Some memes

made any attempt to stop using, so when i stopped using, because of outside influences, i did not see that as a success. i saw my entry into the recovery world as the means to free myself from the clutches of the justice system and little more. the fact that i did NOT use, when given ample opportunity to do so, felt like a cop-out to me and left me feeling angry. the eighteen months or so, between my clean date and the moment i was given the gift of desperation, was a time where i can picture a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both providing advice about what direction i should take. in the end, i spun down into emotional and spiritual misery and accepted that neither path was for me, and i would give “real” a try.
my first spiritual “success,” finding a fate worse than not using because i did not want to deal with consequences, brings me to this place today. because of a conversation i had with a peer yesterday, i have been thinking about how i treated my first sponsor and how the men who call me their sponsor, treat me. i wasted the time of my first sponsor, because i was only complying with my legal requirements and had no desire to live this way of life. i said all the correct words and incantations and went through the motions, but i did not accept that any of this recovery gig applied to me. when i spotted one of the men that i am a sponsor in name only at the meeting the other, i wondered if he would stick around to speak with me after the meeting was done. he got a text and bolted long before the closing prayer and i did not even pay any attention to whether he heard what i shared at the meeting, before he took off. these days, when i look back at my relationship with my first sponsor, i see it as barely above being “in name only.” i do have to give him this, he gave me enough recovery to get me to that moment of despair, so maybe my relationship with him, was a success.
i do not look at my life in the real world as a series of tests and temptations. the fact is, there are many legal ways and means for me to use, before i return to the “hard stuff.” i drive past those purveyors of two parts of my “holy trinity,” without thinking that “just maybe, something has changed.” the success of this way of life, is more than not being owned by dope, but right here and right now, i will head on out to the real world, with that thought paramount in my mind. a day clean, for this addict, is a measurable success for a person like myself, who never thought he had a problem.

∞ DT ∞