Blog entry for:

is often a very **loaded** topic for me. years of telling myself the same old stories about how unworthy i am and how settling for less than the best, color my every waking moment. when i **honestly** consider who i **really am, i get all sort of twisted going down paths that often do not lead to the actual truth. i **know(** how i want to appear to my friends, peers, family members and the world in general and oftentimes that is how i really am. this whole set of steps, at least this far, which is ONE, TWO, and THREE, seems to be dealing with the topic of the stories i have crafted since before i first used and how they have and still are coloring my world in **black and white.**
this morning, for no apparent reason, i had one of the best ELEVENTH STEP practice in the past week. twenty minutes was nothing and the stuff that bubbled up, slipped away as quickly as it surfaced. i truly had some very quiet time and i am not quite sure what i “heard.” getting the silence that i am striving for, i have to allow myself the FREEDOM to pop off whatever is going on, as i pound this out. what i am feeling right now, has to do with what i heard shared at the meeting yesterday afternoon. for once, those who were there, actually shared their desperation and their hope, rather than advising everyone present about what they “should do.” the one share that i am still thinking about is where it was said that they were going to rely on the “Law of Attraction,” to keep them clean.i really in no place to judge, but in physics, it is opposites that attract. negative charges attract positive charges and energy always flows from the abundant in the direction of the void, to attempt to balance everything into a neutral state. there is also a terrible flip side to the notion, specifically if one has an accident, gets ill, or suffers some sort of setback, it HAS to be their own fault. in my experience in recovery, not one of my peers who espoused the Law of Attraction as a major part of their spiritual path, have achieved any sort of long term recovery. when and if they return to the rooms, they seemed wrapped up in clumping all their abstinent days as recovery, even though they did not arrive consecutively. after all, it is more “positive” to think that one has recovery, if one has bouts of clean time, instead of seeing relapse and using, as a lack of practicing a program of recovery in one's daily life. just as the racist defends their beliefs by attacking those who call that out, by returning the favor, so the adherents of this philosophy, conveniently ignore the reality of their journey to get where they are.
ah, now i am way off topic and going down a path that i need not travel this morning. when i start to become a pseudo-intellectual, i know that i have drifted astray from where i was going. on this day of gratitude for the white settlers, starting their decimation of native peoples, i have to remember what this day means to mean. i may be grateful just about every day of my life. i may get to share my “attitude of gratitude” with my peers in the room. i, however share that joy with my family, as i do not see them really getting where i am going these days. as i prepare the sides i am bringing to my family gathering this morning, i will remember that i “GET” to be a part of their celebration, instead of “HAVING TO” do so. i do have a choice and my choice is to look on the “bright side” and leave a bit of my dark cynicism behind, just for today.

∞ DT ∞