Blog entry for:

what behavior may be appropriate in any given situation is a notion i have been working on since i finally became a member. well that is not exactly true, i may not have **known** how to behave, but i was smart and observant enough to emulate the behavior of others. part of my gig when using was always doing what i needed to do, to get what i needed, which included behaving as i saw those in the group doing. this “survival” skill, is more than likely why i am still clean today, as by emulating the behavior i saw in my peers, i grew the DESIRE to live a program of active recovery. weird as that may seem, it is certainly a notion that is reflected in our literature; “acting my way into better thinking.”
as i sat and listened this morning, i drifted off to more than a few different directions. i now know where my peer got the notion that they do not need to change, as they are “perfect”, because GOD “made” them this way. well, they probably had that notion before, and the reading this morning reinforced it with the very words they use to share about it. i am grateful that once upon a time, i was finally desperate enough to accept that i have been “created” exactly as i was meant to be, but living in active addiction certainly corrupted that perfection and needs to be restored to the state of being the person i was created to be. for me, the process of removing the changes wrought by active addiction, is still on-going and certainly does not need to be hindered by my faulty belief system build on denial, fear and dishonesty. i often wonder why some of my peers, share the exact same thing time and again and i have to go back to where i once was, when “bumper stickers” were all i had to offer as well. back in those days, it really was all i had to offer, as i was stagnant and resistant to change, after all i had more clean time than most of my peers, so i must have known what i was doing. what a laugh, i was delusional and the stories i told myself were based in that delusion, rather than reality.
another tangent that i shot down was a reflection of who has shown up in my life lately and how i am interacting with them in the here and now. due to where i choose to serve the fellowship that has given me this new manner of living, i end up interacting with some very interesting people. it seems a fact that many of the men i see in custody are not only addicts but have actual mental illness, that can only be treated with a cocktail of medications. a quick step up onto my soapbox. it is my contention that society in general is over-medicated by a mental health agenda pushed by BIG PHARMA. addict especially are prone to being pushed into medicating away the symptoms of early recovery and carry the diagnosis of mental health issues because their therapists and counselors have been indoctrinated into seeking a chemical cure for any and all behaviors, feeling and thought patterns that fall outside of some arbitrary norm. that being said, it seems that i attract those addicts who have REAL mental health issues that actually require chemical intervention. i know this because as i have developed a relationship with them, i have seen them in their medicated and unmedicated state. i have heard the delusional fantasies of their paranoid fears and cringed at how they saw the so-called real world. where once i would have run, i have learned to gently push them back towards talking to their mental health professionals.
where did all of those seemingly divergent tracks leave me this morning? that is an interesting question. what i feel now, after dumping what i heard is more than a small dose of gratitude for the life that i have built since becoming a willing participant in my recovery process. any power i have today is a gift of the grace of that process and not a radical departure from who i really am. i can be okay with change. i can be okay with how i see my peers acting and no longer need to do what they do, simply to feel better than they are. it is off for a quick walk around the neighborhood, between the raindrops, as that is part of who i am today as well. and if i do not want to go to dinner at 10:00 PM i could always go at at 7:00 PM before my evening activity, rather than bending others to fit my agenda.
ODD NOTION: ALTERING MY BEHAVIOR INSTEAD OF FORCING MY WILL ON OTHERS.

∞ DT ∞