it is just a fact of my life that i still used after treatment and did my best to hide that fact from everyone except my dealer. that strategy allowed me to use but certainly not to recover or open up.
ironically, the eighteen months after i finally got clean, completed my IOP treatment, gave me just enough FAITH in the program, to finally open up to my new sponsor and learn how to be a bit more open to the groups. it was not as if an avalanche of vulnerability came over me, but the trickle that came as i started to thaw, led the way to becoming the person i am today. i am still more than a bit closed down, to say the least, but compared to how i was, one might see me as an open book. every time i decide to share something “real” rather than recovery patois, i still hear that old mantra, feel the FEAR in the pit of my soul and hesitate. i have to remind myself that what i have shared in meetings has not ended up on the front page of the Longmont Times-Call. the reality is, that outside of me, no one really seems to have the desire to trash me, or at least i have yet to catch anyone trashing me publicly about something i have risked sharing.
i may not be the warmest and most open person in the rooms today, and i am more than okay with that. i still possess my repertoire of crusty looks and more than a healthy smattering of cynicism and sarcasm, but i no longer make any of that my default behavior. today, i have a choice and that choice allows me the FREEDOM to be open and be okay with who i am right here and right now, just for today/

∞ DT ∞