Blog entry for:

from my heart, the **asking** part of STEP ELEVEN, has become an small issue for me or at least if felt like it HAD become one. as i move along in my recovery journey, i am seeing what i pray for, rather than what i pray **to** is the direction i need to be headed.
way back in the time before i got clean and was “playing” the compliant model recovering addict role, it was suggested that i ask to stay clean, when i got up in the morning. to me, that was one of the most idiotic things i ever heard, mostly because i did not have any desire to stay clean and was planning my next use when the opportunity came up, in my monitoring window. not being very good at lying, when asked a direct question, i followed that suggestion, even though i had no belief that it was something that applied to me. nothing changed when i got busted for using and had to better at compliance, i still said the words, but did not believe and had no desire to stay clean. i was just biding my time and since i was already here, i might as well look as if i was here to stay.
when i finally came to terms and accepted that i was an addict, began working with a sponsor for reals, and took this recovery gig seriously, i already had a prayer routine in place — force of habit i guess. now i actually had the desire to stay clean and to follow direction and what i prayed for, certainly changed. through the evolution of my spiritual beliefs, a lot from those early days has dropped off. what i may pray to has collapsed into a vague and amorphous HIGHER POWER. what i pray for, has gone back to the basics — the power to stay clean today and an expression of gratitude for another day clean. for me, that is more than enough and as i commit to my THIRD STEP decision, i have not seen the necessity to add anything to those simple prayers. i can way over-complicate stuff, so keeping my spiritual practices on the simpler side, is a direction that makes for a better me.
as i move into the real world this fine late summer Saturday, i will carry with me the notion that i am more than a collection of character defects. i am not sure why that popped up to the top of the stack. i have been short and frustrated with a co-worker who just does not seem to be getting it. i will need to login to work this afternoon to see how my new little script is running and perhaps make a change or two, but the rest of my day is going to stay unplanned and unstructured, at least for right now. as i step out of my safe place, i can be certain that i have access to everything i NEED to stay clean today and perhaps just a little bit more.

∞ DT ∞