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what is really going on inside of me as well as around me, is a trap i can find myself in. whether it is the pain i am causing myself by acting on my character defects or my denial about how those people in my life see me, does not matter. what does matter is that i have build a wall of denial around my feelings and my world fueled by self-righteous justifications and rationalizations. here is where i would start a tale of woe with “once upon a time,” to compare and contrast my behaviors today with the behaviors i was apt to live out, when i walked into the room. in reality, the fact is, i am better than i was and it is a pretty boring and mundane tale about the difference between now and then.
this morning what i kept hearing as i sat, was the words one of my peers uttered the other night. they stated that they were “running from relapse.” when i examine that statement in the context of my own life and recovery, i can see that i am no longer running “from” anything. even in recovery, there have been many things i have fled from in abject fear. the consequences of using in my early recovery and the fear of them, kept me clean even when i had no desire to use. one might state that back in the day i was running from the justice system and the FEAR that i felt when i was in their clutches. FEAR was what kept me coming back those first several years of my recovery, even after i was comfortably ensconced in the fellowship. FEAR was my motivation for learning to live the steps. FEAR ruled my life and my recovery and even though i was clean, when i saw that i was living a life dominated by FEAR, i was more than a little distraught.
somewhere in my third set of steps, i learned to acknowledge my FEAR and have a little bit of FAITH in the recovery program that had chosen me. i cannot pin down when exactly that happened, just as i missed that first day that the desire to use was lifted from me. i can say that when i work up and realized that my FAITH in this program of recovery was not misplaced and that IF i lived this program, i could succeed at living a life of a person i have always wanted to be, i was ecstatic. living a program based on FAITH, feels a whole lot better than living a program based on FEAR and perhaps that is why i cannot see life like a newcomer. the FEAR of that next use is no longer my driving force. that does not make me any different or “better” than my peers, it just is who i have become.
starting of my fifth FOURTH STEP, i wonder what will be revealed. i know the recurring theme in this set of steps seems to be the stories i have manufactured over the course of my life, that have appear to be the “TRUTH,” when all they really are, is the foundation of the systemic denial i devised to protect myself from my version of reality. i am not sure how this will all tie together, but i have FAITH that more will certainly be revealed.

∞ DT ∞